The weekend
Jul. 5th, 2010 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beige_alertSaturday was warm and sunny, a great day to hang out by Lake Michigan. Big tailwind made for a 26km/hr average speed headed up north to the beach. The water was, as usual, very cold, plus there was a water quality advisory for the south beach, so I didn't do any swimming. The new campground there is now open, that looks like a great place to spend a little time. From Milwaukee it's only around 60km and mostly quite flat (some hills going through Port Washington) so it would be a great trip by bicycle. For all the people there the south end of the beach was deserted (the north beach presumably had all the people interested in swimming, since the water samples from there tested cleaner), and it's always nice to sit around on the beach watching the waves with no one else around. The trip home along a different, 5km longer route and into the wind, averaged only 20km/hr. 132 km total.
Saturday night I had some Miller Light beer for the first time. It's, um, not really very much like Köstritzer. If you're looking for something vaguely bitter with no particular other flavor that contains ethanol, I guess it's an excellent product. The beer might not be very good, but the screw-cap aluminum bottle is different. The current trend in American beer is marketing efforts focused on the packaging. Better not to talk about the drink.
Sunday we went Kayaking finally. Starting from across the road from the Public Market we headed up the Menomonee until we ran out of water depth sufficient even for the kayaks, then back and down the Milwaukee to near the junction with the Kinnickinnic. Someday we might stop and eat at one of the restaurants there, either the seafood place or the pizza place. I think they have people in bigger boats in mind with their docks, but on the other hand people who arrive under human power probably tend to eat more! The trip totaled 9.5km in just under three hours.
This trip was my chance to try out my new paddle that I purchased at the early spring paddle sports sale. It's a glassfiber bent-shaft paddle from Adventure Technology. It's light and very nice to use. My old paddle was a cheap and heavy as they come. There is an adjustment to having to remember which way around the paddle goes—the old one was was fully symmetrical. The thing is somehow cleverly shaped to tend to twist itself perpendicular to the stroke even if you're not so good with your technique.
The other thing I noticed was that getting into my car and driving Saturday night after six days not usingthe car (and 275km of cycling) sure felt odd. That thing is huge, and goes very fast, you it seems like you could easily kill someone with it. Statistically, of course, we see that you can indeed easily kill people with a car. (You'd think that would bother people, but the moral scolds mostly focus on sex, and killing people is apparently pretty much ok if you do it with a car, as long as you weren't drunk).
Saturday night I had some Miller Light beer for the first time. It's, um, not really very much like Köstritzer. If you're looking for something vaguely bitter with no particular other flavor that contains ethanol, I guess it's an excellent product. The beer might not be very good, but the screw-cap aluminum bottle is different. The current trend in American beer is marketing efforts focused on the packaging. Better not to talk about the drink.
Sunday we went Kayaking finally. Starting from across the road from the Public Market we headed up the Menomonee until we ran out of water depth sufficient even for the kayaks, then back and down the Milwaukee to near the junction with the Kinnickinnic. Someday we might stop and eat at one of the restaurants there, either the seafood place or the pizza place. I think they have people in bigger boats in mind with their docks, but on the other hand people who arrive under human power probably tend to eat more! The trip totaled 9.5km in just under three hours.
This trip was my chance to try out my new paddle that I purchased at the early spring paddle sports sale. It's a glassfiber bent-shaft paddle from Adventure Technology. It's light and very nice to use. My old paddle was a cheap and heavy as they come. There is an adjustment to having to remember which way around the paddle goes—the old one was was fully symmetrical. The thing is somehow cleverly shaped to tend to twist itself perpendicular to the stroke even if you're not so good with your technique.
The other thing I noticed was that getting into my car and driving Saturday night after six days not usingthe car (and 275km of cycling) sure felt odd. That thing is huge, and goes very fast, you it seems like you could easily kill someone with it. Statistically, of course, we see that you can indeed easily kill people with a car. (You'd think that would bother people, but the moral scolds mostly focus on sex, and killing people is apparently pretty much ok if you do it with a car, as long as you weren't drunk).
