This Is Drivel

Category: hobby

  • my happy, happy butt

    my happy, happy butt

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    Back in April I bought a recumbent bike and I’ve been riding it at least three times a week since then. Do I like it better than a regular bike? Yes, it turns out, I really do, even though it has a lot of disadvantages when compared to an upright bike. Oh, really? A lot… Read.

  • Blue Hills Felsenmeer 5/23/2026

    Blue Hills Felsenmeer 5/23/2026

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    After checking out the wooden canoe festival, I ate lunch a couple blocks down the street at the Round Man Brewing Company, then drove about a half-hour south of Spooner to hike to the Blue Hills Felsenmeer. While I was helping cut trail at the Ice Age Trail event last week in the Blue Hills,… Read.

  • Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum

    Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum

    I have a weird love of wooden boats. Well, maybe not so weird. They are undeniably beautiful, especially when you can see the insides. The woodwork and all those pretty blonde ribs lined up next to one another are so pleasing to the eye. I got to see quite a few wooden canoes at the… Read.

  • IAT Hemlock Creek Segment 5/22/2026

    IAT Hemlock Creek Segment 5/22/2026

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    Just one week after volunteering to help build new trail for the Ice Age Trail Alliance in the Blue Hills of Wisconsin, just northeast of Rice Lake, I went back up nort dere this weekend to check out the seasonal opening of the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum in Spooner, Wisconsin. I learned about the museum… Read.

  • wild goose chase

    wild goose chase

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    I set out on a hike this morning and I got one, but not the hike I thought I would get. My plan was to hike a ten-mile stretch of the Milwaukee River Segment of the Ice Age Trail near Kewaskum. To walk that far, I planned to drop my bike off at the southern… Read.

  • new ride, who dis?

    new ride, who dis?

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    I finally bought a recumbent bicycle. I’ve wanted one for years but the price always scared me away. Used recumbents cost more than a thousand dollars; new recumbents cost more than two thousand. It was hard enough to make myself spend more than three hundred on a nice Trek bicycle back in 1998. But Monday… Read.

  • walking on sunshine

    walking on sunshine

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    There were signs early Monday morning that the weather was going to be extraordinary, but I had no idea until I got out into it how glorious it would turn out to be. Sunny, calm, so pleasantly warm it could have been any day in the middle of summer. I just loafed along the trail… Read.

  • to be determined

    to be determined

    I want to spend the morning sitting on the sofa with a book, nursing a big mug of very black, very strong coffee. It’s the perfect day for it, cold and rainy and windy. Going out to do almost anything today would be no fun at all. I can stay in, I can stretch out… Read.

  • IAT – CLEANUP DAY! — 2/25/2026

    IAT – CLEANUP DAY! — 2/25/2026

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    Sometimes I hike a segment of the Ice Age Trail, but I don’t finish it. I leave it half done. I have the best of intentions to return to the segment to finish it off, but then I don’t. Now that I think about it, I’m like this with washing clothes, too. I can wash… Read.

  • IAT Devil’s Staircase / Arbor Ridge – 02/23/2026

    IAT Devil’s Staircase / Arbor Ridge – 02/23/2026

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    Today was a good day to walk a couple nearby segments of the Ice Age Trail. I wanted a segment close to home — an hour away by car or less — because I felt like doing more walking than driving this afternoon. Opening my guidebook, I started flipping through pages of maps in nearby… Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend