Category Archives: Biking

Nothing like spot thunderstorms and showers to make summer outings interesting, but we didn’t let the weekend weather dampen our plans.

We kicked off the weekend at the Muny.  I biked over and arrived at the crack of dawn 5pm to get in line for free seats.  I felt a little silly when I pedaled up and saw next to no one in line, but I did achieve our goal of having a pick of the free seats, as well as a fairly shady spot to wait.  I needed the shade because it was HOT, especially after biking.  I’d finally started recovering from my ride when Matthew joined me, followed by a friend who’d planned the outing.

Our picnic dinner consisted of a little bit of this, and a little bit of that — leftovers that needed to be eaten and that worked well for chilled or room temperature dining.

Clockwise, from top left: fennel mozzarella bread salad, [homemade!] soba noodles with cooked greens, broccoli salad, and a summer fruit medley (served with whipped cream).  It felt like a ton of food for two people (we shared some with our friend), but it was none too much over the course of the evening.

By the time the seats opened at 7pm, we’d just finished our dinner, and dark clouds were threatening.  We staked our seats and went back to catch the pre-show, just a big, fat raindrops began falling.

If you’re familiar with the Muny, you know there’s not a lot of cover.  We huddled under the roof at the top of the theatre, and waited out the storm (unfortunately, there was not cover for our bikes, and it was Roadrunner’s first drenching; even though we ride in the rain, I prefer to keep the bikes dry).

The skies finally cleared about twenty minutes before show time, allowing the stage crew to make everything dry and safe for the performers.  We dried our seats as best we could, and settled in for Billy Elliot.  It was a great show, though, as always, it made for a very late night for us early-birds — worth it sometimes, but probably not a weekly occurrence.

Saturday was a standard Matthew at garden, me doing stuff around here day.  I made big batches of bean burgers and English muffins.  We’re out of our homemade bread (and bread-baking is Matthew’s bailiwick — it still intimidates me), but I can do English muffins!

Sunday brought the Sustainable Backyard Tour.  Our garden was on the first annual tour in 2011 (mentioned briefly here — I looked a little different then!), but we skipped both 2012 and 2013.  It was fun to host visitors again this year.

(photo credit to Mackenzie — I had good intentions, but didn’t get a single photo)

Of course, the weekend and tour would not have been complete without another spot rain shower.  I dashed to rescue our sign-in sheets and roll up the car windows.  Some guests dashed for their cars, while others huddled with Matthew under a big tree and managed to stay fairly dry that way.

We had 80 people on the official sign-in sheet, and we think out total number of visitors was probably close to 100!  Most frequently asked question: “Do you eat all of that food?

We kicked off the weekend with an evening bike ride on a gorgeous (slightly chilly!) June night.  Our plans were a bit up in the air — zoo music or no, gelato before or frozen custard after, was it too early [in the year] / too cold for fireflies?

We decided to save the frozen treat for the end of the night, and by the time we reached the park, it was after eight — too late for zoo music.  We did pause for a tiny bit of Shakespeare on our way to the firefly prairie, since it was still way to light for fireflies at that point.

We reached the prairie area around nine o’clock, and it was still pretty bright outside; the fireflies were just starting to flicker.  We walked around for thirty minutes as it grew darker, but then the full moon started to rise.

The fireflies put on a decent show, but not nearly as amazing as the first time we went, a number of years ago.  We’re thinking our first viewing was some combination of a particularly good year for fireflies, plus a darker night.

We left in time to make it to Ted Drewes before catching a small, local fireworks display, but when we arrived, the line for frozen custard was INsane.  If not for the fact that we were on bikes, I’m not sure we would have made it into the parking lot.  We decided we didn’t want frozen custard that badly, and continued on to the park . . .

. . . only to find that we were one night early for the fireworks.  Oh well, home and bed!

Saturday morning, I was in charge of delivering fennel to a neighborhood pizza place (their first time buying from us).  It looked something like this.

Much easier on Roadrunner than trying to wrangle that load onto a standard bike!

Sunday morning, we were up and out early, to fulfill Matthew’s Father’s Day request — a visit to Shaw Nature Reserve for some outdoor time.

Despite being relatively close (about 45 minutes in the car), it’s been years since we’ve visited, and we found some fun new features, including the Tree-mendous Bridge (above), and some lovely gardens near the old manor house on the property.

It was a beautiful morning, and it felt like we had the place to ourselves.  We headed home for lunch before the temperature climbed too much.  (We did not envy the people sitting in the traffic jam at the Six Flags exit!)

Naps for all and a low-key afternoon and evening followed.  The garden provided much of dinner — broccoli soup, salads with shaved fennel, and pasta with carmelized fennel.  And now the week begins!