Change Year: 2009 Bike Tunes in Review

29 December

It's that time of year again, when I retire this year's music mix that I listen to on the way to and from rides and come up with a new playlist for next year.

The right song can get me up a long hill, through a nasty headwind, past a tiring few century miles, or hammering along a flat stretch at top speed.

Here's the playlist, in order. It seems the songs, instead of just reminding me of roads and scenery, summarize a year in which a lot in my life changed. 2009 has a soundtrack.

Mojave (Afro Celt Sound System): On my mountain bike at Mercer County Park, riding along the berm near the dam, about to descend the big hill that runs along the Assunpink Creek. And turning too early, missing the steepest part.

Shelter Me (Bob Mould): By March I'd been noticing for a while that my boss was acting strangely, being nasty to me, and being less communicative that usual to all of us. He finally told me I had to leave because he'd rather spend his diminishing funds on a post-doc than a tech he no longer needed now that we were down to half the number of people. None of us had known how bad the situation was; he'd hidden it from us, acting like a jerk instead of being honest. I wasn't upset at having to leave; I was upset at the way I'd been treated. Since August 2007 the job had been slowly sliding into stupid anyway. Fortunately my boss got wind of a job opening in another lab. He suggested my name to them, told me after the fact, and said I'd be a good fit. I started work in the Brain Factory on April 20.

Cellphone's Dead (Beck): This one never really went anywhere.

The Bead Goes On (Talvin Singh): With a steady beat this song was good for keeping me moving when I was starting to get tired. I see a shady hill somewhere in Burlington County.

Wake (Big Country): Doing chest presses at the gym, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling. Cycling songs make good lifting music.

My Wave (Soundgarden): I should know better than to throw in a song with a weird time signature I can't pedal to.

Ayub's Song/As You Were (Afro Celt Sound System): Days before the job interview, during which I pretty much hated all science and scientists, Cheryl, Mike, and I cycled to Oldwick. It was on Rockaway Road, with this song in my head, that my mind finally cleared. Ayub's Song and Rockaway Road belong together.

Back to the Earth (Rusted Root): Begins slowly, speeds up, and works as a good filler until conversation starts up again.

Keep the Car Running (Arcade Fire): Same as above, but always fast.

Weapon of Choice (Fatboy Slim): "If you walk without rhythm/You won't attract the worm." Huh?

Holden Oversoul (Widespread Panic): Better in theory than in practice as far as bike tunes go.

Johnny at Sea (Afro Celt Sound System): You pretty much can't go wrong with these guys. There will come a day when I'll have used all their music. Some Spinning instructors might have already reached that point.

Wild, Sweet and Cool (The Crystal Method): Bad techno, middling as a bike tune. Next...

Helium (Bob Mould): Now we're getting into Fido territory.

Pittsburgh (Ants In Japan): January 12, around 6:30 a.m. I lost a third of the vision in my right eye. I thought it was a migraine, popped some naproxen, and took the train to work. By the time I got to Penn it had diminished by half but I knew this wasn't my typical migraine aura. I went to the ER. Five hours later I was diagnosed with a migraine with the remote possibility I'd had a stroke or a TIA. The blind spot, at this point, had gone from looking like France to settling into the profile of a Siberian Husky. I named it Fido. Many appointments (neurology, opthalmology, neuro-opthalmology, GP, OB-GYN), misdiagnoses (migraine, maybe stroke, maybe TIA, maybe MS), and procedures (MRI, ultrasound, IUD, visual field tests) later I was off the pill (that and migraines being a stroke risk) and diagnosed with "Multiple Evanescent White Dot Syndrome," a benign event that happens to women my age who are under stress, influenced by hormones, and whatever else causes weird shit like this to happen. I rearranged my life. I went off the pill. I stopped going to the gym at 5:20 a.m. I started getting seven hours of sleep each night. I changed jobs. My blood pressure returned to normal. I lost weight. And Fido started to fade. Today, nearly a year later, I can still see Fido if I close my good eye and look at a white surface. He looks more like a shoe than a dog these days.

River Run (Philip Glass): Getting an MRI of the head is like being dragged, slowly, through the unfinished pieces of a Philip Glass composition.

OK (Talvin Singh): Weird beats just don't work on the road.

Trouble No More (Allman Brothers): What I felt when I got out of a bad job.

Fuel My Fire (The Prodigy): A good, angry song for mashing.

Arleen (John Keene Dance Mix) (Widespread Panic): Who knew bluesy jam bands could concoct a dance mix? Well, it works. Good for flat roads.

Sandstorm (Darude): Pure techno garbage, and absolutely perfect for getting a move on no matter the terrain. When you saw me take the lead last summer I probably had this song in my head.

Further in Time (Afro Celt Sound System): See Johnny At Sea, but even better.

It's Too Funky In Here (James Brown): If you look online for the lyrics this is what you get. 'Nuff said.

MMMMMMMMmmm MMMMmm
HmmmmmMMMMMMMmmmmmm
Daaaaaiiiiaaaaaaaaa-
aaAAHHHAAAAAh

Hiii hiii HuH! Hiiiii!!!!!
Hyeien!! Hyuiieh hi HIGH!

OOH!
Ooo uh OW!

TOO FUNKY IN HE'E!!!
ow!

GIMME SOME AIR!

too-wooooooo funky in he'e!
gimme some AAAAAAAAIR!!
open up the WINDOW, MAN!

TOO FUN-KAY!

SAY IT!

Gimme some aaaaaaaaaai'!

toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun-kay

.....in he'e!

Hwahh!!!
GIMME SOME AIR!
it too funky in he'e!
Gimme some Air!
oo woo WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO woo
too FUN-KAY, OW!
gimme some AIR... ow, nyow!

Bass needs... a little wat'rin' down.
a-hoo HAH!
Guitar could use... a little cool-uh sound-hyuh!
uh!
I need a little air-fresh'ne'... under the drums-uh!
Open up the window, y'all!
Let out some!
too funky in he'e!
WOOW!!
Say it again!
Whajoo say?!
WATCHOO!
watcha-watcha-watcha!
Wooow!!!
gimme some ai'!

Geeya dah-ya maaain ain't leavin' no slack-uh! ha!
Horns ain't holdin'... nothin' back!
OOo, UH!
Whole band knows that they gittin' down!
The air's polluted with a fun-kay, fun-kay sound,
now say it a-gaiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!
Whoooooooooaaaaaoeoeoeoeooooeoooooeeeeoooeee!

OOdl-uh HYUH! HA!

Bleeg-kay DEEK, Bleeg-KAY DEEK!
Say it AGAIN!
Can't tell ya!
Open tha doo' HA!
Gimme some!
OOH!

In the BRIDGE, y'all!

Hooow, wow wow!

Guitar man!! Put it in yo' funky hand
and PLAY!
Gettin' down tha's right!
My name James Brown is gyown!
uh!
too fun-kay!
too fun-kay in he'e!
SAAAAAAAAY it!
Gimme some air!

Stop-Go (Widespread Panic): In the early Fido days, while I was lifting at the gym, I realized that forcing myself to slow down was exactly what I needed.

Further On Up the Road (Live) (Eric Clapton): This one goes out to a certain pair of adulterers in the Princeton Freewheelers. Your antics destroyed several lives and pretty much ruined the second half of the season for a lot of us. Not that you give a shit.

Rising Up (The Roots): As I began recovering from losing my vision and my job I had this song in my head a lot. Not that the lyrics have anything to do with what I was going through. They don't. But in the playlist this song comes before...

...Powaqqatsi Anthem Part 3 (Philip Glass): When, in late spring, as you lead Cheryl, Mike, and Theresa along Route 27, by the Millstone River, on the way to the Freewheeler's Spring Fling, and the sun is shining, sparkling on the water, and it's finally warm enough to shed the jacket and leggings, and you're feeling strong, and you have a new job you like, and you can see again, when you know you're finally pulling out of a bad winter, when you want a piece of triumphant cycling music, this is it.

Amber (Afro Celt Sound System): "Rain becomes silver/Leaves turn to gold/Cloth become amber/Wind turn to snow." See ya on the road in January!

Late Autumn Miscellany

29 December

A propos to nothing, here are some miscellaneous photos left in my camera.

Mike B. and I took a ride on a windy November 27 to Lambertville. On Harbourton-Woodsville Road Cheryl called Mike, so I snapped a few pictures of a field gone dormant for the winter:


Mike suggested we take Highland Road off of Goat Hill so we could catch the view of Lambertville from on high:

Just to the left of center you can see a puff of steam from the steam engine that tourists gape at by the Delaware River:



We fought a headwind all the way to Lambertville but on the way back the wind pushed us up Rocktown Road. It wasn't until I stopped for these pictures that I could feel how strong the wind at my back really was:


The two of us found ourselves riding to Lambertville again on December 12. It was colder that day. When we got to Rojo's Mike stripped down nearly to his skivvies. He hung his outer layers to dry by the coffee roaster. I was a little displeased with the way he rested his glove liners on the edge of the roaster. They were too close to where the raw beans go, and nobody wants their coffee to taste like Mike's sweaty glove liners. Mike was proud, though, of where he stuck his outer gloves. See if you can find them in this mess:

Then there was the December 19-20 snowstorm. I went into our backyard early on Saturday to take a picture of our blue spruce. This was our Christmas tree a handful of years ago. Chris helped us drag it from inside and plant it in the yard. It didn't do much for a couple of years. Recently it's sprung up by a few feet each season. Early on Chris said it was too skinny for a blue spruce ("It looks like Cheryl but it should look like you."). But the yard is shady. The poor thing is doing the best it can. And there ain't nothin' wrong with looking like Cheryl either.



Cleio, at 20.5 years old, slept through the storm:

We decorated our indoor Christmas tree on Sunday after we dug out from the storm.

As for our outside display: Lamest. Lights. Ever. But there is a moose.

Geek Tree

25 December

Put fifty or so scientists together and you can be sure a handful of them will find a way to geek up a Christmas tree.

At the top, of course, is a Star of David. Among the traditional ornaments, some "borrowed" from our lab's holiday party, see if you can find the following (click on the picture to enlarge it):

one or more dried acrylamide gels;
1.5 ml centrifuge tubes filled with various colored buffers;
a drawing of a mouse;
tissue fixation cassettes;
paraffin embedding molds; and, for extra credit,
a box of latex gloves;
microscope slides.

For super-duper extra credit, name the building outside the window.

(I had nothing to do with the decorating.)

And the Chutzpah Crown Goes To...

25 December

Mike M. and Chris for out-tumbling me and Mike B!

"My Turn"

22 December

In April my parents moved from the Philly 'burbs into Center City Philadelphia. Now they're on the 23rd floor of a 24 story building, a penultimatehouse apartment with a southwestern view of the city.

My father (of "Your blog is boring" fame) sometimes sends me pictures of goings-on at Logan Circle: a bike race, Thanksgiving Day parade floats, and now sunsets.

He says it's his turn to show off pictures, so, enjoy.

The date stamps have nothing to do with reality. This is the Cira Centre, next to 30th Street Station. At night the building is lit on all sides with LED lights. Today they were red, green, and gold, of course. My favorite display was a few years back when the whole building was shimmering in winking blue lights. It's fun to look at while I'm walking from the lab to the train station. It's a little distracting if I'm driving.




When I was little my mother dabbled in stained glass until she started worrying that my sister and I would eat the lead strips (Mmmm, licorice!). This is a window pane I thought she'd made until my father corrected me. This was given to her by the contractor who took nine months to renovate three bathrooms in the house I grew up in.

My father took this picture of the sunset through the stained glass.


We'll return to our regularly scheduled point-and-shoots in a few days. I have a handful late fall pictures to post, plus a few from Saturday's snowstorm.

Hairy

13 December 2009

There's so much to put on in the winter. On top of the usual garb there are the toe warmers in the winter shoes, the booties on top, glove liners, toe warmers on the palms of the liners, winter gloves on top of that, and the balaclava pulled carefully over my head so as not to pull the mirror off my sunglasses.

I get all this on as the clock turns to 8 a.m. and Mike is doing his third loop around the block. He stops in front of my house as I crunch across the lawn.

"Is it raining yet?"

"Nope. We have two hours." He plots a course to the river, a route he says we can take that will get us back here before 10 a.m., before the rain starts.

The thermometer on his cycle computer reads 27 degrees, but we feel warm. Yesterday was sunny and windy; today is cloudy, calmer, and a little humid.

My new wheels feel so smooth as we pedal out of my neighborhood. Even with tired legs pedaling is easier now that I have a hub and gears that aren't full of bad bearings and road crud. I could have switched to Gonzo today, since there's a chance of rain, but it was too tempting to take Kermit out again instead.

The ice we saw on the way to Pennington is still on the side of the road today. There's no traffic and we have plenty of room to get around it.

Most of us turn off of Pennington-Titusville Road at Timberlane in order to get further north on the way to Lambertville or Sergeantsville. Today we aren't making the turn. I don't see this part of the road much, which is a shame. Minutes away from Route 31 and Pennington, this stretch is completely rural. I'll have to get back here more.

"Catch Hell Blues" by the White Stripes is going through my head.

With the leaves down we can see across Bear Tavern Road to the hill on Pleasant Valley. It's a long, shallow climb we've been doing for the past couple of miles, and I just assume we're going up Pleasant Valley too. But Mike signals a left instead. That makes sense; if we'd stayed straight and headed for the river we'd have had to ride on Route 29, which is just not done south of Lambertville.

I haven't been on this stretch of Bear Tavern much lately, so when I see the Highland Cow in the pasture on my right I call out, "Picture!"

"What is that?" Mike asks.

"An 'airy coo!"

"What?"

"An 'airy coo! A hairy cow. A Highland cow."

If this were summer I'd have had the camera out of the front pouch and open in seconds, but now I have to fumble around in my jacket pocket (the camera's there to keep the battery warm), get the cover up, which is no easy feat with two layers of gloves on, and turn the thing on. By now the cow has decided that he's seen enough. He turns and leaps over a small stream, his long furry tail flapping behind him. By the time I have the camera ready, in telephoto mode somehow (I have no idea how I did it), the cow is looking at us, walking away, and stopping to look again.


I lean Kermit against a metal table and wander up the driveway for some more pictures. I can't tell how in focus the shots are because my glasses are too dark and they're fogging up a little.




I hear something hitting my jacket as I get back on my bike. After a few more I tell Mike I think it's raining. "We should head back."

He thinks it'll stop, so we turn right onto Church Street and head towards the river. All this time his thermometer has been reading 27 degrees, but we know it's warmer than that.

Titusville is maybe a mile of little houses across a narrow road from the steep bank of the Delaware River. Along the water's edge are decks, summer houses, and patios overlooking the water. Every time I ride through here I say the same thing: "It would be great to live here. Until the river floods." The water would have a long way to go -- hundreds of feet probably -- before it even reached the road, let alone crossed it. But the way the Delaware has been flooding recently (too much development up north gives spring meltwater nowhere to go but into the river), I wouldn't want to be paying for flood insurance down here.

The rain is picking up a little as we turn onto Washington Crossing-Pennington Road. We climb the hill in silence. I hear birds calling from trees along fields on either side. My new wheels don't make any noise either.

I tell Mike I'm worried about black ice. If the road surface is colder than the air then the rain will freeze when it hits the ground. A lot of the road is still dry so that's where I'm riding.

I tell Mike the story of the winter of '93, when I was in grad school. I got up one morning to go to the lab. It was raining out, and dark, but I didn't turn on the radio because Jack was still asleep and we had a one-bedroom apartment.

When I stepped outside I landed on my ass. The ground was covered in a thin sheet of ice. So, naturally, I scraped it off the windshield, got into the car, turned on the radio to the local rock station, and proceeded out of the apartment complex. It was on that drive to campus that I learned how to break on ice (no anti-lock on this '89 Corolla), how to turn without skidding (break gently, then let off the breaks into the turn), and how to stop a very slow skid by steering into a curb.

"I ice-skated my way across campus," I tell Mike, "and there was nobody there when I got to the lab. I called Jack. He said, 'Did you even listen to the radio? There's an ice storm! They're telling people to stay home!' So I drove back home."

So now I'm keeping a close watch on the road. As long as it's dry, or so wet that we're throwing rooster tails, we'll be okay. It's the in-between stuff I'm worried about. Even though the rain is picking up it's still just a drizzle. Mike leads us through the Pennington circle. This is only the second time I've done this; there's no traffic at all. I'd never attempt this any other time. We only have to go halfway. It's no worse than crossing the circle on Route 130 near Cranbury, which we do a lot.

By the time we turn off of Blackwell Road it's really raining. The splashing water from my rear wheel is soaking my backside. "My butt is cold!" I tell Mike. We're getting near Route 206. A police car passes us, siren blaring. Mike says he wants to follow me home to make sure I'm safe. "You're better off just going home," I tell him. But he insists.

I have two choices. My usual route from here is to take 206, which is shorter, but there's more traffic and there's the highway overpass, with an entrance and an exit, that I'll have to deal with. The other route is to go straight to Princeton Pike and turn up there, which would be a lot longer. I'm not sure which way I should go.

I'm wet. I'm taking the short route. Another police car passes us as we turn towards the overpass.

Something is going on up there. A police car's lights are flashing and a few cars are stopped at the top. "Be careful," I tell Mike, who is riding a little ahead of me. "Cars are going to be looking at the cops, not at us." I tell him this again as we get closer.

We start to climb the overpass. "It looks like they've got the ramp closed," I call out.

And then I'm on the ground, sliding with Kermit. In less than an instant Mike is doing the same thing.

Black ice at the top of the overpass.

I'm up as quickly as I went down. Mike is struggling to right himself. On the median strip a policeman turns and asks me, "Does he need an ambulance."

"No, thanks. We're fine." I get my cleat covers on. Mike finally manages to stand. He staggers to the curb, puts his bike on the sidewalk, and sits down. I lie Kermit on the sidewalk and sit down too. Mike stretches his left leg.

"You allright? Where'd you land?"

"My favorite hip," he says. "And my shoulder."

The policeman asks again if we need help, but we don't. Mike just needs time to collect himself. As for me, I'm used to falling off of Grover, and years of ice skating as a kid have made this spill mundane. My right thigh took the hit. It's gonna be bruised.

A red car passes us, sees the minivan slowed in the road ahead, hits the breaks, and goes into a slow-motion skid towards the on-ramp on the down-slope of the overpass. I motion to Mike to look. The car careens towards the curb, deflects, spins a little, and rights itself within feet of the van, which is now behind the car.

A gray car drives past, its left front bumper hanging off. The driver gawks at us.

Mike says, "We need to get out of here. But not that way. We need to go back down the way we came."

I tell him to hold onto the chain-link fence as we go back down the overpass. A paramedic car drives by us. "You need help?" the driver asks. "No, thanks."

"Let's walk in the grass," I suggest. Halfway down the ice is gone.

By now there's a police car stationed at the off-ramp and a fire truck completely blocking access to this stretch of road. We were two minutes too early, five minutes too late, and exactly in time for the pavement to freeze just enough that we couldn't see what we'd hit.

We cross the wet -- only wet -- road and check our wheels, brakes, and selves. I'm a little shaky getting back on the bike. Mike is behind me, still rattled. "I want you go go to my house," he insists. "I'll drive you home."

Mike sheds his outer layer while I search for paper towels. "Call Jack," he says. "Let him know you're okay." So I do, while Mike disappears to change out of his wet clothes.

Our bikes are dripping black grit onto his floor. "That's what mops are for," he says and disappears again. As he re-emerges with two towels and begins wiping down my bike he apologizes. "This is my fault," he says. I move on to his, which is grittier than mine.

"No, it's not." We were both stupid. "Look, if I hadn't gone riding I'd have gone to the gym. I'd be driving home right now and I'd have hit the ice anyway. We've just learned a lesson."

There's ice on my chainstay. I un-pin Kermit from the saddlebag. He'll need to go into the washing machine.

Still rattled, Mike fetches his car and drives me home. "Come in for a while, calm down. I can make some hot chocolate."

There's a thin film of ice forming on my front steps. "Oh, shit," he says. He's carrying Kermit on his shoulder.

Jack is in his bathrobe, reading. Mike takes his shoes off and melts into the floor at the edge of the sofa. For a minute he doesn't speak. Then it all comes out. "There are too many what ifs," he says. What if I hadn't stopped for cow pictures? What if we'd turned towards home as soon as the first drops fell? What if there'd been black ice on Washington Crossing Road?

As he calms down I start to shiver. I have to get out of these wet clothes. "I can make some hot chocolate."

"No, thanks," Mike says, and puts his shoes on.

The extent of our stupidity and near-miss doesn't hit me until I'm in the shower. Both of my outer thighs are red from the cold, but I can't see a bruise where I hit the ice.

Mike calls later. "There's a hematoma the size of a softball on my leg," he says. He wants to make sure I'm okay.

"I'm about to blog about it. I'm uploading the pictures."

Four paragraphs ago Cheryl called. She started with, "Oh my god."

I laughed. "Did you just talk to Mike?"

"Yep."

"I'm just finishing the blog."

She's just finishing some errands on her way home from teaching at the gym in Princeton. Up north where her boyfriend lives the roads are closed. I tell her to be careful. We try to plot a course for her to avoid the overpasses. "Call me when you get home so I know you're safe," I tell her.

It's 1:20. It's time for lunch.

Hill Slug Ad Hoc, Saturday, 12 December

10 December

Saturday is my last, official, in-the-book ride of the year, and it's gonna be a cold one. We'll keep the ride short and as far as people feel like going.

Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Princess Road and Franklin Corner Road in Lawrenceville. Princess Road is about a quarter mile from the intersection of Princeton Pike and Franklin Corner, on the westbound side of Franklin Corner. You can park along Princess Road.

Hill Slugs Ad Hoc, Saturday, 5 December

6 December

We probably shouldn't.

*****

5 December

Mike and Theresa dragged me out of the house at 7:30 a.m. today to get some riding in before the rain started. We did lazy spirals through the rural part of Lawrenceville, the "inland route," as Tom would call it. Our spirals grew bigger until we wound up at Small World in Princeton. At 9 a.m. the joint was already full of people.

Theresa ordered chai. It smelled like one of those scented candles stores bring out around Christmas: cinnamon, ginger, and maybe orange with cloves. It tasted even stronger; she had to dump a few ounces of milk in to make it palatable.

We headed back through the farmland again. The rain started when we got to Lawrenceville at 10:30.

*****

4 December

Ick.

Tomorrow's ride is canceled. Let's see if Sunday looks better. If the roads are clear, we'll do tomorrow's ride on Sunday. Stay tuned.

*****

3 December

The forecast looks iffy for Saturday, so I'll post something definite on Friday night.

As it stands now the temperature won't change much between 9 and 10 a.m. but the chance of precipitation only goes up. So let's meet at 9:30 a.m. at the Hopewell YMCA parking lot on Main Street in Pennington. We'll dig out the old Friday night route that Bob Barish used to use when I first joined the Freewheelers. It never strays far from home, it's short, we can add miles easily, and we can stop someplace warm after the ride is over.

If the forecast changes for the better we'll actually go somewhere.

Extra-milers can meet in front of my house at 9 a.m. I'm 5.7 miles from the YMCA. Email me for directions (the address is in the book).

Kermit Needs a New Pair of Wheeeeeeels!

1 December

Hub's shot. Rims shot. Eight years of hard riding.

Cassette's gone (four years on that one). Chain's stretched (ditto).

Santa's gonna be good to Hart's Cyclery this year. Oscar and Ross look at me, they see dollar signs.



(Update: Oscar recommended Fulcrum Race 3 wheels. They're just like the Ksyrium SSCs that I had, but with hubs that can actually be fixed. The reviews look promising. I just ordered them in silver and black.)

The Muppets Do Queen

You have to see this:



Confused? Watch this:

Miscellany

7 November

I have a load of miscellaneous pictures I might as well post.

The first three are of the lake at Thompson Park in Jamesburg, around 7:30 a.m. on October 4, approximately twelve hours after we landed back in the U.S. and approximately five minutes before we started the Pumpkin Patch Pedal century:


A duck, hidden by the tree, is making the wake:



If I were to have had jet lag the way most people do I'd just have been tired. But no, I have to be different. I get nauseated instead. So I pedaled from mile 44 to mile 80 feeling as if I were about to hurl. This wasn't at all helped by the dead guy around mile 35. He'd just collapsed off his bike and was lying in the road when we got there. 911 had already been called, a nurse cyclist was about to go to work on him, and there were about twenty people milling about already, so we moved out of the way. We found out later that they never got a pulse on the guy after twenty minutes of CPR and three rounds of defibrillator shocks. So bitching about a bit of queasiness was a little out of order. Big Joe, Little Joe, and Mighty Mike decided to pull me back after the last rest stop at mile 80, but by then I was feeling better.

On October 11 I snapped this one on Hoffman's Crossing Road near Califon, NJ. For more about that ride, read Tom's blog entry.



When we got to Califon I took a picture of the (groan) Raritan River:


Burnaby (left) and Cleio (who will be 20.5 years old in nine days) enloafed on a sofa:


How about a sunset from the train as we were pulling into Trenton on October 22? A storm front was moving in.



About half an hour later I was picking up my share of veggies from the Cherry Grove Farm CSA. The sunset was working well with the clouds, and the moon was out.







Fall colors in Burlington County on October 25:



Smithville Lake, on the same ride:


On the train ride from Trenton to Philly we pass a landfill just outside of Levittown, PA. Someday I want to get there at sunrise and photograph the trucks in silhouette on top of the landfill, but for now a few shots as the train whizzes by will have to do. The first of these three is a complete blur but I sort of like it anyway.




Today we rode to Lambertville. On Gulick Road we saw lots of cows.




Wow. We're now officially caught up.

I might have to take a short break from blogging so I can finish the Sierra Club work I'm supposed to be doing and get jewelry made, photographed, and online before Black Friday. Yeah, right.