A Bloy and his Blog

I’ve been living in my house for over two months, and my list of things to do here is still pretty long. But it was a picture perfect day in Madison, and I would have been a fool to spend such a beautiful day working in the house. So I put a snack in my bike’s saddle bag, filled up the water bottle, and headed out for a long ride.

When I was house shopping, one of the reasons I chose the neighborhood I did was the close access to the many bike trails in the area. Where I used to live, there were just too many very busy streets between decent bike trails and my condo. I would often throw my bicycle in the back of the truck and drive a ways to get to some decent bike riding. No longer. My house is just blocks away from a great trail (which can also take me to other trails).

Today I biked my longest ride of the season so far. Around Lake Monona, a side trip along the Capital City State Trail for a while, and then through the side streets of Monona, back toward home. I took no camera, no ipod — I wanted to concentrate on biking and experience the world around me on such a nice day. Even though there were a lot of other bikers on the trails, it was great to be out there, just biking.

I took so many photographs while biking the Monterey Peninsula, it was hard to pare them down to fit in a single post, so this is part two. Take a look at the first part if you haven’t already done so.

read the rest of: More biking photos from Monterey

While I was in Monterey, California for the conference, I took a few vacation days to see the sights.

My favorite day off was when I rented a bicycle, and rode all day long on the Monterey Bay Coastal Bike Trail.

read the rest of: Biking the Monterey Peninsula

No pictures on this post, just a story about an encounter with a bald eagle and the photo that didn’t get taken.

While on vacation last week, I was biking the trail along Trout Lake, hoping to get some photos of loons. That portion of the trail runs along the lake shore, with a buffer of trees of about 10 feet. The trees make for a decent blind, so the birds don’t get scared away. I had seen loons (fairly close by) along that section of trail in the past and I was hoping for a good shot. I had my camera setup with its telephoto zoom lens, ready to go in my bike’s saddle bag. At one point I did see some loons off in the distance a bit. I took a few photos, but they were a little too far away. Back on the bike I went, continuing to scan the nearby shore. Suddenly, a shadow overhead caused me to look up. There was a bald eagle swooping by, about 20 feet above me.

read the rest of: The one that got away

I came upon these gorgeous tiger lilies while biking Madison’s southwest bike trail yesterday.

read the rest of: Tiger lilies

I just returned from camping at Wisconsin’s Northern Highland State Forest.

read the rest of: Camping “up north”

Last night I went with some of my family to watch Rhythm & Booms from the other side of Lake Mendota (along Observatory Drive). The fireworks display was pretty good, and it was fun being outside on a beautiful evening. While listening to the radio before the show (the display is choreographed with music over the radio), we heard the announcer say it was the “largest annual event in Wisconsin.” I beg to differ.

It was another gorgeous summer day today, so I returned to Mendota, and went for a long bike ride along the lake. One of my favorite places to ride in Madison is where the bike path runs along the lake shore in the middle of the U.W. campus.

I ended up biking for most of the afternoon. I stuck to the shore as best I could, riding through where the rich people live, and made it up to the northern side of the city.

After I got home, I decided it had to be one of the best rides I’ve done this year.