Julia's Key West at Red Pines

Key West Salad at Red Pines 

The Quarry Lane's living motto 'Everyday's an Adventure,' might lead to any number of good eating places in our river town and environs.  Hook up the bikes, hop in the car, park somewhere and the bike tires will hopefully lead to somewhere not far from the trail.  One of the great 'trail to table' trips that I can remember doing

frequently in the past was the great Lake Onalaska to Trempealeau Hotel bike cruise. The 15-miler each way is quite an investment in time and energy, but the Great River State Trail, through Midway,  New Amsterdam, Holmen, and then on into Trempealeau, gives the rider a full view of Wisconsin history and nature like no other as it snakes through small rural town, thick farm field, and eventually a National Wildlife Refuge, which literally teems with untouched wildlife and backwater scenery.

The description of the Hotel says it well, "Founded in 1851, Trempealeau is a place where history is close at hand.  Wooded bluffs, where French explorers established camp, overlook the Mississippi River, and sacred Indian mounds at Perrot State Park remind us of our nation's inception.  The beauty of the natural world and the pleasure of seeking a

quiet respite from the fast-paced world are values held dear in Trempealeau.  Our peaceful river town is a well-kept secret that we welcome you to discover."

Although the Hotel trip is the epitome of 'trail to table,' it has lost the battle to time itself, and we have found an abbreviated bike ride just off the trail in Onalaska at Red Pines.  We park directly on cty. Z leading into Brice Prairie, and only a short bike ride into the township, Red Pines stands at the crest of a short bluff overlooking the backwaters of the Black River.

Northwoods cedar by design, the bar and grill captures the sunfish bait and tackle spirit of the

Lake Onalaska fishing scene.  After a short ride into Midway, Julia and I redirected to Red Pines and sat out on the open air patio watching the sunshine skim off the lush green island barriers and the pontoons bobbing lazily along the shoreline below.









 

7-13

"High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks, and cries that almost shakes the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes.  At last a glint of sun reveals the approach of a great echelon of birds. On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of the sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds.  A new day has begun on the crane marsh."  – Aldo Leopold, from "Marshland Elegy"


The green underworld is but a few turns of the bike tire from the edges of the city.  County Z down into Brices Prairie where the high ground of bluff and concrete gives way to a flickering lushness seen in few other places on earth.  

It is a full regard for life here, a bounty, nearly always in flux and growth, what one could almost determine, without the hand of human intervention, something of a harmony between the natural currents of wind and water and the vegetation that has learned to adapt to its contours or has been forced to release onto another path.  As bikers, we speed through the variety; farm fields, striving under all conditions, a mere scenery; we slow down long enough for the mosquito to land, the gnats to swarm, the double dragon fly to helicopter by, and we know – for we can see it, feel it – that there is more here than the stiff dimensions of a painted canvas.  

Infamous Red-Winged Blackbird

Stealth features of the Red-Winged Blackbird Dive Bomber

You know it's summer in the coulee region when, at any time, any place, seemingly out of 

nowhere from the sky, something of a reddish stripe might swoop down and dive bomb your head. Biking, hiking, (bbq'ing?) along any given stretch of road, trail, or park...it doesn't matter.  Up until yesterday, my own fondest memory of a dive bomb by the infamous Red Baron of birds was several

years ago I was biking in the hinterlands of farm fields out on cty. FA on the other side of Irish Hill.  Chugging along at 17 mph silently, innocently – I thought –  I heard a tick tick tick on the top of my helmet.  I could not see the culprit immediately – I had other things on my radar, like the road ahead – but could see flashes of a flapping shadow on the road swoop down, attack my shadow, hover, attack then hover again.  Now, when getting dive-bombed by something mysterious and unseen,

Random pic of an unsuspecting dive bombee

it takes a moment to assess whether you are under some uniform attack, or whether it's just a freak incident?  Red wings are tenacious though. They keep hitting until you are out of their sphere of protection....only to then drift immediately into another's sphere of protection, and so on along the long line of roadside light posts.

Yesterday I got a call on my cellphone from Julia who claimed to be 'under attack.'  Her are Carly, similarly innocent, they thought anyway, were riding their bike along the outer trail of the Aspen Valley Pond, but had to "dump our bikes because our heads were getting pecked at by red wingers.  We ran but they kept hitting us, so we are home now and wondering if you could get our bikes."  Sure, what a job!  I arrived at the pond to a very odd sight.  There was a planned bbq down in the shelter and one of the cooks had walked up to the bikes, apparently trying to help, with a large baking pan over his head; another fella, a bit skittish behind him, was waving one of those large dog-catcher size nets around his head, but the Red Baron was too cunning, too wise to attack to such defenses.  Instead, he turned his attention to some other unassuming creature who thought he could roam the suburban skies in peace.

 

Cookie Chronicles

For this roving cookie reporter, it was neat to see at the end of the Kids' Y-Triathlon this morning

that the racers were offered bananas and apples at the end of the hard-fought race...heck, Cookie

Monster  himself, as we've found out in recent Sesame seasons, has been seen more and more enthusiastically devouring his lettuce, apples and bananas ("as well as normally inedible objects!").
But Cookie has admitted to still loving as his favorite those old reliable chocolate chip cookies (oatmeal cookies coming in a close second).  So we've decided to make a request for next year's race to serve 'Cocoa-Kissed Ginger Macaroons' for the participants (and reporter), to give them something both healthy and chocolatey to swim, bike and run for!

Like Hallie Klecker says in her Super Healthy Cookies book, "Everything is better with a little chocolate, including everybody's favorite coconut cookie: the classic macaroon.  Cocoa powder adds chocolate flavor while ground ginger adds some spicey zip."  She adds what she calls a little 'Chocoholic's Tip:' drizzle the cooled treats with really easy chocolate drizzle, made out of unsweetened chocolate and maple syrup.  Sounds pretty yummy.  It's a plan.

Highway Construction Cone

New City-wide Identification Symbol

Dear Mr. Editor

Don't mean to rant, but a few observations that my wife and I have noticed concerning the road system laid down in our fine city so far in this long and grueling summer of travel. First among them, there are now no roads left to travel on, which makes leaving our home in the morning difficult. Second, that there is now no viable way for my children to move along to their respective rigorous extracurricular activities without losing at least one bike tire per ride. Third, that unless the coordination of city, state and federal dollars begin to work together somehow a bit more closely, there is no real end in sight, and that we may all be reduced to creating our own at-home-businesss (with the assistance of the gov't I suspect? Farmers may still be able to operate considering the gigantic size of the rear wheels on their John Deere tractors, which should compare nicely to the size of the wheels of the very construction machines needed to travel over the five foot high trenches that line the city.  Somebody called us the new Midwest Venice of no-water?).

A neighbor recently made to us the wise remark that if those predicted-to-exist aliens arrived in the La Crosse area, they would surmise that all those four-wheeled blocks of steel (cars) inching alongside those "very well planted orange trees and shrubs," on rough dirt tracks next to those "dinosaur-like blocks of steel" (bulldozers, cranes, utility trucks, we can only suppose), would wonder why we don't all just use that one remaining wide open channel of moving transportation available (Mississippi River we assume the alien would be thinking here).

The aliens would see the glum faces set inside the blocks of steel – so many of them holding white puffing sticks – yelling out unusually loud messages to the men with orange discs on their heads, that this would probably be seen as the chief mode of communication in this area of the earth.  We told our neighbor that we could only hope that the aliens had along with them a more efficient road construction crew and might even set us up quickly for air travel so we could get to work on time this year still.  All of this is too bad considering the strong history of road building we have here in the coulee area.  As we made an attempt at driving to our daughter's softball game last night – thinking blindly, again, that we might get there on time through a parade of work zones – we remarked on all the roads that used to be useful, like hwy. 16 (now blinking orange neon sign assures us of construction to come June 14!) and that scenic highway on the south side of town, 33, where we dodged and weaved moon craters to finally arrive at scheduled field, now reduced to a lane so narrow it turned even an elderly motorcycle rider to a road-raging Evel Knievel.

In our final humble opinions, we had always hoped that road construction might be done in a sort of orderly manner – a couple of roads at a time, and that perhaps there was a supervisor of some sort in the background holding a giant blue print grid with a grand plan that allowed for some traffic movement here and there.  We have now been proven wrong.  Maybe the aliens are in charge.

Cookie Chronicles

Looking over the recipe 'Bunny Bites', the first in our new Super Healthy Cookies: 50 Gluten-Free Recipes for Delicious & Nutritious Snacks, I couldn't help myself but to think about one of my own lifetime personal heroes Cookie Monster (right up there with Yogi Bear and Napolean Dynamite among others) and what he's been up to since those old learning-the-alphabet days of "C is for Cookie" ("'C' is also for donut with a little piece cut out!" he says on his album).

It turns out ol' Cookie Monster has been going through some identity transformations along with the rest of culture in the last decade or so, and finds himself recently changing some of his habits – he's gone from the days of shoveling in plate-size cookies as early as a little blue monster-tot ("om, nom, nom, nom, the first time me eat cookie I loved them even then..."),

Baby Cookie Monster on left, mother with cookies on right

to becoming the monster of moderation who now claims that "A cookie is a sometimes food." This has, it turns out, stirred up quite a cultural squabble.  As Cookie has now been seen on the series holding carrot sticks in paw instead of piles of cookies and hanging out with other newly health-seeking puppets,

the letters of complaint have filed in, "why is Cookie Monster holding a carrot stick," asks one deflated father of a daughter...."he's a Cookie Monster for goodness sake.!"  Sesame Street has retorted back that the "popular character would be 'broadening his eating habits' in the future.  We are not putting him on a diet, and we would never take the position of no sugar," said Dr. Rosemarie T Truglio, the show's vice president of research and education, "We're teaching him moderation."  Well, speaking for this cookie family, we will be testing the boundaries that can be found out there in cookie-land between moderation and that old nom, nom, nom 'Cookie' enthusiasm.  Our 'Bunny Bites' recipe, which includes carrots, flaxseed, banana, and brown rice flour, walnuts, and maple syrup, begins with a short paragraph titled "Three Cheers for Carrots!"  Seems like a very good start.

On a Roll

Julia has now found herself more and more often behind the cutting board, the stove and the grocery cart. Having to watch her own diet in order to avoid dairy, she now rolls up and down the grocery aisles picking up containers, spinning them to check out the back labels for the important CONTAINS: line checking for common allergens such as dairy.  Meal planning becomes critical; fresh ingredients become more and more appealing.  I have now heard her ask for me to make sure and get some kale

when at Festival!  Don't forget the avocados.  Can I eat pesto?  Well, let's take a look.  Nope, this pesto batch actually includes romano cheese! But, if you chop up fresh basil and add olive oil...let's do that.  Cookbook shelves now abound with 'food plans' that generally advise to simply eat more pure food (the way every other generation except the last few have) by avoiding highly processed, fast foods, replacing your white with wheat bread; fresh veggies instead of canned; make

your own granola, for example, so you know that the chocolate chips are pure cocoa or dark not milk.   The daily blogger turned cookbook writer Hallie Klecker said this in her introduction to a cookbook I recently ordered for Julia, The Pure Kitchen: Clear the Clutter from Your Cooking with 100 Gluten-Free, Dair-Free Recipes: "My journey toward wellness began when I first eliminated gluten and dairy from my diet. After experiencing various health issues – unexplained weight loss, fatigue, digestive problems, achiness, and mental fogginess to name a few – I cut the gluten and dairy from my diet on

the recommendation of a holistic health practitioner.  Within a week, I felt better than I had in months. Over time, as I began living life free of gluten and dairy, I came to realize that the allergen-free products sold in the grocery store were nowhere near healthy substitutes.  Most of the packaged foods hinged on refined, starchy flours, sugar, and low quality oils.  I quickly discovered that the easiest and most cost-effective way to eat would start by cooking at home." What Hallie is saying is more simple, yet radical in way, than merely cruising the aisles and looking for ingredients lists.  She's suggesting we grow or buy more simple products to start with, fewer to no additives, then using those to assemble our various recipes.  No doubt easier said than done.  For better or worse food health is time and it is access to those single, no additive, products (I've often thought that a new food chain – small stores everywhere like Subway – selling veggies like a farmer's market would provide the access part for people). We grew

three pots of lettuce this spring and Julia now 'harvests' nightly and sticks spinach on wraps, creates simple tossed salads, or assembles fresh crab rolls as shown at top.  Next year, so the demand has gone, we will plant kale.  The year after that, we've decided, avocados.