Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition
In which we find ourselves in another part of the world
I had a lunchtime walk around the NIH campus today and happened on this emplacarded anchor sitting in a little street island. I headed over to take a look, hoping for a good story. The anchor used to sit in Staten Island outside the predecessor to NIH itself. It came from a Coast Guard cutter.
Well, ok. I would rather pretend it was the very anchor that accompanied the first vaccines to workers on the Suez Canal or something.
Best initial rack ever!
With several buddies, I rode in the Hungry Lion Bike Tour yesterday, starting out in Whitingham, just near the Brigham Young memorial, and meandering around the Mohawk Trail area.
Fall is definitely in the air, with some trees turning and temperature at the starting line only about 50. The sky was a beautiful blue, the winds were quiet, and overall it was a great day to be out. We mostly stayed together, but then Elizabeth and I eased ahead of the others, and pushed less and less easily through the final third of the ride. She is headed to Hawaii for the Ironman World Championship in a couple of weeks, so when I gratefully tucked into my post-ride burger, she got back on her bike for another couple of hours.
The early part of the ride was livened up by the passage of dozens and dozens of vintage motorcycles, all participants in some rally of their own. We had some great stretches of silky new pavement, and we even went by Lake Sadawga, home of floating islands.
At the finish, I didn’t win any raffle prizes, but I did get to eat delicious barbecue and drink good beer while listening to World Way, my favorite local reggae band. In fact, they are the only local reggae band I know of, but they’re my favorite.
I don’t have any knowledge or recollection of French highways being particularly dangerous, but I’ve driven by several major accidents on this trip.
Today’s rain can’t have helped matters, but all the others have been under clear skies.
Today was all about the journey.
I got up earlier than I wanted to and took a nice morning constitutional around Villars and Aveyres. I can’t speak to other Swiss Alpine ski villages, but these two are beautiful.
A fox halfheartedly stalking crows.
Getting the pony loaded up for a trip.
I followed the sound of cowbells, quite common in this part of the world.
Our plan was to ride our bikes over a couple of hard climbs: the Col de la Croix, and the Col du Pillon, before descending into our viewing spot for the day. The ride was tough but fun, under 30 miles but with lots of climbing. Cruising through the ski areas was pretty great.
An overzealous Swiss Army trooper (so it’s not just a brand!) turned us away from our objective a couple miles early, however. So, we had a lovely picnic in Saanen before striking out on foot, a couple miles uphill, to try and catch the race as they crested the climb at Schönried before dropping to the point we parked at.
It got hot, over 90, and there wasn’t much shade. But we met this guy…
On the way down, we discovered a network of Wanderweg, trails that criss-cross the whole area. It was a lovely walk in meadows and forests, and marginally shorter.
And then decision time… To ride home or take the van. Testosterone poisoning got the better of me and so I got suited back up, the only guest so ambitious/foolhardy. With my guides solid Phil and greyhound Gene (both far stronger cyclists than me) we set out.
We bagged this awesome souvenir, which helped make the rest worth it.
Our first objective was the Category 3 Cote de Mosses. By the end of that “little climb” we all knew I didn’t have much left in the tank. However, having few real choices, we persevered. I recovered somewhat on the descent, and it appeared that all was well. And then, Mr. Garmin gave us some sketchy directions. What had been billed as a 15 mile ride with an optional climb at the end turned into almost 40, including climbing back up the Col de la Croix on a road that was a little more than a cowpath, and in fact turned to gravel for a few miles.
Actually, it was that gravel road that gave me the inspiration to continue. Before moving to Brattleboro, I would have been horrified at the thought of trying to ride over gravel, however, now I do it all the time, and it made me confident that I was in my own element and would make it home, however slowly.
Dinner was a big dose of naproxen, and a lovely pot of moules marinieres. I didn’t contribute much to the conversation…
Today was a rest day for us as well as for the race itself. We had breakfast in Swiss charming land, then drove down the mountain for a visit to the UCI, which is the international body that governs the rules and conduct of big-time cycling, whether professional or Olympic.
The main attraction at the UCI complex was a 200 m velodrome, and the main attraction on the velodrome was practice underway for the under-19 world track championships happening this week. I have never been to a velodrome before, much less ridden on one, and it is really something to see. The track is banked almost to the vertical around the corners.
However, the riders are going so fast that they stick to the wall without any difficulty. I really want to try it!
It was fun to watch the kids warming up, hanging around, and getting their heads into the competition, which starts on Wednesday.
We saw teams from Argentina, Portugal, Belarus, the US, France, Denmark, Belgium, and I’m sure others. At one point I was standing at the rail amidst the Danes, and it was neat to see that a) these are just a bunch of normal, pimply-faced kids (with big legs and big hearts obviously) and b) that the excitement of being at the World Championships was not lost on any of them… They were all very excited in an understated Danish kind of way.
After the UCI visit, we drove down to the city of Montreux, on the shore of Lake Geneva, and of course best known for its jazz festival. It was “lunch on your own.” I ditched the rest of the group in search of a little on your own time… Next time, I will pay the extra money for my own room.
I had a nice walk on the boardwalk and around some Montreux neighborhoods…
I had lunch in a stereotypical boardwalk restaurant, and although I had the chicken Caesar, I was curious to try horse. I’ll post more from Montreux later… It was beautiful.
When you study a foreign language, you are warned about ‘faux amis’, words that look or sound like word in your native language but mean something different.
In this case, ‘local technique’ translates to something like ‘mechanical room’. But a local technique room, wouldn’t that be nice?
— hello, front desk?
— yes, monsieur?
— I’d like to fit in better, recreate something I saw in my travels, become more attractive to the ladies.
— ah, but of course, second door on the left, main floor past the restaurant, labeled Local Technique, they will take care of you.
Last night I was eating dinner at a sidewalk restaurant in Avignon – the best kebabs maybe ever – and watching an outdoor disco pop up. Other people did more or less the same thing all over France in celebration of Bastille Day.
But in Nice, some kind of horrible mind disease jumped its containment field and drove a truck into a crowd. It seems impossible to know how to live rightly with this epidemic Ignore, deny, build walls? Lock ’em all up, ban people who look sketchy, shoot people just in case? Take away driving? Go for a bike ride?
There is so much joy and wonder in the world, and so much else, and somehow it all has to fit in our heads.
In my world, “glory” comes from conquering something in a heroic way, unexpectedly or against overwhelming odds. In La Marseillaise, glory was a thing you got on the battlefield, standing up to tyranny. Today, though, our actual battles don’t seem glorious as much as necessary, and always tainted with guilt and regret.
And so we have sports.
In the Tour today, Tom Dumoulin, a Dutchman, heroically conquered the mountains of Andorra, defying gravity and the weather. Alberto Contador, one of the prerace favorites, succumbed to injury and illness and dropped out. When I pick the race up on Tuesday, the stage will be set for more days of glory.
And tonight, the French will play for glory in the finals of the European Football Championships. A group of young fans across the courtyard at my hotel just sang their national anthem as the game kicked off. Their song might or might not be more inspiring than ours, but is definitely more fun for kids to sing. We’ve got “the land of the free” which is great if you’re Whitney Houston, but they’ve got “aux armes, citoyens” that everybody can dig into.
And so, with a song and a game and a shared suspension of disbelief, every jour can be a jour de gloire.
24 hrs in Philly. One walk in the open air. Lots of big strong buildings with big strong ornamentation.
The life of a medical terminology consultant really is as glamorous as you have been led to believe by the media.
Case in point: today I got up at 3:30 AM to drive 5 hours for an afternoon in a hotel ballroom. But we got to talk about really exciting stuff… I hope you can see the slide!
And by the way, the correct answer is “gluteoplasty”.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 