The Delta Diner

First visit to and breakfast at the Delta Diner this morning. We have heard so much about this place. Almost all of their business comes from word of mouth, or so we have heard. That's how we found out about it.

Great food, great service, fun place. Enjoyed the Delta Diner experience. It truly is "at the Center of the Middle of Nowhere."

"Far Away, Near Perfect" is the perfect motto for this place.

The Delta Diner will have to be a cycling destination this summer. They have some great events planned: a "Blue Plate Lecture Series" with topics like “View Inside a Zen Monastery through Traditional Oryoki” and, this fall, a Locavore Fall Feast-a Diner/Local Farmer Collaboration.

Hayward area Art Crawl

We are two of 41 artists participating in the first annual Hayward area Art Crawl, August 10-12, organized by the Cable-Hayward Area Arts Council (CHARAC). There are 25 different sites to visit, from Stone Lake 20 miles south of Hayward to Drummond, 30 miles north and other locations within a 20- to 30-mile radius.

In preparation, we had to finish the room downstairs that we wanted to make into a gallery space. We had previously finished a room off the gallery that serves as our studio/digital darkroom. Nothing like a deadline to motivate one to finish a project! We hired a local carpenter months ago to sheetrock the room, texture the walls and prime them. We had to install the lights, paint the walls and put down the floor.

We couldn't afford track lighting, so we chose some modern-looking full-spectrum florescent light fixtures. They provide a very even light that we're happy with. The color of the walls is "Powdered Nutmeg" which Mike describes as being "the color of a latte."

The finished gallery space, carpet and all.

Each Art Crawl site has two or more signs indicating its location, one with a number which corresponds to a number on the map in the brochure that was created to advertise the Art Crawl.

There are many talented artists in this region working in many mediums and we're very excited to be able to participate! We've all had very good visitation during the first two days of the Art Crawl. On to Day 3!

A visit from friends

The Sassi family stayed with us last night, on their way to Door County from Fargo, North Dakota. We all went for a bike ride this morning, giving Max a chance to try out his cool, new Harry Havnoonian bike.

Enrico, Mike, Kelly, Alex, Max

We rode about 10 miles, stopping at Spring Lake, our turn-around point, for a stone-skipping session.

Alex shows how it's done.

Kelly recently found a great bike on Craigslist, a Felt tri bike.

Living without a car

We've been living without a vehicle for almost a month now, since July 3 when we returned home from a month-long trip back East. The clutch went out on our VW van in Escanaba, Michigan, on the way back to Wisconsin. We rented a U-Haul truck and trailer and towed the van to a VW specialist in Ironwood, Michigan. It's still there as he couldn't begin to work on the van until a week ago and we're having some other work done, too.

Our decision to live close to town (less than a couple of miles) rather than further out is now paying off. We've been getting along just fine without a car, using our Marin "utility/commuting" bikes to get groceries/run errands. (Note the cool baskets made by Amish folks from Pennsylvania.)

This month-long period without a car has made us even more aware of how easy it is to use the bikes for our every day needs rather than jumping in the car. Using the bikes gives us much pleasure and makes us feel self-sufficient. We expect to have the van back within a week but, after this experience, I think we'll continue to use the bikes more often than before.

P.S. Much has happened since I last updated this blog. I'll post a review of our activities during the past few months soon.

Combo ride

We did what I would call a "combo" ride today, a ride that included both paved and dirt roads. Mike prefers to call these "DERRs," (dirt-extended road rides).
Along the way we crossed over Mosquito Brook.

 We stopped at the Sawmill Saloon for pizza.

 We crossed the Namekagon River several times along the ride.

Many trees are beginning to leaf out in that special, delicate shade of green that is unique to spring.

By the end of the ride it was just beginning to sprinkle, but we didn't get wet.
Another perfect ride...

Riding fire roads

In the last couple of weeks we've begun exploring some of the many dirt/gravel fire roads in the area on our touring bikes with 35mm tires. These are mostly hard-packed dirt roads with fairly fine pebbles/gravel so the 35mm tires can handle the terrain without problem (with the exception of deep sand) and the touring bikes with drop bars are more comfortable to ride on this terrain than our mountain bikes.

Some of the fire roads are narrower and more intimate than others; those are the ones we're seeking out and prefer. This opens entirely new areas for us to explore and is a great addition to riding the quiet country roads and mountain biking on the single track trails. It will also allow us to ride routes/loops that we couldn't previously connect/make work when we were riding our narrower 700C tires.

Once the trees leaf out, some of these roads will be like riding through a "tunnel of trees."

Primo Road Ride!

Today's ride was on some of the sweetest roads we've ridden to date. Thirty seven miles on a loop out of Cable that included Lake Owen Dr., Pioneer Rd. and Garmisch Rd.

On the entire ride we encountered only about a dozen cars, an equal number of cyclists, two motorcycles, a bald eagle, an osprey (nesting on a telephone pole) and numerous choruses of frogs in the ponds we passed by; temperature about 70F. Pizza and beer at Rivers Eatery after the ride. What could be better? Perfetto!

Rivers Eatery philosophy. I like it!

"Cool food. Cool space. Cool people." Indeed!