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Today Erik, Kristi, and I set out with the intention of riding to Imlay City, MI. Starting at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail (Map) this would have been a 45-ish mile ride. Unfortunately, poor trail conditions, culminating in a washed out bridge one mile south of I-69 slowed our progress enough that we decided to turn back. It’s good that we did, as we arrived back at the cars just as darkness was setting in; a particularly dangerous time for us as we were all without lights.
Along the trail we saw a number of interesting things, including a deer, cows, horses (on trail and off), turkeys, cats, squirrels, chipmunks (live and squished), grain being harvested, numerous dogs, and a discarded helmet shell. The surface also ranged from crushed limestone to pavement, single track through grassy areas to railbed ballast, to simple dirt.
At one point we happened across a what appeared to be some in-progress construction to replace an old drainage line under the trail. At the bottom of this 6′ deep ditch was a recently dead deer, looking as if it’d fallen in one night, been too injured to get out, and died. Traversing the ditch involved Erik climbing up the far side first, me passing the bikes to Erik, then Kristi and I climbing up. Unfortunately, for the first go Kristi didn’t want to climb up near the deer, and ended up scraping her leg a bit. The return trip worked a bit more efficiently.
Once past the first major obstacle we had to walk an expansive section of washed out rail bed, as it had become uneven and with leaf cover finding a safe path to ride through it was nearly impossible. One couldn’t tell if a depression in the ground is just a low spot, or something really dangerous. A bit beyond this was much more washed out area, a whole bridge! This article from Google’s cache talks a bit about the storms which washed out the area at the end of August.
Being only about a mile from I-69 we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t reach our goal of Imlay City, but the bridge made a nice place to stop and eat. It looks like only a few thousand dollars and a weekend of trail building crew would be needed to make the bridge passable again, so hopefully that’ll happen soon. We were also able to see the trail surface and know what will be required to do this ride again. Taking Sutton Rd. to Summers Rd., as seen here should easily bypass the washed out bridge and connect us nicely to Imlay City.
Per my bike computer, today’s ride was 38.29 miles, with a moving time of 3:25:55, 11.1 MPH average, and 30.9 MPH maximum speed. We started around 12:30 PM and returned to the parking lot around 5:00 PM.
Here’s today’s photos. Unfortunately I didn’t get any of the actually washed out parts of the bridge, nor the unsafe bits that I climbed across:
· Dead deer in a culvert crossing the Polly Ann Trail.
· My attempt at climbing the ditch. I failed, as this was not the easiest point to climb.
· Erik found a much better way to climb the new ditch in the Polly Ann Trail.
· I then handed the bikes to Erik, who pulled them up.
· Erik helping Kristi climb up, as she didn’t want to climb near the dead deer.
· This helmet shell, with a blob of foam on it, was found on the Polly Ann Trail.
· One part of the trail, about 3 miles before I-69, was washed out and uneven enough (particularly with leaf cover) that we walked it.
· Home-made sign warning that a bridge is out somewhere down the Polly Ann Trail, just south of I-69.
· First sign of the washed out bridge, one mile south of I-69.
· I climbed out on to the bridge. While the approaches were damaged, the main part of the bridge was solid.
· Kristi and Erik disappointed at the washed out bridge.
· Erik and Kristi looking at the washed out bridge on the Polly Ann Trail, showing the loose / unsupported part that I walked across.
· The body of the bridge itself is solid, but the approaches are gone.
· The point where the Polly Ann Trail crosses from Oakland County into Lapeer County is where its surface becomes much less maintained.
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| | Attending oral arguments tomorrow at the Supreme Court. Can i keep my laptop with me? Thanks. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| Tonight - November 8 - Come play in the dark at Malediction Society, presented by LADEAD: Los Angeles Darkside at the Monte Cristo, L.A.'s most elegant night haven: 10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m. Dance the night away on the spacious dancefloor as DJ Xian and DJ Amanda Jones play the very best in goth, industrial, darkwave, and EBM...See you there...
Malediction Society at the Monte Cristo
3100 Wilshire Blvd. (at Westmoreland)
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(just east of the Metro Redline station at Wilshire Blvd. and Vermont Ave.)
MALEDICTION SOCIETY this SUNDAY ($2 Entry With RSVP)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH (21+)
$2 ENTRY @ 10PM WITH RSVP
    
(Must RSVP "Yes" by 7PM on Sunday, November 8th)
Every Sunday in Los Angeles
Darkwave Industrial EBM Synthpop Elektro
with DJ Amanda Jones and DJ Xian
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Join our email list for better discounts...
LADEAD: LOS ANGELES DARKSIDE
www.LADEAD.com
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On Friday, November 13th: DESTROID (Leipzig, Germany) 12 AM, IRIS (Chicago, IL) 11 PM, & CTRL 10 PM are performing LIVE @ Elysium. Tickets are on sale now @ Secret Oktober for $11 cash/$12 credit/debit/paypal. (Fees included in price). Price goes up at the door to $15. SORRY, WE DO NOT MAIL TICKETS. Pick-up & Will Call ONLY. Doors open @ 9:30pm.
Elysium
705 Red River
Austin, TX 78701
21+
Secret Oktober
1905-B South 1st
Austin, TX 78704
Open 7 Days a Week: 12-8pm
512-462-9217 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I don't have kegging equipment and won't be getting any for a while so I bottle condition all my brews. I'm considering making a batch of root beer (because the good stuff from the store is *expensive*) but the only way I know of getting carbonation (sans kegging gear) is bottle conditioning. To me, this means I have to let it carbonate for a short while, then throw it all into the fridge to prevent the yeast from fermenting it anymore and making a bottle bomb.
Suppose I were to add potassium sorbate to a batch of root beer in a carboy, then bottle it all. My logic is that, because the sorbate only prevents yeast from reproducing, the yeast will continue to ferment, not reproduce, then die off and I'll have nicely carbonated bottles.
I've seen this firsthand when I added sorbate to my mead - it continued to bubble for a few days before finally stopping. Any experience with this or maybe there's a better way?
While we're at it, anyone have a good root beer recipe? We're particularly fond of Main Root root beer. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Help! | | Time: | 10:49 am |
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| Ok so I'm experimenting. I'm trying to make a short mead. Theere is plenty of historical evidence that the wine-style meads were not tradtional and are a modern contrivance.
Furthermore, I'm tired of waiting for it to finish and bottle condition to be drinkable.
I'm using a dried English Ale Yeast. I was too foolish to keep the package or take note of the brand and strain as I should have. I pitched in a bit of the wort/must in a jar and poured it into my primary. The primary has been covered in my closet for a week with an average temperature of about 75 degrees F.
Today, I sanitized my secondary and tools and got to work racking it. Once I racked it and put the bubbler on it...NO BUBBLES!!!
There is an obvious pressure difference when I put the airlock on but no bubbling at all. When I put my previous "traditonal" meads into the secondary there was a lot of action.
Oh my OG reading was 1.40 today the gravity was 1.83. That isn't much change.
The yeast seems as dead as Michael Jackson. Any idea how to proceed. Oh as a side note the wort/must tastes great but it's still cloyingly sweet which says to me that not enough fermentation has taken place.
Could I repitch and just add it to the secondary as is? I was planning on bottling in beer bottles and carbonating like beer with priming sugar. Could I have killed the yeast. More information: I sterilized with bleach since I was out of metabisulfate. 1/4 cup per gallon but I did rinse everything before adding the wort to the primary and the secondary.
HELP!!
x-posted to mead_lovers. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| So, google is throwing up all sorts of worthless information at me right now, so I'm getting sorta desperate:
Is there a walk-in orthopedic clinic (preferably NW DC or nearby MD) with x-rays on-site?
ETA: I got one, thanks. Well, thank you to those of you who were actually trying to help. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| | I'm looking for ideas of things to do in DC on New Years Eve. Does anyone have any suggestions? I know about the Eliot/DC101 event. Also, if anyone has any suggestions of any cheap decent hotels it would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| here's a question for those of you who know more then i about such things. when riding my bike around town today i noticed that several places had their flags at half staff (white house, treasury, FAA, were the ones i noticed) but it was not universal. this seemed odd to me, when important folks die, say teddy kennedy, all the flags were down. i assume these were down for the sad events at fort hood but i wondered if anyone knew why only some of them were down. the flag code doesn't list death of soldiers (other then on memorial day) as a reason for half mast and i understand that this is simply an act of respect but the government likes to follow the flag code pretty closely so i wondered if anyone knew what was up. or what the logic in your department was for going half staff or not.
thanks | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
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