An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

It's time for my annual Coffeeneuring post. Coffeeneuring is a fun little challenge (as I've noted before, the cycling world is full of such challenges - clearly cyclists are need extrinsic motivation in the form of gimmicky challenges). As described by the sponsors of this challenge , "The Coffeeneuring Challenge is a time to slow your roll after the lively pace of summer. Time for some leaf-peeping and leisure. Let’s make the most of this delicious time of year with bike rides that include a stop for your favorite fall beverages, and perhaps the consumption of a pastry or two or three. By yourself or with friends, shared on social or not (remember the days when we used to do things and not post about them? I don’t), the way the Coffeeneuring Challenge unfolds is up to you.  The short version of the Coffeeneuring Challenge is as follows: between October 7 through November 20, 2023, ride your bike to 7 places, at least 2 miles round trip each time, drink 7 total cups of co...

 OK, so today started out with me snapping awake at 5:30 AM to the feeling of a tooth floating around in my mouth; one of my temporary crowns had come off. I ran to the bathroom where I managed to pop it back on, but with the adrenaline flowing there was no way I was getting back to sleep - just as well, since my goal was to be out the door seven-ish and getting out the door quickly in the morning is not one of my strengths (in contrast, Valerie can wake up at 7:30 and still manage to get out the door by 7 😅). Why was I leaving so early on a Saturday? I was participating in the Great Pumpkin Ride in Warrenton, VA. The GPR is an annual Halloween-weekend fundraiser which takes riders through lovely fall colors in rural Fauquier County. The ride offers three lengths: this year, 24, 49, and sixty-something miles. Every year a group of us BikeArlington/Freezing Saddles riders coordinate costumes for the ride. In past years we've been Muppets, Mario Brothers and Hello Kitty characters, ...

This is additional information related to my Saranacs trip report, published in two installments:  Part I  and Part II . A few additional thoughts: The era of handheld Garmin GPS receivers seems to be over. Before the trip I got out my Garmin and not only did it seem like very antique technology with a tiny little screen and a poky user interface, it wouldn't even reliably turn on anymore! Newer models with larger screens cost hundreds of dollars. Because I'm leery of keeping my phone on deck, I decided to try using my old iPhone as a GPS. I found and app called Avenza maps which will display a georeferenced PDF map. It also allow me to add my own waypoint files, so I can mark up the map with waypoints for features such as campsites and launch locations. With all of this stored on the unit, no cellular connection is required. It worked great - for three minutes. It turns out that my old phone is set to automatically lock after three minutes, and for whatever reason there's ...

This is Part II of a trip Report. Part I can be found here . Thursday Dear reader, are you confused because Part I of this trip report referenced so many different lakes? Upper Saranac, Lower Saranac, Middle Saranac, Sidewise Left-Handed Saranac? Well just to warn you, this entry mentions several additional lakes, two ponds, and a river. Here's a very simplified diagram of the layout of the Saranac chain of lakes (some additional lakes and ponds in the chain are not shown, since they didn't play into our route): Fig. 1: The Saranac Lakes for Dummies To recap, we started our trip at the South Creek Launch at the bottom of Middle Saranac Lake and spent a few days on that lake. At this point in the trip we are heading through the Saranac River into Lower Saranac Lake. Paddling the lakes Repositioning days are tough: you have to break camp, pack the kayaks, paddle a loaded kayak to a new destination, and then unpack the kayaks and make camp again. Sometimes, as in this trip, you al...