mullerb's musings

Got the cat in the water, finally!!!! Friday eve but it took until today, Sunday, to get out with the sails up. Ahhhhhh. I love being on the water, even if the winds are light. The girls came out for a short stint before they headed off to kayak and swim. I ghosted along after that, watching the stormy sky and green hills. Ahhhhh....

An indecisive Sunday morning. I probably should have gone off and ridden with our COMET visitors from Europe. But I was feeling the need to get home by 11 and not wanting to impact their plans of riding up Lefthand to the Peak to Peak. Instead I saddled up the old Trek 8000 with my mnt bike pedals, donned a small pack with rain gear and snacks and headed up the canyon. This is such a cool loop! The upper stretch of 4-mile goes on for a bit too long but otherwise, the setting, views, exposure, uphill grade, descent, etc are all just awesome. And to top it all off, there's a nice little general store in Gold Hill that makes great coffee and sells cold Cokes. Yum.

Solo lunch ride. Good to limb again! Pushed but not too hard. Didn't seem all that bad despite the 85F heat. I really like the descent and the run back to town along 36!!

Longest ride in quite a while. How sad. The ride was good though. Hot but great views and lots of flowers along this prairie route.

A quicky to relieve the office stress..

Ahhhh, so good after that long trip to Europe, to get a ride in again.

Hey there Debbie and Ben, Wow. St Petersburg was simply amazing! Between the historical sites, the 'white night' of summer and consequently late night excursions, and the richness and diversity of our international conference crowd, this has been a banner week. Oh how I love to travel. I didn't get to see as many sites as I was hoping, the conference took precedence, but I certainly saw enough to know that I'll be back. Hard to believe this vibrant, baroque place was ever under Soviet control. Though I suppose the over the top obulence may have led to a slight bit of resentment among the poor folks that were exploited to pay for it all :-) I spent a bit of time with a colleague from Melb this week. Great fun to hear that nice Aussie drawl :-) When I get back next week I'll get a fair bit more it as Roger and his family will be staying with us for a week of holiday. Hope your travel plans are coming along. Cheers from the blue skies above Estonia. Bruce

Hi Siggy, It's just about midnight again here in StP. I'm about to pack my bags as I have to catch a taxi to the airport at 3:50 AM! Oh my, I might play hooky from sleep and just go for a stroll down Nevsky Prospekt instead :-) Our conference wrapped up today at 2 which gave me opportunity to go visit the Russian Museum of Art with a good friend from Australia. What a place! The Mikhailovsky Palace's ornate decorations are just unreal. I'm sure you visited it as well. The older iconic pieces didn't do much for me but oh boy, some of it was amazing. Aivezosky's images of oceans and Kuindzhi's and Levitan's landscapes really really grabbed me. I had never heard of or seen their work before. My final dinner here was spent with our conference organizer, Eduard Podgaisky and his wife and son, as well some other colleagues. Eduard was born in Germany but moved to StP when he was 2 years old. We ate at a very upscale place that served traditional Ukrainian foo...

It's been busy with conference meetings and I finally got a somewhat regular night in last night. Today the meetings ended at 3 and we were treated to a tourist bus tour of town followed by a river boat tour with dinner. The bus thing was pretty cool in that it covered most of the ground that I've walked with Jaakko and Maria, Pat, or on my own. But in those walks, we just cruised around and gawked. The bus had info piped to us so I actually got to learn a bit about the history of the place. Pretty amazing. Lots of rich royalty, obsessiveness, exuberant spending on lavish palaces and art, warfare and betrayal. The river boat tour and dinner was equally rewarding. The Neva River dominates the city and the cruise took us up, then down the river past the city and out into the Bay of Finland. The shore area looks, unbelievably suprising, like South Beach! Lots of tall, modern apartment buildings on the water. Quite the contrast from the old inner city and not at all what I expecte...