(OT) Praise/rant/etc #8

[Eye of Hoffs]

I did not get much time to write last night. After arriving back from dinner and turning on the laptop, I had to then wait about one and a half hours for it to apply some vast update. So today only covers the events of Saturday. Blame Microsoft.

Saturday started a bit badly, the operative word here being bit. It seems that I was paying the price for sitting on the balcony and watching the waves the previous evening without showering in DDT first. Now my body was red and bloated from the effects of the proboscises of many ill-mannered Yankie bugs. Among the worst were the large one on my back, the enormous one on the side of my forehead and the absolutely humongous one on my left wrist which made by arm feel like it was in a cast. Luckily I had the support of my kind and loving wife to sustain me in the dark hours ahead; she spent the rest of the day bursting out laughing every time she looked at me.

With the forecasts calling for blizzards, tornadoes and a possible category 4/5 hurricane blowing in from Lake Superior, we decided that it was probably quite safe to try the cancelled bike ride from the previous day. And sure enough the weather was dry all day; cloudy and fairly cool in the morning and sunny and slightly too warm later. The bike trip was to be along the Gitchi-Gami trail, a bike path that is eventually supposed to run from Duluth all the way to the Canadian border but because of constant funding problems only certain parts have been completed, although there are wide shoulders on the road further north which make it fairly safe to just follow that. But as we had checked out the hotel and were heading to Duluth, we decided to do a more southerly section of the trail, a fifteen mile portion between Gooseberry Falls State Park and the town of Beaver Bay.

The only drawback to this was that rather than using a specialist bike outfitter, the places hiring out bikes in this area were both hotels and as consequently were not going to have such a great selection of hardware. Indeed, the units on offer at the place we had selected were not the best. They may have been made by Trek but I'm pretty sure Lance Armstrong never used them in any of his races. Apart from questionable suspension and rather uncomfortable seats, the biggest problem was that there was no vertical adjustment possible on the handlebars. That was not really a problem for Caroline, but as I am six-foot-two it meant either having the seat far too low so that I would be pedalling around like Coco the Clown or having the seat in the correct position and spending the ride hunched over like Quasimodo. In the end I elected for a compromise which was certainly not ideal but probably the best available option. As if we needed further confirmation of the state of the equipment we were using we asked if they had any locks for the bikes should we want to park up and look around anywhere.

"We do not," the desk clerk answered, "but we've never had any problems."

And so we set off from Beaver Bay and it quickly became apparent that the main problem was not any of the aforementioned ones but the fact that we were just not used to the gearing of these modern bikes. With three gears on the left hand and seven on the right, and an up and down lever for each, we just couldn't get used to operating them efficiently and invariably when coming on to an uphill section we would be caught in too high a gear and would end up grinding to a halt with no choice but to dismount. Eventually we stuck to using only the middle left-hand chain and just moving up and down on the right. Let me tell you, it's soooo much easier on my thirty-year-old bike back home... ah, never mind.

As we had eschewed the horrors of the last hotel's breakfast selection we made a brief detour up the road to the Northern Lights Cafe where we ate a passable one, at least once we had spent an hour thumbing through their selection of teabags in order to find a drinkable black blend. On a side note, in the UK a fried egg is a fried egg. It comes just how they appear in all the pictures that are in the menus, or "sunny side up" as you would call it. We don't have all these "over easy" complications that you get here.

Following the meal, other than the suspension, gears, seats, pedals and handlebars, the bikes were fine and the trip south was pleasant enough, although I kept having to stop and wait for Evel Knievel's niece to catch me up, only to be rewarded with her bursting out in an uncontrollable giggle each time she saw my face. We reached Goosebury Falls in reasonable time and abandoned the mechanical monstrosities to go and look at the Park's main attractions, which it may not surprise you to learn were waterfalls. As I was looking somewhat like John Hurt halfway through make-up for The Elephant Man, I was rather uncomfortable about the crowds of people we now encountered. My forehead was swollen on the left side and while strolling along with the walls of the park buildings on the right I briefly considered walking backwards but decided that may not help my cause.

After completing the falls loop we paused to grab an ice cream. I had one called a Drumstick which is similar to a very popular one back home called a Cornetto, except that yours is about three times the size. We then made the return journey, made worse now by Caroline complaining about the perilous state of the bones in her backside thanks to the unforgiving saddles. But then it was my turn to laugh.

We reached Duluth and checked in at the new motel. This was a budget place with good reviews on the internet and not too far from the main tourist area by the docks. But it certainly wasn't the most salubrious as evidenced by the group of mixed-sex rednecks/Hell's Angels in the parking lot who were having what they described as a "bachelor party" complete with a large male fertility organ made of jelly (that's jell-o to you), not something you would normally encounter at a Four Seasons. We wandered down to the waterfront to eat and decided on Grandma's Saloon and Grill where we had to wait forty minutes for a table. I left word that Grandma would be receiving fifty demerits for this outrage and if it happened again I would have to consider her position in the guild. Funnily enough I had remarked to Caroline earlier in the day that we had not seen any pies on the menu here, these being the pastry products containing fillings like steak & kidney or chicken & mushroom which are common back at home, especially in casual establishment like pubs. But this place did actually have something called a "chicken pot pie" and I debated having that before settling on the safe option - steak. But the guy sitting on the next table ordered one which arrived just before we left. Seeing the dubious, unwholesome appearance of this so-called "pie" made me glad that I had stuck with the beef.

Our rooms back at the Motel featured air conditioning units that rivalled the Pratt & Whitneys we had at our first stay. Fortunately, Mother Theresa was perhaps feeling a bit guilty about making fun of my hideous visage all day and left ours off. But the passive air conditioning was pretty bad and the walls in the place pretty thin. Falling asleep, the soothing sound of the waves had been replaced by other people talking and I awoke to the same noise the next morning.

[CharGar]

It's not real without pics!  I stole that from stratics

[Reuggan]

Hey, at least no heavy machinery in this edition, so things are getting better.
Although as you move along, you will find out why the four seasons in the Midwest are not Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. They are Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction.

[Natalia]

I sympathize on the bug bites.  We once camped at a place I remember as "Mosquito Lake", where they came in swarms and were four times normal size with a buzz similar to the sound of the tourist helicopters that fly over my house.  I have been told papaya helps with the bites, should you encounter any.  Meat tenderizer contains papain, an enzyme that breaks down protein.  Papain can also break down toxins from bug bites and cut back on itching,...useful for mosquito bites or bee stings.  So papaya, or meat tenderizer applied to the bites might help.

[Ian James]

At the Wal-Marts or the Targets, you can get bug repellent in the camping section. I highly recommend it.  Especially since you are headed to Michigan....The mozzies are the size of birds there.

[Razz]

The best thing to do for bug bites is the following:

1. Make a mix of oatmeal. Needs to be lumpy.
2. Take green or red food coloring and mix it in also.
3. Apply oatmeal to the bug bite making sure to cover at least 1-2 inches around the bite and 1/2 inch thick.
4. The oatmeal will not stay so you need to wrap the area in plastic wrap.
5. Leave on for 24-48 hours and you should be good.

If you do this PLEASE GOD take pictures and post.

[kelmo]

Benadryl and some topical salve. Followed by some form of beer.

[Grandma]

*Hrumph* That is a fake Grandma I have you know Hoff's. Iffin it were me I'd have shoved some tonic down yer gob fer them humongous knots yer had on yer noggin from them pesky flying drill bits we call skeeters! Tonic's good fer what ails ye, ya know!

[Zardoz of Crete aka Kimi aka Victoria Secret]

So papaya, or meat tenderizer applied to the bites might help.

And if that don't work you be all set for the bears, lions, tigers oh my!

[Eye of Hoffs]

It's not real without pics!  I stole that from stratics

Fifty demerits for hoping to see pictures of my deformities.

[Eye of Hoffs]

*Hrumph* That is a fake Grandma I have you know Hoff's. Iffin it were me I'd have shoved some tonic down yer gob fer them humongous knots yer had on yer noggin from them pesky flying drill bits we call skeeters! Tonic's good fer what ails ye, ya know!

Huh, with such an unusual name you seriously expect me to believe that this is someone else? And does this tonic of yours cure an inability to spell my name correctly?