syntaxjunkie
05-09-2004, 09:10 PM
A little scrawl that I put down after taking a ride at Terrace Oaks (nice job on the re-route by the way). Looking forward to a new and improved Wirth Park.
And, uh, sorry about the length.
Twenty-seven dollars. That’s what it cost me to put a full tank of gas in my rusty-but-by-and-large-trusty 1993 Ford Explorer. Actually, it was closer to 3/4 of a tank since, like my dad, I abhor the needle getting into the same neighborhood as the E. My wife teases me about this, but not so much since she ran out of gas the night we went out to celebrate our anniversary. It’s a small plot of moral higher ground, but I’ll take it.
If I were one to put my wallet where my mouth usually is, I’d long ago have rid myself of this geriatric hunk of steel that gets all of about 12.5 miles to the gallon on a good day involving a fair amount of highway driving. Downhill. Given that middle of the road for me is somewhere near the left ditch, I should be plying the freeways in a late-model Subaru that gets mileage the ol’ Exploder couldn’t match when it was hot off the lot. But, as someone wiser than me once said, you can’t eat your principles. And since I enjoy eating a whole lot more than I enjoy driving, the Ford (ma)lingers on in my driveway.
I was filling my tank at a convenience-store-cum-gas-station not far from Terrace Oaks Park, where I’d spent the past hour or so huffing my way through an early season (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) mountain bike ride. My bike, which was worth more than the Explorer when I bought it two years ago, was nestled snugly in the back with the seats folded down to allow it plenty of room to stretch out.
Terrace Oaks Park is about a 25-minute drive from my house, sans traffic, on a stretch of interstate that is almost never sans traffic. That’s right, I spent an hour in my aging SUV (and about $6 in gas) going too and from a park where I rode my bike for a little over an hour.
I only feel the slightest bit of guilt doing this, as I figure I could be spending 5 hours in an even bigger gas guzzler towing a trailer of two-cycle-engine-driven, smelly-exhaust-spewing recreational vehicles up to some plot of snow/dirt/water in the Arrowhead. I don’t begrudge anyone the right to do this (while they still have it), but it does make for a nice, comfortable rationale. Another small chunk of moral higher ground to stretch out upon, if you will.
Pulling out of the gas station, I caught part of a story on MPR (where all of us liberals get our agenda) about street culture in America. Specifically, how our collective efforts to eliminate the environment as a factor in our journeys to, from and around downtowns are sticking a fork in what remains of it.
We drive to work in hermetically sealed luxury boxes, park hundreds of feet above or below the street in climate controlled garages, walk to our offices through climate controlled skyways and tunnels, and spend our days working in fluorescently lit boxes devoid of any character save the constant 60-cycle hum. At the end of the day, we reverse the process and return over manicured slabs of asphalt and concrete to an airtight, look-alike suburban homes with chemical green lawns. If we’re lucky enough to have windows where we sit, we can look down upon the streets like passengers in a frozen airplane. For the most part, the byways that once were the lifeblood of any downtown have devolved into abstractions.
As a Minnesota resident, I concede that there is a huge amount of practicality (if not basic survival requirements) in this. Heaven knows I’m not going to volunteer to trudge from my parking garage to my office on one of those days when the windchill threatens to halt molecular motion just to get closer to the heartbeat of Minneapolis. Nor would I necessarily expect my counterparts in Houston or Atlanta to do the same on one of those asphalt-buckling midsummer scorchers.
But if nothing else, it gives me another reason to savor that hour or so in the saddle that much more. The fundamental truth is that life as we know it insulates us from everything outdoors, whether it's city streets or mountain bike trails.
[I’d say “nature,” but it always sounds a little too hippie and doesn’t completely jive with fact that I’m still operating a machine (albeit a self-powered one).]
Perhaps it’s a sad comment that I’ll spend as almost as much time in my car getting to a place to ride as will actually riding. But last I checked, developers aren’t lining up to build forests. I should be enjoying what’s here while it still is—even if it’s a small park tucked in the corner of a suburb somewhere 25 miles out of the way. I think it’d be even sadder if I didn’t do it at all.
And, uh, sorry about the length.
Twenty-seven dollars. That’s what it cost me to put a full tank of gas in my rusty-but-by-and-large-trusty 1993 Ford Explorer. Actually, it was closer to 3/4 of a tank since, like my dad, I abhor the needle getting into the same neighborhood as the E. My wife teases me about this, but not so much since she ran out of gas the night we went out to celebrate our anniversary. It’s a small plot of moral higher ground, but I’ll take it.
If I were one to put my wallet where my mouth usually is, I’d long ago have rid myself of this geriatric hunk of steel that gets all of about 12.5 miles to the gallon on a good day involving a fair amount of highway driving. Downhill. Given that middle of the road for me is somewhere near the left ditch, I should be plying the freeways in a late-model Subaru that gets mileage the ol’ Exploder couldn’t match when it was hot off the lot. But, as someone wiser than me once said, you can’t eat your principles. And since I enjoy eating a whole lot more than I enjoy driving, the Ford (ma)lingers on in my driveway.
I was filling my tank at a convenience-store-cum-gas-station not far from Terrace Oaks Park, where I’d spent the past hour or so huffing my way through an early season (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) mountain bike ride. My bike, which was worth more than the Explorer when I bought it two years ago, was nestled snugly in the back with the seats folded down to allow it plenty of room to stretch out.
Terrace Oaks Park is about a 25-minute drive from my house, sans traffic, on a stretch of interstate that is almost never sans traffic. That’s right, I spent an hour in my aging SUV (and about $6 in gas) going too and from a park where I rode my bike for a little over an hour.
I only feel the slightest bit of guilt doing this, as I figure I could be spending 5 hours in an even bigger gas guzzler towing a trailer of two-cycle-engine-driven, smelly-exhaust-spewing recreational vehicles up to some plot of snow/dirt/water in the Arrowhead. I don’t begrudge anyone the right to do this (while they still have it), but it does make for a nice, comfortable rationale. Another small chunk of moral higher ground to stretch out upon, if you will.
Pulling out of the gas station, I caught part of a story on MPR (where all of us liberals get our agenda) about street culture in America. Specifically, how our collective efforts to eliminate the environment as a factor in our journeys to, from and around downtowns are sticking a fork in what remains of it.
We drive to work in hermetically sealed luxury boxes, park hundreds of feet above or below the street in climate controlled garages, walk to our offices through climate controlled skyways and tunnels, and spend our days working in fluorescently lit boxes devoid of any character save the constant 60-cycle hum. At the end of the day, we reverse the process and return over manicured slabs of asphalt and concrete to an airtight, look-alike suburban homes with chemical green lawns. If we’re lucky enough to have windows where we sit, we can look down upon the streets like passengers in a frozen airplane. For the most part, the byways that once were the lifeblood of any downtown have devolved into abstractions.
As a Minnesota resident, I concede that there is a huge amount of practicality (if not basic survival requirements) in this. Heaven knows I’m not going to volunteer to trudge from my parking garage to my office on one of those days when the windchill threatens to halt molecular motion just to get closer to the heartbeat of Minneapolis. Nor would I necessarily expect my counterparts in Houston or Atlanta to do the same on one of those asphalt-buckling midsummer scorchers.
But if nothing else, it gives me another reason to savor that hour or so in the saddle that much more. The fundamental truth is that life as we know it insulates us from everything outdoors, whether it's city streets or mountain bike trails.
[I’d say “nature,” but it always sounds a little too hippie and doesn’t completely jive with fact that I’m still operating a machine (albeit a self-powered one).]
Perhaps it’s a sad comment that I’ll spend as almost as much time in my car getting to a place to ride as will actually riding. But last I checked, developers aren’t lining up to build forests. I should be enjoying what’s here while it still is—even if it’s a small park tucked in the corner of a suburb somewhere 25 miles out of the way. I think it’d be even sadder if I didn’t do it at all.