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On the way home from a family wedding, I stopped in my old hometown in Kansas. One place I wanted to see was a hill where my friends and I rode down on our bikes. It was scary at the time, and when I returned, I could understand why. Here is an essay about that event. It is published in the Home Forum section of this week's Christian Science Monitor in Boston. See it here.
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Wednesday I spoke at the Goodhue County Historical Center in Red Wing about my book Historic Disasters in Southeast Minnesota. It was a very good audience with excellent questions. The Red Wing Republican Eagle ran this article about the book talk and signing.
In their November issue, Rochester Magazine ran an excerpt from my book Historic Disasters in Southeast Minnesota. It includes part of the section on the Armistice Day Blizzard in 1940 with a few photos.
Last week I gave a talk about my book Historic Disasters in Southeast Minnesota to the Lake City Storytellers. Lots of good questions and a fun conversation. I am scheduled for other talks in the area soon. Coming up:
Wednesday, November 9, Noon, Lake City Kiwanis Thursday, November 10, 6:30, Lake City Public Library Wednesday, November 16, Noon, Goodhue County Historical Society, Red Wing I was very pleased to see a nice review of my book Historic Disasters in Southeast Minnesota in Big River Magazine from Winona. The review, written by Pamela Eyden, editor-at-large, is an accurate and positive portrayal of the book.
After the trip to Colorado for two weddings, we returned home to a series of sad events.
When I served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, I became good friends with science teacher Mauro Diaz from Casper, Wyoming. We would meet the night before each meeting, go for a long walk, and have dinner and a good conversation. Mauro and I also took his two oldest sons hiking for three days in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana. Near the end of the wedding trip, we learned that Mauro and his youngest son Mateo, had died in a head-on car crash near Thermopolis, Wyoming. A few days later, we learned that Kelly Fulton, a teacher at Bozeman High School in Montana had been killed while riding his bike to school. I had worked with Kelly when he was a runner for Billings Senior High School. He later ran for St. Olaf College in Minnesota. We had kept in touch as he road his bike across the country, taught English in China, and began his teaching career. A day or two later, we found out that Joe Cross, the principal who hired me to work at Billings Senior High School, had passed away. I had a lot of respect for Joe as a principal and as a person. Any one of these deaths would have set us back, but to try to process all four of them at once has been a serious challenge. We are left with powerful memories of each of these wonderful people. We just spent twelve days on the road, traveling to Denver to spend time with family to celebrate the marriage of our youngest daughter Denby and her fiance Nick. They held the ceremony at the Denver Botanical Gardens, a beautiful location, and the weather was perfect. After the ceremony, everyone went inside the guest center for a dinner and dance. What an excellent event!
After the wedding, we went to Taos and Santa Fe for five days. We had never been to either of those, so it was fun to explore that region before we returned to Denver for a second wedding, that of the daughter of good friends of ours. It was nice to combine the two weddings and a vacation before we headed back home. After riding the two other trails I reported earlier, we set out again for a day near La Crosse, Wisconsin. We rode 20 miles on the Great River Road State Trail, an excellent trail made of finely crushed limestone which makes an excellent biking surface. The trail is on an abandoned Chicago-Northwestern railroad line and passes through a mix of prairie and backwaters terrain. We had another fine day of biking.
The many rails-to-trails biking paths in Minnesota and Wisconsin are a perfect opportunity to get out on a nice day and enjoy a good ride. We have gone on two recently. The first is the Chippewa State Trail in Durand, Wisconsin. It heads east toward Eau Claire some 38 miles away. We didn't ride the full distance, but did spend a couple of very enjoyable hours on the trail. The second is the Root River State Trail in Lanesboro, Minnesota, which features beautiful views of the Root River and many locations on the trail. Both trails are converted railroad beds so they are relatively flat and easy to ride. Great way to spend a day!
Big River Magazine just published two of my articles in their September/October issue. The first is about the effects of lead bullets in causing fatal poisoning in eagles and other scavengers after they eat gut piles or carcasses left in the field. The second is about a relatively new crop called Kernza which is showing promise in helping reduce the sediment that is carried into Lake Pepin by the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. Kernza has incredibly deep roots so it is effective in holding soil in place. It is also perennial so it reduces tillage and disrupting the soil. It is being used in many flour recipes and a couple of breweries have experimented with new craft beers using Kernza.
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Photo by John Jancik
AuthorDr. Steve Gardiner is the author of eight books and over 1,000 articles. |