End of the Road


Sitting on the bike seat at a standstill at the top of the surrounding ridge, the old quarry pit at the end of Cty. FA, past the weather station tower, the HPT trail head, and the Animal Therapy horse stable and field, looks mammoth – the entirety of a bluff top seemingly gouged away and now re-sprouted

green.  For the biker, the new trail openings now offer a route that can take you not only in and around the shorn rim, but across from Cty. FA to Cty. B with many offshoots in between.  I rode around the quarry for the first time.  Climbing up the far northeast end, I rose up onto a long grass field which rolled back down deeper into un-quarried woods.  It was obvious that this portion of the slender trail was not often used – only a faint worn path zig zagged along the soft ridge line until the long grass gave way to one of the more beautiful forest scenes that I've seen in the region since the Aspen stands at Wildcat State Park in Ontario, or the pines at the Experimental Forest up on Cty. II (although both of these forests planned and planted).  A lone birch turned to two, then a clump, until finally the trail was surrounded by the glowing white trunks of hundreds of birches.  At the far end

the trail ducked into an un-bikable thicket, I turned around, and made my way back, took a brief route

around the prairie, under the quiet ceiling of sagging pines, and back onto to the trailhead parking lot.  There are few more satisfying drives in La Crosse that I can think of than back down Bliss Road after a good mountain bike ride up at the top of the bluff – the combination of biking and exercise within the labyrinth of woods is as exhilarating as it is exhausting.

The Lowcountry, May 1791

A mere 223 years ago this month, George Washington, as promised upon becoming first president in 1789 and then expressing an interest in "seeing the new country," visited Charleston S.C., one of the first cities on his tour list. South Carolina was not a new acquaintance for the president – he was a southerner himself, and the war did in essence end at the Battle of Charleston, but to see what had been one of the most thriving colonies in all of America but also one that had been battered and fought over ferociously during the war, would have represented special interest for a post-inaugural

trip. As shown in both pics above, Charleston (called the low country because of its sea-level and marshy river ways) thrived since its inception in the 17th century because it was a critical trade port.  It became such a major focus point after a string of British defeats in the War – especially at Trenton and later at Saratoga – that the British were willing to concede the north and turn their attention to the southern colonies; if they could rally support by the Loyalists in the south then they could secure their economic interests in America, leaving Washington and his band of Patriots with the geography of New England, but acquire for themselves the trade center of the colonies.  The Southern Strategy eventually failed. Patriots began to outnumber Loyalists for any number of reasons, even in the south.  When he arrived, Washington chose to rent the house of Thomas Heyward, a former revolutionary leader of a local militia, and a lesser known original signer of the Declaration of Independence.  The visit, then, became one of our earliest examples of sheer

presidential gesture – rally political support and celebrate the triumph of the Cause.  "Washington's entry into Charleston was aboard a beautifully decorated 12-oared barge manned by 13 sea captains in full dress uniforms.  A flotilla of more than 40 rowboats and other vessels escorted the barge into Charleston Harbor (including two with musicians playing madly as the oarsmen pulled away in their oars in perfect unison. A 15-gun salute fired into the air as the bells of St. Michael's Church pealed....Arriving there he encountered a house ornamented in front by lamps, and over the portal a triumphant arch, decorated with laurel, flowers, etc."  After the visit, the house became known as the Heyward-Washington house, and represents one of many colonial houses now turned museum along

the 5.2 square mile peninsula formed by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers called the historic district, only blocks away from one of the more famously picturesque stretches of historic buildings in the country along the East Battery.

Weeknight Cooking

Roasted



For the moment anyway, I think the name of my little side street bistro would be Roasted, – the smell of roasted lamb, beef, chicken, along with fresh roasted vegetables, would waft up out of the vestibule

and out onto the street to entice the hungry day and night.  Roasting is a favorite cooking technique for most anybody who invests the necessary time into it, but it's also the hardest for the every day cook to do consistently. Roasting takes all the things that very few folks really have: planning, preparation and cooking time mainly. Roasting is worthwhile, but how to get started....how to maintain?

As if often pointed out, as good a reason as any for roasting is that high heat is used to develop flavor.    Because vegetables aren't boiled, steamed, or fried, but instead set into high dry heat, flavors stay within – heat enhances instead of allowing flavor to escape.  The difference between a microwaved carrot and a roasted carrot is about at a hundred percent; add a corner of butter or a dash of seasoning and that roasted carrot becomes more than a mechanical side and something that very easily stands on its own.

The easiest way to get started then is to roast virtually any root vegetable any time with any meal.  From there, adding a variety of diced veggies onto a pre-browned piece or two of meat, then sent

into the oven, will create an intermingling sensation of smells that are extremely earthy and authentic. The chicken above was pre-marinated, tomato and basil, browned in a skillet, and then the veggies added for a quick semi-saute.  Crisp, raw veggies on heat intermixed with chicken is one of the great kitchen smells of all time; as this dish is sent into a hot heat oven at 475 for twenty minutes, uncovered, the carrots especially begin to soften and nearly caramelize; the celery and onion adding an earthy tone; and the mushrooms, quick to soften, shrink and brown to compliment the meat in a way that is much like the addition of bacon to any meal, very potent and distinct.  A pinch of marjoram sprinkled over the top, and you might think you're eating your garden.

The Cardinal, the Turkey: Watercolors on Mother's Day





All the good stuff happens up on the ridge lines of our coulee bluffs.  Very possibly one of the reasons for this is that wildlife, in all it's humor and wisdom, realizes, over time, how few humans are willing to work hard enough to get up to them, and so the birds, bumblebees, the cardinals, the turkeys, the chipmunks, the woodpeckers,

the rattlers (gasp), and all the other creatures of the treeline, do their dances, sing their songs, and slither along their limestone back alleys way up on top, by themselves where nobody's watchin' them.   Julia and I chugged all the way up Clifford Drive sunday, back and forth, back and forth, (ourselves seemingly slithering) on our bikes, to the head of the Greens Coulee Trail overlooking an old grazing prairie, lined still by an antique barbed wire fence, including those little white power packs that used to keep the cattle shocked on the right side of the field.

Once we rose along the trail far enough to get in underneath the dome of the forest, the silence that had been at the entry began to turn to the patter of the chipmunk feet scratching across the leaves.  Squirrels dove over fallen tree stumps. Here and there a random hollow thump of a woodpecker in the distance.  A bumblebee the size of a hummingbird must have been bored or lonely, following us up along the trail the entire way like a pesky guide.

The forest itself, for the moment quiet – drab and bare yet except for the greening of the grass shooting up through the leaves or along the rocks of the trail – opened to a scene of the blood red dash of a cardinal fluttering about the opening seeking out insects.

As it started to rain, Julia decided we should keep going now that we were on the top of the ridge line then down to the where the standard bluff limestone cliffs lay lined by rugged birch trees.  We inspected the lower sheets of the stone for snakes before we moved along over the top.  We heard a rustle much deeper sounding than a squirrel's behind us. A large brown mass seemed to explode up out of the depths of a timber hollow then swoop up into the air with nearly slow motion wings.  Much too big to be a hawk.  Not an owl.  I yelled out a loud gobble toward Julia.  "Oh, I didn't realize turkeys could fly."

The Cardinal, The Turkey, The Macaroon

How fun it is to watch the old cookie assistant labor away on her own for a few hours in the kitchen making macaroons for mom on mom's day.  Colored discs had to be squeezed out of a makeshift frosting sieve, baked in batches, hints of lavender and mint or apricot added to the jelly center, then assembled with care and perfection.

At one point, Abby ran out of eggs and had to recruit two other pairs of fresh biking legs (i.e. Julia and Carly) to ride down to Kwik Trip for an emergency run. "You can keep the change."  If we got too close to the baking action, we were quickly asked to 'move along.'  Music roared from the laptop.  At the end of it all, there were cookies unveiled from under a sheet of aluminum foil then to be placed on a glass cake display, each flavor marked with a small handmade sign.

The neat array of colors was something that caught Abby's eye the week before and seemed to capture nicely the celebration of the day.

Driftless Area: Scenes of Spring

Halfway Creek Bridge Midway, Holmen

About a mile north from Midway toward Holmen along the Great River State Trail, a favorite stopping place when biking – on an old RR bridge over a perennially roaring little brown creek. To either side, cornfields yet to sprout, waiting for the May frost to give way to sunshine.  The old trail here is one of those symbolic scenes from the Coulee Region drift less area, as so many are ... the immediate landscape is marshland, rising just above the level of the river, brown cattails, fallen oak limbs, and snickering of the red-winged blackbird, all of which is fenced-in, geographically speaking, by the familiar bluff plateaus.  One could easily picture the days of years past, no bikes here, but a long Milwaukee rail load heading for the La Crosse depot.

Myrick / La Crosse River Trail

The sun shone in late April, but as we found out as we sat down at a park bench across the road from the Myrick Park play structure, the wind still carried a bite, we took our Subway sandwiches back in the car and watched nature from afar, with the heat on.  Dad tried to sell a trail walk, but without sweatshirts these two hikers didn't make it much past the forty yard sign until it was time to dash back to the white car in the background.  

La Crosse Amtrak Depot, St. Andrews Street

Speaking of retreating to the car, this photo journalist was tempted to research a little more thoroughly into the north side La Crosse RR Depot, but the scene lost some of its glamour in the cold late April rain.  The depot is buried in the depths of a north side neighborhood that is almost unknown to locals or visitors alike.  Close to 30,000 passengers get on a train here annually, and once home to a BBQ shack, this is a well-worthwhile blast from the past. Along with the fur-trade, lumber, and steamboat culture, railroads were one of our top five generators of population and industry.  

From Greens Coulee MVC Conservation Easement Trail

With little fanfare, a new trail was opened in the last year up in the back end of Greens Coulee Road.  Facing the Greens Coulee Park trail system, including Garland Meadow, the Mississippi Valley Conservancy was able to secure bluff property that climbs up to the ridge, allowing the hiker to see all of the contours of the Greens Coulee drift less area, gradually descending down to Lake Onalaska.  Few plants or trees in bud just yet, the trail is dominated by the weathered glow of birch limbs and crisp maple and oak leaves.  A moth settles its wings long enough for the iPhone snapshot, then leaps back up into the free transportation of the wind.  

  

Riding the Root

When the three of us arrived in Lanesboro MN yesterday, we had only one real concern.  The sun was out and the temperatures pleasant enough, so I wondered just how long our newest member of the Hess Sisters Biking Community might last on the Root River Trail, which, for those of us who have been on it before, we know it goes on for a looooong time.  After a brief look around town, 

for Beanie Boos (?), a scoop of ice cream and a malt for a good luck send-off , it was time to unload the wheels and get to it.

We were pleasantly reminded very quickly that the beautiful Root River Trail, at least for the four miles leading back east toward Whalen (where we held out the temptation of world famous pies for  certain sweet-tooths), is virtually all flat, wide, smooth asphalt....with the wind.  The breeze off the

river might churn up some or the cloud cover above get a bit heavy and our newest biker might have to take a pit stop or seven to re-adjust a helmet, take off a sweat shirt (put a sweatshirt back on), or just need one more round of chocolate covered pomegranate berries (evidence of treat-bribery

on every corner of the mouth above), but before we knew it, we made it to Whalen four miles down  

the trail. Now, for every overly ambitious parent biker that has ever lived, though, we all have had to calculate at what point do we turn back on these open-ended trail trips?  Energy is high, the wind has been our own private booster pack pushing us forward like helpful guiding hands, and so the kids, of course, want to "keep going."  We know there's 4-5 miles going back the other way, but how do you squash the allure of seeing the next stage of scenery out of town and into the rural countryside...

We slogged on, biking soldiers, until small hills began to come on us a little too frequently and those four miles started to set in on untrained legs that became supposedly numb, the neck is sore..."I just wish were back to Lanesboro, now...this is horriblest ever!"  So we circled back to Whalen and rested at the park to regroup.

Which didn't take long.  There might have been one more handful of chocolate berries and some vague talk of revisiting a store in town where they sold 'Paradise Cup Coasters' (?!).  Sometimes, whatever it takes.  And sure enough, on our way back, old ally the wind became bad old friend most of the way back.  Farms passed a little slower; the river to our left looked a little more menacing flowing against our direction, but soon we began to see some familiar sights at the edge of Lanesboro and talk turned to late lunch and those 4 hard miles were soon forgotten as the little pink ice cream 

shop sat comfortably in the short distance behind.  "Carly, guess how many miles you biked today?" She held up four fingers.  "Try 8 1/2 or 9."  "Wow, that was the bestest day of my life."

Dining with the Washingtons

Vibrant watercolor of Mt. Vernon by modern artist Tom Harris (soon to be on my office wall)

Mt. Vernon most certainly would have been a tale of two estates during its years of most heavy use.  There were so many days, weeks, months and years that Washington was not even present at his own plantation that there is no way to fully come to understand daily living on the banks of the Potomac River Virginia.  When he was there, especially in the time between the end of the Revolutionary War

and before he became our first president, there was much activity.  Travelers and guests are the very ones who wrote of their experiences there, and this, besides Washington's own daily journal entries, is how we might come to know our chief American founder.  It is during these more domestic times, when farming and simple living became the more natural indicator of time and achievement than the ominous winter drudgery at Valley Forge or the years' long haggling with military subordinates and

Congress itself. One guest observer remembers fondly a quaint domestic scene in which Washington, after breakfast and his habitual eight-to-fourteen-mile ride around the estate when "his visitors rambled about the grounds, preparations began for the family's next–and main–meal, which was dinner.  For those who were hungry in the meantime, snacks, both sweet and savory, were available...as the sixteen-month old daughter of Eliza Parke Custis law toddled into the room where adults were talking, Washington called to her; he took from his pocket a roll of peach cheese [a molded paste of fruit and water that is sliced after hardening]; 'Here is something for you,' he said and gave her a piece and embraced her."  On those notoriously routine rides around his estate – for the pleasure of a morning hunt, or a second-checking of any variety of plantings – Washington carried with him what was then termed a 'Farmers Luncheon Box," which carried snacks or a sandwich. As an interesting side story, Washington, who would take his morning horse rides despite rain, snow, sleet, or high wind, would casually gallop except for when he was cutting too close to dinnertime, at which time he would recall his professional ridership skills and gallop in a fury back home so to meet Martha's mealtime deadline.  Indeed, it is said that one of the indirect reasons for his very

death was that the day he died he had ridden in the cold and refused to change his wet clothing at the morning table where his hoecakes, draped in butter and honey, awaited.

Dinner was routinely served at 3 p.m. daily – a standard plantation meal time, often followed by ports, wines and even champagne, leading to a final sit down snack time of tea at 7, perhaps on the piazza overlooking the vast horizon of manicured lawn and flowing Potomac below.  "Occasionally, supper was offered later in the evening, but apparently it was not part of the Washington's normal routine; possibly this was because, as a guest in 1793 noted, 'Suppers and even a glass of wine in the evening afflicted Washington with head ache.' Martha Washington's grandson recalled that during a typical family evening, George Washington would leaf through newspapers 'while taking his single cup of tea, reading aloud 'passages of peculiar interest, making remarks upon the same.' At nine, he would bid everyone good night and head for his bedroom."  Washington desired to return to Mt. Vernon as a planter / gardener / farmer and it was during these hours that he released from the enormous burden of birthing a nation, yet it was his sheer fame and magnitude that distracted him  on the very lawns of this not so private escape, falling under the daily obligations of visitors and perpetually, what he called, 'the drudgery of the pen' – writing letters of introduction and references to old military personnel, among hundreds of other small items.  Mt. Vernon, which had been envisioned as an idyllic retreat from continual public constraints, had turned into what Washington himself had wryly called something close to a southern 'tavern.'