rest

Day 73 – Zimmerman House

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We started the day with excellent massages arranged by Camilla. After getting Maja a new front tire yesterday, I was thinking I may need new ones, too, so while Maja was getting her treatment I took my bike to Omer and Bob’s to have them take a look. Over the last few days I had the feeling that my tires were at the very least under inflated and seemed as though I was struggling up the hills and couldn’t even catch Maja on the downhills, usually, because of my weight advantage, where I can shine. The mechanic looked at the tires and said they were still in good shape and didn’t need replacing. I asked him to inflate them using the shop’s pump and gauge to check that the tires were inflated to the recommended 65 psi. I had been topping them up periodically with my travel pump and gauge to that pressure since Montana. I was very surprised when he checked and each tire was only up to 30 psi!!! No wonder I thought I was fighting against my tires. The new pump/gauge I bought in Minnesota is worthless. I hope proper inflation will help me on the hills.

After all this excitement we drove to Marchester for our scheduled tour of the Zimmerman house, the last Wright building we will visit on our cross country ride. Wright designed this Usonian house for his clients, Dr. Isadore and Lucille Zimmerman, in 1950. When built the house was often ridiculed by the neighbors since it didn’t fit the style of the other houses but the Zimmerman’s said it was the best money they ever spent. They left the house to the Currier Museum that undertook major renovations and now curates the house.

The house is similar to the other Usonian houses we have seen but is a later refinement of Wright’s design – L shape open plan, radiant heating, natural ventilation and blending of interior and exterior spaces. Visitors are not allowed to take pictures on the inside so follow up with this web site for photos of the house.

I’ll add to this entry in a few days with more details.

Day 59 – Rest and Wright house tour

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We were both really ready for an off day and, having learned our lesson in Minneapolis, no matter how tempting it would be to spend more time with great friends, two days of rest is deleterious to energy and enthusiasm on the bike. So we’ll sadly cut this visit and head into Canada tomorrow.

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The Affleck House from the street. Originally, Wright had designed the drive to circle around the house at the rear and come to the carport from the right hand side.

Today we enjoyed a personal and very informative tour of the Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills. The house was one of Wright’s Usonian designs and is now curated by Lawrence Technological University. When it was built in 1941 the house was in a remote location but the area near Detroit has grown up around it and it is now surrounded by houses, condos and traffic on what is a major street. Nevertheless, one can get a good feel from the wooded lot of what the house was like when first built.

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A beautiful Wright detail around a ceiling light at the entry

The docent Harvey who has a lot of insight about the Affleck house had worked on the Price Tower in Oklahoma, Wright’s only skyscraper, and was a visiting lecturer at Taliesin West. He gave us an in depth and detailed look at the house and sprinkled the tour with some entertaining Wright anecdotes. As with all our tours of Wright houses, our photos and words don’t do justice to the places so follow this link as a start. If you are interested in a tour, click on the “Tours” link on the ltu.edu page.

After seeing the Affleck house we drove by the Smith House, also a Wright Usonian nearby and drove into Detroit to get a view from the street of the Turkel House from 1955, a mix of Usonian and concrete block design.

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The Smith House.

 

Day 45 – Racine and Madison

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Today was a rest and a pilgrimage day to see several Wright houses and buildings up close and personal.

Ray and Mary picked us up at Tan-y-Deri and we drove to Racine in a sometimes heavy downpour so we were glad we had picked that day to not be on our bikes! We met Mark Hertzberg at the Thomas P. Hardy house on the lake in Racine just a few blocks from Wright’s iconic Johnson’s Wax building and Research Tower.

Wright designed the house, built in 1905, in the Prarie School style with the main views toward Lake Michigan and turning a relatively blank face to the street. As with many of Wright’s houses, successive owners had made changes and also like others of his houses, the Hardy house had fallen into disrepair to be rescued by the current owner.

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After a very informative tour Mark left us with George, the caretaker of our next Wright house, The Keland or Boyd house. Wright designed this house in 1954 for Karen Johnson, the daughter of Herbert Fisk Johnson of the Johnson’s Wax company. The house has seen many alterations designed after Wright’s death by architects at the Taliesin Fellowship so the changes remain true to Wright’s design and vision. Karen Johnson Boyd passed away earlier this year and the house displays her impressive art collection.

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Not satisfied with seeing just two Wright houses we sped off to an appointment in Madison but not before stuffing ourselves with Racine’s famous “kringle,” a Danish sweet.

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We’re burning lots of calories so why not have one more piece?

Our first stop was the Jacobs I House and Bill, the caretaker of this National Registry property met us. After giving us a little history of the house on a double lot in Madison, he took us on a tour inside. Jacobs I is an early Usonian design from Wright and again, it has been rescued from disrepair by its current owner. The house features many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s innovations – car port (he invented the name), track lighting, radiant heating, modular “sandwich” wall panels, exterior doors that open full width including at the corner and other new ideas. Bill confirmed the legend that the brick used in Jacobs I came from the cast-off pile at the Johnson’s Wax Headquarters that Wright was building about the same time. By using these bricks, construction costs were kept down.

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Leaving Jacobs I we drove to the Unitarian Meeting House (1951), a building recognized by the AIA as a significant contribution to American culture. Wright’s father was one of the founders of the original congregation and Wright often spoke at the meeting house.

Inside the Unitarian Meeting House. Wright’s father was one of the founders of the original congregation and Wright often spoke at the meeting house. July 16th, 2016 in Shorewood Hills outside Madison, WI.
The Unitarian Meeting House, a building recognized by the AIA as a significant contribution to American culture. July 16th, 2016 in Shorewood Hills outside Madison, WI.

Not finished yet, we drove by the Lamp House, hidden away on an interior lot near the Wisconsin state capital. The building now houses U Wisconsin students and as such is in a pretty sad state on the inside.

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This was a hard one to find, the Lamp House. But Ray persevered and here’s the proof as he poses with Maja.

We drove by the Gilmore House, also known as the “Airplane House,” but were not able to go inside.

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After a much needed break for food at The Old Fashioned, where I was finally able to taste a Three Sheeps beer from Sheboygen (award winning beer from the son of an old friend of mine) we walked over to the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center. Wright designed the complex in 1938 and it was finally built in 1997. Some call it “ersatz Wright” since it was constructed long after he passed away but the building is unmistakenly Wright.

That was our exhausting day of total Wright immersion. On the way back to Taliesin we heard the news about the attempted coup in Turkey, news made more important to us since the President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Stuart Graf, is in Istanbul for World Heritage meetings. We were all relieved to hear that Stuart is not in harm’s way and is doing fine, hoping to return to the US as soon as the airport in Istanbul is open for US carriers to fly.

 

 

Another Fine Rest Day

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We’ll get back on the road tomorrow I promise but we’ve needed these two days to recharge. First of all and most importantly, thanks to our friends Craig and Steve for putting us up, feeding us and allowing us to take a breather in their fabulous house. They helped us get our bikes to the One on One bike shop downtown for overhauls so our wheels are as good as new and ready to roll. Maja’s bike needed a new rear tire, the cables on both bikes needed tightening and both chains were replaced.  Thanks to Gene and crew for giving the Surlys the TLC they needed.  We feel confident they are up to the task of getting us to Bar Harbor.

This afternoon we reconnected with our friends Kip and Cindy we knew originally in Belgium – old home week – for a lunch full of old stories and laughter! This evening we’ll load up our panniers and make sure all is shipshape.

This morning Steve Sikora showed us the Willey House, an unforgettable experience of a meticulously restored and very important 1934 Wright house. I’ll write more about that in a separate blog.

“Midway along life’s journey…”

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Apologies to Dante for the lede.

We are luxuriating in a couple of day’s R and R at our friends Steve and Craig’s amazing house on not one but two lakes. It was very nice to wake up “normally” with a few moments of sleepy headedness instead of having to come around by pedaling up a steep hill. We are, more or less, half way through our trek to Bar Harbor. I say “more or less” since we are now deviating from the ACA route for a swing down through Wisconsin to Spring Green and Taliesin. We’ll ride along the Mississippi to Lacrosse then angle east to get to Wright’s Wisconsin home passing through the town of his birth, Richland Center, along a part of the newly designated Frank Lloyd Wright Trail. From there we will head northwest across Wisconsin and eventually reconnect with the mapped route around the north side of Lake Michigan and into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Our detour to Taliesin will add about 180 miles to our trip so I’m not sure where we stand on eventual total mileage.

There has never been a three month period in my life where I have been so totally focused on one goal, one project. I have to confess that there were days early on when the task seemed daunting, as in “how can I keep pedaling day after day for three months.”  The first climbs up the Cascades did little to buoy my confidence but once over the Continental Divide, I felt like this was something we could do. Certainly every day (one might say every hour) presents its mini challenges in terms of hills, wind, maybe rain but the little lesson I learn almost daily is “one mile at a time.” I think we both break down the day’s ride into segments and check the box for that segment when we get there and then it’s on to the next one, the next segment. Sometimes I break the total mileage goal into percentages and tell myself, “There’s 2% finished.” Or figure out how many minutes at a given speed each mile will take then, my mind occupied on the math, suddenly I find we’re half way or almost done.

A lot of our riding has been in file since, except for occasional stretches of deserted highway or on the bike trail, there is no room to ride side by side. Riding one behind the other is not conducive to conversation so we tend to store up comments or topics until break time or until we can ride next to each other. There always is that great moment when one of us will announce, “Half way there” or “Ten more miles to go” and those declarations unfailingly boost my spirits.

I’ve found that my mind wanders often to music: I spent a lot of idle brain power the other day thinking that I finally understood how Charlie Parker sculpted “Yardbird Suite.” And before that it was hearing in my head the multiple signatures of a Mahavishnu Orchestra piece.  None of this is significant in the long run but often solves mysteries I never had the opportunity to visualize clearly. Of course the real danger in all this is that preoccupied, I am not paying 100% attention to the road and have actually run into Maja at least twice!

Day 16 – Last day at Lake McDonald

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Huzzah!  We have received word that the pass is open so bright and early tomorrow we will get back on the road and have more to report on than how relaxed we’ve been. Our first challenge in the AM is to get over the Continental Divide by 11 AM when the Park Service closes the road to bicycles.  It’s roughly 21 miles but with an elevation change of over 3000 feet we expect quite a bit of Granny Gear usage.

Today we had to change rooms once again but will spend our last night in a very comfortable bed.  We have had some issues with the housekeeping staff including the latest which involved the sheet on our bunks that was, in one piece, a form fitting sheet and an upper sheet all together. The problem was that the staff is new and they put the upper part of the sheet on the bottom and then tucked in the form fitting part on top … So there was no way to get between the sheets!  The supervisor was very nice (Myra) and sympathized with us so we received a few freebies by being the wheel that squeaks!

We met a couple from California last night who are cycling around the US on a tandem. They had a broken spoke and the last we heard, they were limping back to Whitefish and the bike shop there to get their wheel taken care of.  Their predicament has made me think about broken spokes and even though we carry spares, to replace one while on the side of the road is a major task. I’m ordering a kit that will allow us to struggle through a bad spoke until we get to a bike shop and will pick it up late next week at General Delivery in Wolf Point.

here are more photos from our hike to Avalanche Lake yesterday

June 16th, 2016 in Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, Montana

 

 

Day 15 – Yes, Still Lake McDonald

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Again zero progress across the US but we are having a very relaxing time! For us, our goal is not only to raise money for the Wright Foundation and to finish our trek on time but it is also about seeing a part of America we have never seen and enjoying doing it. So we don’t feel terribly guilty about taking some time off to experience the world we’re cycling through.

We had to move out of our cabin and are now in a dormitory room with a bunk bed!  Woo! The pass is still not open and no one has any insider info about when they will open it up. “Very soon” is all we hear.

We took the shuttle bus to Avalanche Creek and hiked a few miles into the dense cedar, hemlock and yew forest to Avalanche Lake. There were 3 waterfalls coming down into the lake and the water was blue and obviously very cold.

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If we had ever been feeling puffed up about the epic-ness of our trip, we would have been brought crashing back to earth after we met a British couple vacationing here who told us that a year ago their daughter ran across the US in 80 days! Now that really is epic. She averaged 40 miles a day and did a shorter route than ours but … Very impressive.

Tomorrow is forecast to be rain and cold again so we are lodge bound again.  Awww. More time by the fire reading! Also time to do some errands in the small town at the entrance to the park.

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Day 14 – Lake McDonald Lodge

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0 miles today. That’s right zero, nada! 

Today was total rest and we spent most of the day looking at this fireplace in the lodge. We picked a great day to take a break since it was rainy and 48 degrees all day. It’s been healthy to give our bodies and brains some downtime. There is a certain amount of stress with getting on the road every morning and staying focused on directions, drivers, weather etc. and we were able to turn that off all day. (thanks to Stuart for the iPhone wide angle lens… slowly getting the learning curve down)

There is still no definitive word about the opening of the pass. Everyone we ask has a different opinion and Maja heard that the Park Service doesn’t like to give advance notice about it because there would be cars lined up from East gate to West gate. We think we can get out Friday or Saturday. The relaxation is wonderful and the park beautiful but we are, for now anyway, creatures of the road!

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Lake McDonald Lodge – A National Historic Landmark

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A brief moment of sunshine over the lake

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Maja doing the only hard lifting we did today

Day 7 – REST!

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I’ll avoid the “on the seventh day…” meme. Barry and Shelley Bacon own this bike hostel that they open to passing bicyclists. It’s a free standing 4 bedroom apartment with kitchen, laundry and… Free Wi-Fi. They have spent a lot of time in Africa helping with family medicine and with orphans among many other community organizations; busy and concerned people and we are grateful for their openness to travel weary cyclists.  Shelley drove us the 6 miles into town so we could do some shopping while she cooked at a local not-for-profit kitchen. We’re back “home” for relaxation and expect another group into the hostel tonight, 4 cyclists plus a baby! Check out the hostel’s website for the full story: http://www.baconbikehostel.com.

One of the things I’ve recognized so far on our journey is that I expected to be able to concentrate on “thinking things” as we rode. What I’ve found is that my attention is so focused on directions, traffic, hills, water and food and avoiding pot holes etc that I have precious little time for wandering thoughts.

Tomorrow is some climbing through the Pend Oreille lakes and then down to more or less flat land and, eventually, into Idaho. The weather is predicted to be about 12 degrees cooler so the ride should be a lot more pleasant.