The National Capital Commission has opened several swim spots that are proving very popular, helping turn Ottawa-Gatineau into much more enjoyable river cities. The first was the River House, which opened in 2023. I wrote a bit about it here, after my first visit. Last year, it opened another one on Dow’s Lake, and this summer we got spots at the Museum of History in Gatineau and one at the base of Kiweki Point, right where the Rideau Canal empties into the Ottawa River.
I hadn’t made it to Dow’s Lake last year, or visited the new spots this year, so last week I headed out by bike with my friend Florence so we could try them all before they closed for the season.
We didn’t swim long at any of the venues but it still took us almost four hours to complete the route.
The first image shows the location of each of the swim spots and the Econ shows our route to get there. Most of the way was on NCC bike paths.Clockwise from top left: Diane jumps in at Dow’s lake, then at the Museum of History (with Parliament Hill in the background), Florence and Diane head in together below Kiweki Point (with the Museum of History and Alexandra Bridge in the background), and Florence and Diane at River House.
To finish off, we joined a couple of swim club mates for an easy loop around a small private lake. That took us to a little over 1800 M of swimming for the day.
Florence floats in the water as Diane collapses backwards off the dock on a lake surrounded by trees, with blue skies and fluffy clouds overhead.
Strava tells me that ride was my longest in 2026. In fact, it was about 26.5 km for the day (my phone died for the last bit). That makes it my longest ride since 2024.
My conclusions?
The new swim spots are great. In addition to clean water, plus some swim lanes and islands for floating on or jumping off, they all have decent bike parking, lots of chairs/benches with pleasant views, and places to get food and drink nearby.
Silly challenges like this are the best way to get me moving, especially with friends.
I’ve had a blog post in my head all summer about summer cycling and distance goals. It’s called “Is 50 km my new 100 km?’
In past years when I’ve done the Tour de Guelph in June, I did the 100 km distance but this year I picked 50 km. It seemed the natural choice. Now, I said I did that because we were trying to attract first-time riders for whom 50 km would be a reasonable goal that early in the summer, but also at the end of June, the Tour de Guelph was only my second 50 km ride of the season. It felt like the right distance for me.
July was a hot mess of family tragedy and wildfire smoke.
This month I’m struggling to find the time to ride 200 km. I chose that distance for my Great Cycle Challenge, thinking it wouldn’t really be much of a struggle. I thought that even if bad things kept happening and all my plans went to hell, I’d still be able to manage 200 km in a month easily.
My friend, former graduate student, and twitchy spouse of Natalie, Michel rode 600 km in a weekend recently. A weekend! 600 km!
Twelve years ago I rode 1300 km in August. I know, I know. Comparison is the thief of joy. but still.
Ten years ago I wrote, “What’s your favourite distance? I like 100 km because I can have a normal day after. Ride 100 km in the morning, done and dusted, and get on with the weekend. 160 km requires serious refueling and serious naps. Next thing I know it’s night and my Saturday is shot. How about you?” See here.
So, I know I’m older. But I don’t think this is about age.
I know what I have to do to make long-distance riding comfortable and easy. I need to ride more.
In the years I found the bike rally’s 660 km easy, it’s because I was a) regularly bike commuting, b) doing 30-40 km training rides one or two nights a week, c) doing a long ride on Saturday, often more than 100 km, and sometimes a recovery ride on Sunday, and d) doing bike vacations where we rode bikes every day.
Now I’m just bike commuting and doing an occasional 25 km bike ride on the weekend. No wonder distance goals seem hard.
I’ve realized it’s also an issue with my word of the year, expand. Yes, I’ve been swimming and skating and all sorts of other things but the only thing that makes you a better cyclist really is time on the bike.
What’s my plan then?
Well, I’ve signed up for the half bike rally next summer to raise money for the Toronto PWA–I’m planning to ride from Kingston to Montreal. This event is important to me because the money raised goes to help people living with HIV/AIDS. People who need food, wellness care, peer support or just to be in a place that is welcoming and safe for them. You can donate here.
I’d like to do the full distance, Toronto to Montreal, in 2028.
At some point, I want to ride 200 km in a day. Maybe that’s a Fall 2028 goal when I’m on research leave.
In the meantime, I’m looking for people to ride with in Guelph.
I’m looking for destinations for winter riding that aren’t Florida or Arizona, to be clear, aren’t in the United States at all.
Here’s my past winter rides:
March 2022 Alton Illinois. See here and here and here.
But while Trump is in office, I’m not going to the United States. I need another plan!
My goal for 2026 is 2,500 km, and I’m at about 1,100. There are 18 weeks left in 2026. That’s 77 km a week to meet my goal. But the problem is that the mileage goal alone isn’t motivational. I like achieving the goal when I fill my life with riding.
See you out there!
A reminder for all of us who have had tough summers:
I’m on a solo bike trip that would be the most common response to the Family Feud question “what kind of bike trip would a white middle aged Canadian geeky academic go on?” I’m riding from Amiens to Bruges, through memorials and battlefield sites from the first world war. I booked this trip last winter before I embarked on months of moving across country and a million other things and just generally letting my fitness routine slide to the bottom of the priority list.
On Monday, I wrote on my personal blog about my trepidation before I started riding, and then about the wind sucking the life out of me on my first day of riding. My second day of riding was longer and more complicated, but I wasn’t as shattered at the end — it was a little less windy, the hills weren’t as steep, and my asthma inhaler worked a little better. I had a lovely conversation with a woman from last night’s hotel, and she was super encouraging and drew me a little itinerary that fit what I wanted better than the tour company’s plan for the day.
It’s still not easy, though, and I’ve been pondering what part of it continues to draw me, makes me feel like I haven’t had a summer if I haven’t done a slightly too hard solo bike trip. It’s not exactly “fun” — the terrain isn’t straightforward, the wind is always tearing at me the wrong way, and it’s very hilly. I took a detour today off the planned route to see a little Canadian military cemetery near Courcelette, and I asked google maps how to get to the town where I would rejoin the planned route. I ended up on 3.5 km of road that started like the image on the left, become the middle one and ended like the one on the right.
It’s a good thing the bike my tour company gave me is a solid hybrid. And at the end of that track, I saw my first actual fieldpoppies. The ground is so parched and most crops have been harvested, so despite the poppies on all of the memorial signs, I have hardly seen any real ones.
The ride was a series of little challenges like that — the tea room at the Thiepval memorial was closed, but there was a vending machine and a bathroom. The nice man at the Newfoundland memorial wanted me to park my bike across the street and take off my helmet for decorum and I just couldn’t bear it, so I just gave a nod to the NFLDers and kept going. There was a road closure that meant I had to plot an alternative that — I hoped — wouldn’t be another rutted track or a main road filled with fast trucks. It wasn’t, but it added 10 km or so. When I finally got to my hotel, the desk guy eyed me skeptically, checked me in laconically and didn’t make any kind of effort to help me carry the heavy bag that had been delivered while I was riding, even as he told me my room was up steep stairs. So I dragged it, bike shoes and all, self-reliant once more. And of course, when I arrived in Arras after 65 tough kilometres with low blood sugar and a need to eat, I ran into the eternal french problem of restaurants firmly closing between 230 and 7.
And yet, it’s fun. It’s nice when people say things like “I could never do that” — because I don’t think I can either, really, but I’m just bloody determined. Dealing with the curveballs makes me feel competent. I’m glad it’s not 35C and that my body is mostly holding up. It feels appropriate that this quasi-pilgrimage to those horrific battlefields isn’t on an air conditioned bus, but is measured out in one pedal stroke at a time. I like this time-out-of-time feeling where — despite September looming at me — I can hold real life at bay for a few more days. I like discovering towns I would never ever go to if I weren’t on a bike, towns that aren’t fancy or magnetic, but just where people live. I ended up finding food in a place called Emilie and the Cool Kids that sells juice and hot dogs, but they were out of hot dogs. I asked for a quinoa salad and they were out of quinoa, but somehow, I ended up with the exact thing that I most want at the end of a long bike day — a salad made out of spinach, goat cheese and pasta with sundried tomatoes. I like being put into the place of noticing and enjoying the small things — I savoured the heck out of that salad and whatever the juice was that came with it.
I am having a lot of thoughts about memory, and who gets to tell stories, and why there are weddings at a tea shop at a huge war memorial, and what it means to us to honour rows of stones marking unknown soldiers when we, as humans, never grow out of the kind of bullying and territorial behaviour that leads to war. It feels unnerving to be touring the historical places that are part of solidifying Canada as a country at the same moment when our sovereignty is genuinely threatened more seriously than in nearly a century. And somehow, riding my bike through these sites reminds me that humans are resilient, and that we get through it. So I keep pedalling. Noticing the ripe apples and the unexpected goat cheese and the gift of a woman named Isabelle who was invested in my joy.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who has another four days of riding.
I’ve had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Summer. I’m not sure how to answer when I see people on campus or at work whom I haven’t seen all summer, and they ask about it. “How was your summer? Did you have any great vacation? Go anywhere fun?” In three words: Bad. No. No.
Those of you who know about my summer know about it. It involved all the bad things–illness, hospitalization, death (none of it mine)…and every time we made a plan to do something, it felt like another bad thing happened and got in the way. I’m not going to go into details. They are other peoples’ stories to tell, and reciting the list of bad things isn’t helping me either.
But I can’t stop the end of summer and ask for a do-over. September is almost here whether we like it or not.
I was visiting a friend recently who had also had a bad summer and she said she’s still waiting for the summer holidays. I get that feeling but I’m also a realist who works at a university. September is unstoppable.
So what’s my strategy for starting the academic year when I feel like I need a holiday and a break from bad things?
First, I’m going to remind myself that summer wasn’t a total wash. We had fun in Nova Scotia with our folding bikes.
And I got to ride in the Tour de Guelph, even if I haven’t done much other riding this summer. I liked our week at the family farm in Prince Edward County.
And the bloggers’ backyard BBQ was fun too.
And we had fun at a friend’s cottage for a weekend, swimming in Lake Huron and playing cards.
Third, I’m also reminding myself that I have some great summer fun in the bank. We have had some very fun summers in recent years. I’ve been to Edinburgh, to Rome, and to Iceland. We’ve sailed boats and ridden bikes lots.
Fourth, I’m also looking forward to some of the travel from this summer that got bumped to next. See you in England in 2027, family and friends!
Fifth, I’m going to keep having fun and even taking some time off, even though it’s fall. Sarah and I have a bunch of weekends away planned, even another canoe camping trip in Algonquin where we’ll see my son Miles who is working at a resort in the park.
Sixth, I’m thinking I might go somewhere warm this winter and ride my bike!
What’s your strategy when summer disappoints? What do you do when the season you rely on for rest and relaxation, fun and adventure just doesn’t pull through? What do you do to cope?
This time last week, I had to work hard to focus on the good.
At that point, I had spent three days dealing with some lower back pain that had kind of come out of nowhere.*
That was annoying, obviously, but what was really frustrating is that up to the first day of back pain, I was on a 40 day exercise streak with the Hybrid Calisthenics app.**
For the first time in ages (maybe ever?) I was finding it easy to exercise, I was generally enjoying each session, the whole thing felt very purposeful, and I was seeing and feeling some results.
But then I had to break my streak to care for my back.
Part of my brain immediately went into story mode (a professional hazard for storyteller/writer types) and told me that a) I would have a hard time picking up where I left off and I might have to start again b) that I was probably going to put my routine aside and not remember it for ages c) if I did start again, I would have lost my momentum and it would take a lot of effort to convince myself to exercise.
Now, I’m not saying these are sensible thoughts but I have to admit that none of those scenarios are out of the question.
In fact, each of those scenarios is a very familiar groove and there was a definite risk of me and my ADHD brain slipping right into one of them.
This time, though, I was very determined not to let either of those stories come true.
Even though my back pain continued (with slowly diminishing intensity) right through this past week, I kept checking in with myself about when I’d be able to get back to my routine.
On Friday, I could feel clear improvement and Saturday was better again and Sunday was practically normal.
And on Monday morning, I asked myself the question I was asking daily before my back pain started:
“Am I exercising this morning or this evening?”
(A strong contrast with the question I would have asked myself during previous programs: “Am I exercising today?)
And, here’s the real victory as far as I am concerned:
It was EASY to get started.
I didn’t hesitate or try to negotiate with myself.
I didn’t have face any resistance at all – I just decided on morning and got started.
I felt a little rusty and my first set of each exercise was kind of slow.
But I did it. Carefully. Intentionally. With good form and while paying close attention to my back.
And I feel good. – physically and mentally – about getting back at it.
Now my worry is metaphorical – I don’t want to risk breaking my arm patting myself on the back.
😉
This photo is largely unrelated to the text except that I also had to take a break from walking Khalee for most of last week. My back was so uncooperative!
A photo of Khalee looking at some surprisingly abundant mushrooms on a a green space near our house. Don’t worry, I didn’t let her step into the faery ring. Image description: Khalee, my light haired medium sized dog is looking down at a series of large mushrooms amongst the green grass. She is wearing a blue kerchief and looks quite jaunty.
*My lower back is unhappy from time to time but it is usually short-lived and not quite this intense.
**To be clear, my program is two exercises a day for three days, repeat, active rest. I did not do 40 days of intense exercise in a row – it was gradual and had rest days built in.
Even before our changing climate made summer riding intolerable and sometimes just plain dangerous, I’ve been a fan of riding bikes in the fall. Yes, I struggle with the lack of daylight in the evenings, but I love the fall colours, the fresh feel in the air, and the cooler temperatures.
If you’ve been thinking about buying a bike or starting a regular bike commute, do it now. Don’t wait until spring. Fall is better.
It used to be that my preference for fall riding was primarily a comfort preference. Nobody wants to ride up hills in 35-degree heat with bonus humidity if they don’t have to. But that’s not what summer riding looks like anymore. It’s not just hot. Now, at least here in Ontario, we have heat warnings that stretch on for days, air quality alerts that turn a ride into a genuine respiratory risk, and those strange orange-grey scary skies that mean somewhere, hundreds of kilometres away, forests are burning. I used to plan summer rides around traffic and daylight. Now I plan them around smoke alerts and the air quality index, the way I’d check for rain.
Fall gives us that freedom back, at least for a while. The air clears and the heat breaks. It’s not just that fall is pleasant, it’s that fall is safe for riding distances in a way summer increasingly isn’t. That’s a genuinely new reason to love this season, and not one I would have thought about five or ten years ago when summers were more livable.
So here’s what I think, whether you’re four years into commuting or you haven’t bought a bike yet- don’t let the bad summer air or the very hot days talk you out of riding this autumn. You don’t need to put off your riding resolutions until spring. Fall is short but it’s a great time to ride. We’ve got clear air, rideable temps, and good light in the mornings before the time change. It’s time to get the lights and go now, while the getting’s good, instead of waiting for a spring that leads into another steamy summer we’ll need fall to recover from.
A friend of mine just got back from a vacation on Long Island with his family and in-laws. He writes for a weekly newsletter, and shared this about his investigations at local farm stands:
At my favorite stand they sell “sugar plums,” a small, sweet fruit I haven’t seen anywhere else. Each one’s about the size of a fig. They’re more pit than fruit, but absolutely full of juice. When they’re ripe, the skin will peel off in your fingers. You can eat three or four of them in a row, ideally standing over the kitchen sink. (You’ll need a mop to clean up if you eat them anywhere else.)
I wasn’t familiar with sugar plums, and you might not be, either. Check them out.
These are what we might think are sugar plums, but aren’t. These are fresh sugar plums.
Last summer I spent a week or so in Ontario, visiting Goderich, where my friend Norah had rented a cottage on Lake Huron, and then Guelph to visit Samantha, Sarah and the whole crowd there. At Guelph I learned about musk melons, which were in peak season exactly when I was there.
Musk melon was a new term for me. Turns out it’s what Canadians call cantaloupe. The term also refers to a family of melons that includes honeydews and persian melons. We bought what looked and tasted almost like cantaloupe, and I made melon agua fresca with mint for everyone. Yum.
I have not had very satisfying melon experiences in New England. Nor peach encounters, either. Luckily, there are options, all of which involve going right to the source.
I traveled to South Carolina about two weeks ago and, on my way to my mother’s house from the airport in Charlotte, stopped at McLeod Farms in McBee (pronounced MAC-Bee). They have many varieties of perfect peaches (forget Georgia– SC has the best peaches, says the great-granddaughter of a SC peach farmer). But there are hidden treasures to be found in their supply of the fresh and limited supplies of hyper-local produce. That included large, perfect, not-expensive cantaloupes.
I squeezed and sniffed candidates until I found one that suited me. It rode the rest of the way to my aunt’s house, sitting on her counter for a couple of days until it achieved cantaloupe perfection. I then cut it in long, thin wedges to serve to happy family members.
Some add salt, which they say enhances the flavor, but I prefer to take my cantaloupe straight up, no salt.
Musk melons from Ontario.South Carolina cantaloupe– my hometown melon.
At my McLeod’s stop, I also bought muscadine and scuppernong grapes. They have tough outer skins, and very sweet green flesh, with seeds. They make you work for it. But the work pays off in a combo of sweet, juicy, and bitter that brings me back to my childhood.
My great aunt Mae used to make a scuppernong cordial that was (once I was old enough to taste it) absolutely vile. But the grapes themselves (grown in an arbor outside her kitchen) were delicious.
A disembodied hand holding purple muscadine grapes.A disembodied hand holding green scuppernong grapes.
Boiled peanuts were a staple of my childhood in SC, and they don’t travel well, either practically or gustatorally– I’ve brought them back to Boston a few times and people were notably underwhelmed. Hmphf. Their loss.
I bought green peanuts (different from raw peanuts) fro McLeod’s and boiled them for 75 minutes in an InstaPot with a lot of salt and a little Cajun spice (I recommend the Slap Yo Mama brand). They are basically Southern edamame, great warm and perfectly good cold as well. The best way to eat them is in the backyard, throwing the shells into the bushes. We forbore, though, and disposed of them more responsibly.
Fresh green peanuts (different from raw).Boiled peanuts– soooo gooood.
Fresh green peanuts and freshly boiled peanuts have a very minimal shelf life. They should be cooked right away, and then eaten right away. I always comply.
Now that I’m back in New England for the time being (school starts in two weeks), I’ll be keeping an eye out for concord grapes– the locally grown ones with seeds and tart outer skins. They are available generally late August to early October, depending on the weather that year.
I couldn’t find a picture of a disembodied hand holding New England concord grapes, but I think this will do.
Pretty much all of hyper-local and hyper-seasonal produce is like this– available for short period of time and good for eating NOW, not later. This means we have to stop what we were doing and turn to the preparation and subsequent massive enjoyment of these tasty treats of nature. And can you think of a better pastime for mid-late August? I can’t.
Dear readers, what are some of your late summer produce delights? Or other seasonal pleasures? I’d love to know and file away the info for when I’m at the proper time and place to enjoy them with you.
I have marvelous friends who are supportive, encouraging and unapologetic when calling me out on being mean to myself. I’m very lucky.
There were several gems I have mined from those discussions. Today I am looking at a question my gym buddy Rob asked me.
Why did I want to ride 100 km?
The first answer that came to mind was that I wanted to test if I was ready to ride longer than 100 km.
I’m very comfortable completing the MS Bike Tour. The two days of 80 km supported every 20 km felt great. It’s a different challenge to ride continuously in 50 km blocks. I underestimated that gap and was disappointed.
The myth of linear progress
I wanted to complete a 100 km ride as part of a story of physical fitness that showed progress.
When my results were similar to the ones I had 12 years ago it felt like a set-back.
In chatting with my friends in Randonneurs Ontario they shared stories of struggling to have consistent times on a given distance.
We spoke about routes, conditions, health, training, age and injuries.
There are a lot of variables that affect how long it takes to complete a route. Only some of those are under my direct control.
Is that the real reason?
Rob invited me to push against the first answers to validate if that is really why I wanted to ride 100 km.
Hope
What I wanted out of the ride was some evidence that my longest distances are ahead of me.
Ten years ago I completed the People with AIDS Bike Tour from Toronto to Montreal. It was 600 km over 6 days. The longest distance on a given day was around 135 km.
2016 Me, in Montréal, embracing a volunteer at the finish line.
Between then and now I quit cycling in 2020 (during the pandemic) then re-started in 2023.
I’ve been inconsistent. Without a capstone event after the MS Bike Tour my distance peters off each year. I have not used the indoor trainer in the winter.
New goals
What I really want out of cycling is more adventures with Michel. We are getting ready to try some rail trails this fall. I got a trailer to bring our dog Lucy along.
Active living
My big picture goal is an active life that supports my physical and mental wellbeing. I really enjoy shorter jaunts and I want to extend that to longer rides.
Consistent Riding
There is no secret to going longer, faster and happier on a bike. It’s time in the saddle on a consistent basis.
Training for the PWA ride had specific milestones to meet in order to be allowed to ride. There were distances to hit, an average speed above 20 km/hr and a deadline for back to back 100 km days.
Unstructured fun
In the shoulder season my focus will be fucking around and finding out. I will try some wider tires and some rail trails. I will get on my bike 2-3 times a week in addition to my utility cycling.
Folks jumping with joy by the waterside.
Thank you
I wanted to wrap this up with a giant thank you to my friends and family. I never imagined my writing about being disappointed with my 100 km would illicit a tsunami of responses. Texts from Nova Scotia and British Columbia and every province in between!
Messages from folks showing they had read every word and could relate. Thank you for reading my posts and connecting over our shared experiences of try to keep these bodies doing all the things.
A coffee with ‘thank you’ dusted on the creamy froth in cinnamon.
The Future
I’m still thinking about my mid and long term cycling goals. I’ll be sure to let you know once I settle on them.
Whatever the future holds, I suspect it will include my dog!
I got my first road bike when I was 51. It felt so great that I signed up for an AIDS ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles that was to take place a year later. I trained hard and made it to LA, and as I held my bike overhead in celebration, I was thinking, “Well, I’ll never do that again!”
Got that wrong.
First I found myself doing another AIDS ride, this one 100 miles per day for 5 days. Yikes! Then a couple more. And some organized centuries.
Next major surprise: I decided I wanted to ride across the USA, and hoped my husband would join me. (He didn’t really want to all that much, but he agreed, so I let him choose the route. Fair trade, right?) We rode the Adventure Cycling route called Northern Tier, which is the longest of the organization’s cross country options. Anacortes, Washington to Boston. I only skipped a few spots, including the one where there was a hurricane looming off of Vermont, where we were headed. Yes, that was the one that actually caused some serious flooding right where we might have been. I rode 4200 miles in three months. This was in 2011, the year we turned 60.
By then I had figured out that I really did like touring, and fairly long distances, and I started thinking of places I might like to see by bike. We went to Europe and did some famous climbs, and some leisurely rides. We saw parts of northern Italy, Slovenia, France, England, and a bit of Spain . We were with friends in the French Pyrenees; we rode to lunch in Spain. Australia. New Zealand. And there was an infamous Costa Rica ride. I LOVE Costa Rica, but it’s not a cycling paradise if you’re not a fearless mountain biker. And Nova Scotia & St. Johns/Labrador (Newfoundland). Prince Edward Island. British Columbia. Even a very brief ride as part of our Galapagos tour, so Ecuador, I guess. And one bit at a time, I began to ride in various US states.
A few years back I realized it wouldn’t be that hard to ride in all 50 so I started keeping track. Hawaii is easy for me; we have relatives there and visit fairly frequently. Haleakala from the beach to the top – 36 miles, 10,000 feet, is not so simple, but I have done it a couple of times. We made a trip to Chicago & rode in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky. I rode the Southern Tier, and spent my 70th birthday in Suwannee state park in Florida. I was mostly on my own, and when Bruce joined me & we drove home together to California, we stopped in Arkansas and Oklahoma & rode some miles.
Last fall I acknowledged that I had not treated Iowa very well. I had only ridden across a pedestrian bridge to Iowa when I was doing some work in Omaha (Nebraska), and gone around a few blocks. So last fall we took a train to Omaha and focused most of our riding on Iowa, then went on to Des Moines & rode some more. And all the other states – we generally had a relative, or a park we dreamed of visiting, or some attraction, so they happened.
But Alaska…
I don’t love cold. My daughter-in-law’s 50th birthday approached. She planned to celebrate by taking a cruise through the Inland Passage. I figured I could rent a bike at some of the stops & get Alaska done. In the summer of 2020. That was not meant to be. It kept nagging at me, though, and we decided this summer was the time to do it. I did some research and found AlaskaBike. It’s a father & son bicycle touring outfit that takes you to places most tours don’t go, so you get a good look at the back country of the state. It has an amazing amount of back country. We learned that the population of Anchorage, the largest city, is about 300,000. The population of the entire state is about 700,000, less than San Francisco. And the size. Alaskans like to say that if you put Texas inside its borders, then another Texas, you’d still have room for another half-Texas. So we went. A few of my cycling friends joined us, and two other women, one of whom was actually riding in her 50th state, too.
Pictures speak louder than words. I don’t have any with bikes, but I really did ride about 125 miles of Alaskan roads!:
In the lobby of our first hotel. This enormous brown/grizzly bear was stuffed many years ago. Fortunately, we saw none of his descendants outdoors. Canoe trip down the Maclaren River. Peaceful. Spectacular views
Bio: I am a lifelong Californian. My mother and father were not born here but moved to the state as small children. I have two grown daughters and five wonderful grandchildren. I spent my working life working at, and eventually running, the family insurance business. My father had introduced many employee benefits – sabbatical starting in 1970, optional four-day work week in 1972, elimination of all official work time rules in 1974. Adults like to be treated as adults, and people tended to stay a long time, so it was a very pleasant working environment with key elements of trust and respect. I also served on a couple of independent school boards, one a strong academic school serving grades 6-12, one a school designed to start helping city kids who had suffered the ongoing effects of racism & poverty to find opportunities they might not as easily discover without support. I live at a Lifetime Care Community where I serve on the finance committee and chair the sustainability committee. I also plan to join the newly formed fitness committee. And for fun, I have ridden my bicycle across North America. Twice.
Picture it. 50+something, medium-build, short stature, blond highlighted curly hair that “may” be self-trimmed, growing bunions, feet comfortably plodding along in the latest UGG sandal/slipper hybrid, estradiol patch peaking out of her Knix brand running/bike shorts. She is half-smiling. Perhaps, she was beaming a moment ago, after a brief moment of joy, because she had witnessed a kind interaction between strangers on the sidewalk. Her mind harkened back to familiar such exchanges from the 90s, when pedestrians weren’t walking while texting their adult children/doctor/elderly parent who lost their hearing aids. It’s possible the moment of joy had to do with noticing the picturesque sky on her walk home from work or being happy she made it home without feeling like she had to stop somewhere to pee.
The brief tinge of joy is interrupted by a reminder by her right hip that she needs to do those static stretches this evening while watching TV with her husband. She was reminded by her fitness coach the day before that, in addition to the active pre-running stretches, it’d be best to also add in static stretches in the evening. The coach also suggested toe spacers to where around the house for those bunions. This was before she PR’d her dead lift and felt momentarily indestructible.
After feeling indestructible, she went to the office, where she was reminded, what indestructibleness looks like in one’s late 20s and early 30s. She wondered where those young professionals, with impressive resumes, would take their skills next, when they deemed it a good time to move on. She wondered if there were any places left to take her skills and “use her full potential”. She also wondered when she would next be able to lie on a grassy field and stare at the blue sky for an indeterminant amount of time.
She wondered again, as she had dozens of times this month, whether she should rip the estradiol patch off and forget the whole HRT business. She is never quite sure it’s making much of a difference. She’s still cranky as shit, sometimes, depending on what day the patch was stuck on her butt. She feels bloated 3 or 4 days a week, for no apparent reason, probably from the progesterone to offset the estradiol, but also, maybe just because she’s in menopause. If she goes off HRT, but keeps the vagifem, because the benefits of the vagifem seem to make more sense than anything else, will she get the head spins back? The vertigo that makes her wobble when walking or running and which may or may not have anything to do with menopause. Will her moods get better or worse? Should she take an SSRI? Should she re-think her understanding that alternative methods are not adequately studied and can carry significant risk, because, what IF those alternative methods would make her feel better and put her mind at ease about cancer risks, but really, we are all at risk of cancer if we live long enough anyway.
What if she’s actually doing just fine? What if she spent more time looking for quiet spaces to think (about love, creativity, agency, new ways to use her brain, new ways to make a living, her growing belief that the mechanism of boycotting small businesses about larger issues is classist and not effective for the intended purpose) – maybe there would be no need for patches or alternative supplements? She reminds herself of all the people who inspire her and which inspiration has nothing to do with their appearance and wonders how they managed this stage of life (if they’ve reached it yet or ever did).
In the meantime, she’ll keep being grateful for experiencing all these changes. She’ll seesaw between being happy with her changing face and wondering if she can get a facial that will freshen her eye area so she doesn’t look tired but that doesn’t look like she’s had work that just needs to be done over and over and over again. She’ll continue to find lots of moments of joy with her husband, with her family and friends and when she gets those endorphin rushes from exercise.
