Somehow Fall Snuck Up On Us

Posted on by Jordan

It has been another full weekend, for Heather and I.

I started off camping with the scouts, on a trip that included a bike ride

As you can see we brought a lot of bikes along.

The ride was along the trails north of Des Moines. The same trails that lead up to the bridge we rode over back at the beginning of summer. The only thing was, we rode past red trees, and through piles of leaves blowing along the trail. We were lucky in that the weather was great! It was cold over night, but by the time we had bikes going on the trail it was a wonderful fall day.

I suppose talking about a beautiful ride, and the wonderful colors would be more interesting with a picture or two. The problem is all the bikes you saw in that picture were being operated by scouts… not to say they were getting into trouble, but I wanted to keep an eye on things.

That and the fact that all I had was my phone. It’s a workable camera, but phones aren’t suppose to go on camp outs. Adults get to bend those rules, but the boys complain to no end about their oppression when they see you get your phone out and they realize they can’t.

I left camp early because I was doing sound at church. It was probably a good thing I came home when I did though, because the smoke alarm at the top of our fancy vaulted ceiling had decided it had problems and started beeping earlier that day. Heather was about ready to loose it by the time I got there. It did provide an opportunity to use the big step ladder we bought shortly after taking possession of our new place… although I can think of scenarios were we would have used the ladder for some great purpose that don’t also involve Heather having dangerously high blood pressure… Maybe next time it will just be burned out light bulb.

Sunday we had a few friends over to carve pumpkins!

… yeah pumpkins… I didn’t really think it was time for those ether, but apparently it is.

My artistic vision was somewhat hampered by my absolute lack of manual dexterity or and artistic skill, so imagine the one I am holding looks sleepy. When you consider that the face on mine tilts down and sort of leans… and then add a little imagination it’s a pretty good pumpkin I think.

Oh, on a somewhat related note, I discovered that if you make pumpkin bread, but leave out the pumpkin, the resulting product will be a rather dry spice-bread. Stop by the break room at work tomorrow you might get to try some, its not bad… but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

-Jordan

About That Bike Ride

Posted on by Jordan

Well…

We did make it back, but there were consequences:

We didn’t get left as early as I had hoped, maybe hit the trail by 10:30. The path I was planning to take, also known as the actual bike path, was closed about half way down town due to the flooding that has been plaguing Des Moines for the past few weeks. Our detour involved a killer hill, but we eventually found our way to Grand, that has a straight shot to down town.

The farmers market was starting to wind down by the time we made it there. Lucky for us Heather’s favorite stand still had a few of the whole wheat croissants she loves! We bought some sandwiches to finish out our lunch, and headed for some shade to relax for a while. At that point we were starting to feel like we had gotten some exercise, but the ride home didn’t sound so bad. I think we were both starting to look a little pink, but each chose denial rather than admitting that two fair skinned adults headed into a day out in the sun without stopping to put on sunscreen.

After lunch we headed for home. As it turns out, the 11 miles we rode in were all still there waiting for us on the way home. Also, that gentile breeze we had been enjoying was blowing into our faces now. I may be mistaken, but I think there is a noticeable climb from the banks of the river to our apartment too. The sun started to feel hotter too, and given that it was now about 1:30pm, it may actually have been hotter. What I am trying to say is that the ride home was no fun! It took us nearly two hours to get all the way back to the apartment. Heather and I are starting to think that her co-workers who described this as “an easy ride” may be trying to get rid of her.

Once home, we were spent. Our plans for the afternoon went from wildly ambitious to lying under the fan and drinking water. As we reflected on the ride, we realized that this does highlight a pattern we seem to be establishing. We don’t go on long walks, so we did a half-marathon, we don’t go on long bike rides, so we decided to ride the entire way across Des Moines. You would think we would be learning about training, and working up to things, but so far no. 🙂

-Jordan

We didn’t get left as early as I had hoped, maybe hit the trail by 10:30. The path I was planning to take, also known as the actual bike path, was closed about half way down town due to the flooding that has been plaguing Des Moines for the past few weeks. Our detour involved a killer hill, but we eventually found our way to Grand, that has a straight shot to down town.

The farmers market was starting to wind down by the time we made it there. Lucky for us Heather’s favorite stand still had a few of the whole wheat croissants she loves! We bought some sandwiches to finish out our lunch, and headed for some shade to relax for a while. At that point we were starting to feel like we had gotten some exercise, but the ride home didn’t sound so bad. I think we were both starting to look a little pink, but each chose denial rather than admitting that two fair skinned adults headed into a day out in the sun without stopping to put on sunscreen.

After lunch we headed for home. As it turns out, the 11 miles we rode in were all still there waiting for us on the way home. Also, that gentile breeze we had been enjoying was blowing into our faces now. I may be mistaken, but I think there is a noticeable climb from the banks of the river to our apartment too. The sun started to feel hotter too, and given that it was now about 1:30pm, it may actually have been hotter. What I am trying to say is that the ride home was no fun! It took us nearly two hours to get all the way back to the apartment. Heather and I are starting to think that her co-workers who described this as “an easy ride” may be trying to get rid of her.

Once home, we were spent. Our plans for the afternoon went from wildly ambitious to lying under the fan and drinking water. As we reflected on the ride, we realized that this does highlight a pattern we seem to be establishing. We don’t go on long walks, so we did a half-marathon, we don’t go on long bike rides, so we decided to ride the entire way across Des Moines. You would think we would be learning about training, and working up to things, but so far no. 🙂

-Jordan

Bikes And Food!

Posted on by Jordan

I think this blog may be more of a weekend thing for a while, as very little post-worthy happens during the week it seems. On that note, this weekend was rather full:

  • Hit the Old Market farmers market
  • Finally managed to see the Con Agra park in the daylight
  • Bought Bikes
  • Rode ~10 miles on the local trails
  • Cooked something like 44 servings of food
  • baby sat for Heather’s cousin

In the expanded view:

The farmers market, every Saturday for the rest of the summer in Omaha’s old market area, was surprisingly active. I was expecting a bit of a slow start considering there aren’t many vegetables ready to eat yet. As it turns out, there were a lot of people selling green onions, green garlic, asparagus, and hothouse tomatoes. Also there were fresh bread and summer sausage type vendors as well. they easily managed to 100% fill the little quarter-block area setup for the market. Heather and I purchased a few things, most notably some amazing multi grain bread. After some time gawking at the different things in the market, we headed a few blocks over to the park.

ConAgra park was beautiful! Heather and I have had the pleasure of walking through the part of the park that is always open during the twilight / dark part of the evening, but never before have we been there during the day. The fountian isn’t quite as amazing in the daylight, lacking its colored lighting effects, but the park itself is really pleasant. The half of the walkway that is on the ConAgra campus was open, so we got to see that area for the first time as well. We spent quite a while setting on a bench beside the lake, watching the fountain and enjoying a beautiful morning.

img_1293_thumb

Once we left the park we headed back to the apartment for a quick lunch, and then headed out to Bike Masters, a bike shop recommended by my uncle Bill. They were really helpful, and had Heather and I both riding around the parking lot trying out a few different bikes. Sadly I was so occupied trying out the bikes I forgot to get any pictures, but you will just have to take my word for it. We had a lot of fun with that, and finally settled on a bike that each of us liked. Or rather we each found one that we were happy with, we didn’t get matching bikes. I then discovered that my Escape is kind of small inside, and ended up having to make two trips to haul the bikes home, but the shop was only a few minutes away from our apartment.

After hauling the bikes home, and changing into somewhat more appropriate clothing, we headed out to give our new bikes a try! The “Big Papio Trail” runs within a few blocks of our apartment, so we headed to intersect it. Riding on the trail was wonderful, we rode for miles without even noticing the distance we covered. I checked a map later, and we went out about five miles before we stopped in a little park near Center street. The ride back was slightly uphill, and into a slight breeze, making it somewhat more noticeable. It wasn’t painful though, our pace just wasn’t quite as fast.

Sunday, after church, Bethany came over for lunch. I grilled chicken, and we sort of broiled some sliced red potatoes. Counting what we ate at lunch, and what we froze there were ten servings of that meal. We did a large portion by choice just to replenish our stock of quick lunch items. We have been meaning to do a better job of pre-planning the weeks food, and actually got to it this time. Heather and I made up a shopping list, hit the store, and then proceeded to make a pan of enchiladas, a pan of lasagna (we didn’t bake that until Monday) and a big pot of vegetable soup. Needless to say our freezer is very full right now, but we have a variety of lunch options ready to just grab and go for a few weeks.

Baby sitting was interesting, in part because it came at the end of a rather long weekend, and in part because our charge can now walk. He’s still not what you would consider confident on his legs, but being able to pick what part of the house to be in certainly changed how he interacts with the baby sitters. By 8:30pm we had him all changed and put to bed, by 9:00 pm Heather was out cold on the couch. I put a major dent in my book before we were relieved, and I guess did a good job of keeping an eye on the house while everyone else slept? 🙂

I don’t know if we can fill every weekend quite this full, but I think we did a pretty solid job this time around!

-Jordan