Riding in a Winter Wonderland

On Sunday, we had a truly beautiful winter day. Because the blizzard hit Boston on a weekend, the snowplows were not as active as they would have been during the working week. For the first half of Sunday, the entire neighborhood lay covered in a blanket of pristine white snow, and only around lunchtime did people begin emerging from their houses to reluctantly shovel their driveways.

Despite being down with a minor cold, Velouria could not sit still in the blizzard. Stir-crazy in our small apartment and desperate to feel the fresh snow under her tires, she begged me to come out just for a bit, at least to give it a try. How could I resist her charms?

She posed for me next to the fence while I photographed her this way and that. A kickstand was not necessary, because the foot-deep snow enveloped her wheels and functioned as a bicycle rack. With her black frame and cream tires, Velouria was stunning in the snow. The aesthetic experience of seeing her thus even made up for carrying her down the front stairs - which had been semi-visible when the Co-Habitant left for work several hours earlier, but were now completely buried in snow. With the bike in my arms, I slowly extended my toe and felt each step under the snow before proceeding onto it. With the 40lb DL-1 this was doable, but I would not have been able to execute the same maneuver with the heavier Pashley.

The snow was still falling as we prepared to head out, quickly covering the saddle with a thin layer of powder.

Upon Velouria's advice, the voyage I chose was an easy and safe one: a trip to a grocery store that is just a 6 minute walk (3 minute ride under normal conditions) from our house via a secret route through dead-end back streets. There would hardly be any cars there, and if I found myself unable to ride I could just walk the bicycle the rest of the way to the store and back.

I took my camera along and had grandiose plans to stop every so often and photograph Velouria against the backdrop of various winter scenes. However, the visibility was so poor and the snow so... snowy, that getting off the bicycle to pose it became the farthest thing from my mind once we were underway. Instead I offer you views of a few landmarks.

"No Outlet" - Hah! Perhaps not for cars, but for a bicycle the gaps between fences will do just fine.

Arriving to the grocery store via the back parking lot.

At this point I will give you my ride report: Basically, my biggest problem was visibility, or rather, the lack thereof. These pictures do not really capture how difficult it was to see in front of me as I was cycling, but the falling snow obscured my vision completely. In these back alleys that was okay, but I cannot imagine cycling on real city roads in these conditions. As for the bicycle's behaviour... It was fine. Granted, I was so paranoid about falling, that I cycled very slowly and made ridiculously wide turns. Riding through the snow in this manner felt similar to cycling on the sandy fire trails on Cape Cod, only slower.

I did not experience a sense of slipping on the snow while going straight or while making turns, but again, I was intentionally cycling very slowly. The tires on my DL-1 are the Schwalbe Delta Cruisers, 28" x 1 1/2". By the time I returned home from the grocery store (having purchased a bag of raw cranberries and some chocolate), the snow had made its way into every single crevice of the wheels, covering the spaces between the spokes and dress-guard cords.

If you click to enlarge the picture above, you can see that the snow also made its way into the gaps around the brakes. This is a problem not just for bicycles with rod brakes, but for any bicycle with rim brakes. The snow lodges itself in between the rim of the wheel and the brake pad immediately, increasing stopping time considerably. Because I was cycling so slowly, this did not really matter; at that speed I could stop the bicycle by merely putting a foot down. But if you plan to cycle with anything resembling normal speed, I think drum or disk brakes are the only solutions that will provide adequate stopping power.

This short but beautiful winter adventure was more than enough for me and Velouria. We were happy to return to the warmth of our home - both of us trailing lots of snow. That snow on the saddle accumulated during the time it took me to drag the bicycle up the front stairs. If you don't want snow on your leather saddle, consider swapping it out for a vinyl one for the winter. For me, a little precipitation on the leather is okay though.

I did experience a panicked sense of remorse when I saw the extent of snow accumulation on the bicycle once we got home, and the next 30 minutes after this photo was taken were spent with a rag, frantically wiping off the moisture. I have been assured however, that the snow in itself is not bad for the bicycle; it is only the salt that is damaging. Thankfully, the roads had not been salted yet at the time of our ride. Velouria enjoyed the refreshing tour through our local Winter Wonderland. She is up for doing it all again - as long as I promise to go slowly, keeping her rod brakes in mind.

First Light, Foggy Morning - Pigeon River Valley

The fog this morning was incredible. Unfortunately I did not make it out to take any pictures of the fog at sunrise. So, it made me go back to some photos from a foggy morning in July that I never posted. This photo was made after a night of photographing the northern lights along the Arrowhead Trail in northeast Minnesota. As I drove home via the backroads I noticed that there was quite a bit of fog in the Pigeon River valley below me. I pulled over at the Pigeon River Helipad Overlook along Otter Lake Road and waited for the sun to come up. I knew that once the sunlight started to hit the fog it would be an incredible view. Sure enough, as the fog started to glow from the light of the rising sun I was awestruck by the beauty and depth of the scene laid out before me.

For Kevin.....

Godspeed my friend.......you are missed.



"People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I
didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't preparing for them. It didn't even know
they existed."
- Cormac McCarthy


http://kevinlandolt.blogspot.com/

The Toymaker

There is a blog you should visit.


It's full of beautiful drawings.

By a very nice person


who is so creative.

Marilyn is The Toymaker. I absolutely love her drawings/paintings and think that at least 75% of all children's books should be illustrated by her.



Did I say children's books? I mean all books.


Plus, she has the cutest kid!



---

P.S. She's got a website too. Lots of free downloadable paper toys.

And there's a Merchandise area... I just ordered the bunny t-shirt!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a calendar in store for next year.

It's Looking Better...

One day this past week was spent at the Allen County Public Library attempting to determine the validity of the statement made in an article by Carrie Bray in 1949 that her great-grandfather (my 3rd great-grandfather) John Bray had arrived in Indiana on March 5, 1816.



An affidavit by Daniel Bray in the Revolutionary War pension file of his father John Bray, stated that “Some time in the early part of the year 1816, he went to the land office of Cincinnati to enter the North East quarter of Section No 25, town No 2, range 3 West. That owing to some mistake in the land office he could not effect an entry and he was obliged to return home and that his father John Bray, then went to the office and entered the said quarter...”



So the “problem” was: When was the land actually purchased and why did Daniel state that it was in Range 3?



The book “Indiana Land Entries Volume I” by Margaret R. Waters, published in 1948, contains the records for Indiana that are from the Cincinnati Land Office. It covers the area known as the “wedge” in the southeast corner of the state.







The map above shows the status of the Indiana Territory in 1810 with the four counties in existence at the time: of Knox (Kn), Harrison (Har), Clark (Clk), and Dearborn (Dea). The “wedge” mentioned in the Waters book was the area known as Dearborn county in 1810 as well as neighboring portions of Clark County.







By 1814 there were a few more counties in the Indiana Territory. Franklin and Wayne counties were created in 1811 while Switzerland was created in 1814 from that Dearborn “wedge” area as well as from portions of other counties. The two maps above are from the Genealogy Inc. website.



In the introduction of her book, Margaret R. Waters states that the records were copied solely for genealogical purposes to enable a searcher to learn if an ancestor located in Indiana and if so, where and when. To save time and space the acreage and final certificate numbers were omitted. A minimum amount of information is given (name, property description, date of entry) but enough to determine if the person of interest entered land in what would become the state of Indiana.







At the top of page 79 was the entry for John Bray showing that he entered the “NE 1/4 of S25 on 3-5-1816”. The line just below John, includes the name of Edward Ray who may be the same person who married Jane Bray, daughter of John. The previous page (78) showed that the land was in Switzerland County in T2N, R4W of the 1st PM (Township 2 North, Range 4 West of the 1st Principal Meridian).







The map above (from the Waters book) shows the “wedge” area of land from the Cincinnati Land Office included in the book “Indiana Land Entries Volume I”.







This enlarged portion of the previous map shows the townships that comprise Switzerland County. The dotted lines show the boundaries of Switzerland and Ohio Counties. (Ohio County was created in 1844 from Dearborn.) The land that John Bray purchased was in T2N R4W, which is in that tiny red triangle bordering Range 3 West.







Portion of a Switzerland County Map from the My Indiana Home website showing the location of Braytown in Craig Township.



Luckily for me, the Allen County Public Library has a series of microfilms called “Ohio Land Records” which includes the records of the Cincinnati Land Office. Film OLR-110 contained “Cincinnati Land Office Entries, 1814-1829” and it was even indexed by page number. Most of the page numbers were missing or illegible but it didn't take long to find his entry since I had the date he entered the land.







Cropped portion of the page showing the entry for John Bray (last entry on the image). The date at the top shows the transaction was made on March 5th 1816. The text in the column on the right states “John Bray of Franklin County applied to enter the North East quarter of Section 25 Town 2 Range 4 West - Containing 159 44/100 acres and produces the Receiver's Receipt No 30668 dated this day for $79 72/100 amt [?] being the one fourth part of the purchase money of said quarter Section of Land.”



So it seems that the date of March 5, 1816 as given by Carrie Bray in her 1949 article correlates to the date of purchase of the land. It also confirms the statement made by Daniel Bray in his affidavit that he went to the land office in Cincinnati “some time in the early part of the year 1816”.



But there was a surprise in the land entry document - the statement that John Bray was “of Franklin County”.



In searching the web for information, I came across the site Cincinnati Land Office Records, which appears to be a part of the Ohio Memory project even though those records are not included in their list of collections. The site contains images of the original land patents issued to the purchasers. There are only a little over 300 documents currently online but it is going to be an awesome site when they get more documents published. Anyway, at the bottom of the second paragraph of “About this collection” it states

“In certain instances it has been impossible to determine the correct state of origin of the purchaser; generally this is due to the fact that both Indiana and Ohio have identically-named counties, such as Franklin County. In these cases, both Ohio and Indiana have been listed as the state of origin.”

So that might present a little problem. However, Franklin County, Indiana is so very close to Switzerland County while Franklin County, Ohio is further north and east, closer to the central part of Ohio. Since we don't know the whereabouts of John Bray between 1805 and 1816 (as mentioned in The Evidence at Hand) it is possible that he could have ventured further north, but I don't think so. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking on my part. If he was “of Franklin County, Indiana Territory” then that would be evidence that he was actually residing in the area and would definitely be eligible for membership in the Territorial Guard Society of Indiana.



We have the record of the land entry on March 5, 1816 and the statement by Daniel Bray that he, then his father John, went to the Cincinnati Land Office in the early part of 1816. Does that constitute enough evidence to be able to say that they were then residing in the Indiana Territory?



What other records exist during that time period that can be used to help substantiate the claim that John Bray resided in the Indiana Territory in 1816?

Technicolor Fields

Technicolor Fields, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Multicolored carpets at Shell Creek Road...the species you see here include goldfields and owl's clover.

Great Egret

For the past two days a Great Egret has been hanging around in the swampy lake behind our house. Last night and again this morning I watched as this beautiful bird walked around in the marsh and caught minnows from the lake. I wonder how long it will hang around?

Rock in the suburbs

cover photography: Lee Cujesclick on the photo to enlarge.."Spoonman" 28.Six moves into the eight move sequence of the crux traverse, up with the right then out with the left to the horn and clip R.Then followsa tough slog to the final heart breaker, a long lunge offthe left with high feet.Trying to convert the drive from the high feet into liftafter all that hard work is the clincher.

Broughton 4 spires

8 miles. With Maureen. Dry, warm sunny, but there was still some mud underfoot.



This walk was taken from the Broughton Bystander's blog. His directions are excellent, making the walk very easy to follow - with a couple of checks of the map en route.



Varied - some woodland, Cransley reservoir, some village walking and just a couple of ploughed fields, which we could have avoided.



The walk takes in the four spires of Broughton, Thorpe Malsor, Loddington and Great Cransley. I can't improve on the description in the link above, but here are a few photos.

Cornflowers outside Broughton Church

Dandelion clock

some of several stone figures in Broughton

view of Cransley Reservoir from the road near White Hill Lodge

Thorpe Malsor church

A bit more of the church, and the green where we had a break

Loddington church

We finished our outing with lunch in the beer garden of the Red Lion at Broughton.

Blooming Indoors

I have a geranium and an African Violet blooming in the house now.

Sunshine Yellow?

On an overcast day, the Vienna Citibikes really stand out! But are they too bright to ride? I admit that I have avoided renting these, because I don't fancy riding around looking like an enormous advert for a bank.

Here are the tamer blue versions on the left, but they too are covered with enormous adverts. What do you think? More bout Vienna Citibikes here.

Mount Catherine ..

Scott had the day off and wanted to ski before Thanksgiving. I wanted to burn the calories that I was about to consume, so I happily obliged. The plan if there was good snow was to go yo-yo somewhere and have fun in the powder. However, it looks like we have hit the El Nino segment of our dark months with higher temps. This meant rain at the passes the day previous and a 10000' freezing level on the day of our trip.

Skinning up the slopes of Hyak

So we headed for Mount Catherine with the hopes of a summit. Chad joined us at the Mercer Island Park and Ride and we were on our way. The weather was clear and we saw a beautiful sunrise before arriving at Snoqualmie Pass to low clouds and fog. Instead of taking the Sno Park and forest road in as it seemed tedious. We opted for the skin up Hyak and over the other side. We followed forest roads (Nordic ski trails) down the other side a bit before leaving on a bearing across the North Face. After endless traversing through trees, we got to an open area which we confirmed with the map was the east end of the summit ridge. There were cliffs and no obvious way up, so we traversed more and more which reminded Scott and I about the Ski Patrol Race we had done back in February.

Heading into the trees

We occasionally crossed open slopes and contemplated trying to gain the ridge to the summit but we were having little luck. Our difficulties were exacerbated by the constant fog which made seeing ahead not easy and gave us little incentive to try and head up only to be confronted by cliffs. So we maintained a fairly level traverse and then we started seeing flatter terrain. We finally made it near Windy Pass and eventually saw a sign with an arrow pointing in that direction. There was a weather monitoring station there too, and some blue diamond trail markers. We stopped for lunch. (It was around 1pm.) The sun just barely came out briefly enough for us to see our shadows. Then we deskinned for a short ski down to another road. At this point we had forsaken our summit attempt and were content with a circumnavigation.

A more open area

Unfortunately due to the poor sloppy snow conditions and the ungroomed state of the road, going downhill on the road took almost as much effort as going uphill. We worked hard to make our way out and after it seemed like there would be no more downhill, I gave up on the skinless skis and stopped to put my skins back on as it seemed they would offer me better propulsion. They did, but Scott and Chad were out of site, and I did not catch up with them until the final downhill to the parking lot in the Hyak ski area. (Which was in more disappointing slop.)

Boulder field

Overall, I was happy to get out. The weather wasn't great, but that wasn't really a big deal. We knew going into it that the snow wasn't going to be so good for skiing, but it was more about the journey. Even though the road out was tiring and tedious, it was still better than being on snowshoes. Plus I think this is the first time I have circumnavigated a peak. Cool.

The road out

Souvenirs

While writing my post for the 45th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, I looked for a picture of this car but couldn't find it then. In the background is our 1956 Nash Rambler Super Sedan, like the one pictured at Old Car and Truck Pictures, about halfway down the page.

My parents had just returned from a fishing trip to northern Minnesota with Dad's sister, Fern, and her husband and daughter. Doug, Jack, Terry and I are showing off the souvenirs they brought us. It was August 1957.

In July that year, Doug, Jack and I had gone on a trip to the Wisconsin Dells with Grandpa Vic and Aunt Shirley. It was the first time that we had been away from our parents and little sister. We were only gone for a few days but we still got homesick, or at least, that is what I've been told - many times!

When Mom and Dad were planning their trip to Minnesota they decided to split up us kids and parcel us out to several aunts and uncles. Doug went to Columbia City to stay with Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Walt. Jack and I were sent to Pierceton to stay with Aunt Jessie and Uncle Toby. Terry went to Goshen to stay with Aunt Leah and Uncle Shocky. I don't remember how long Mom and Dad were gone, probably a week. But at some point during that time someone decided that we kids needed to see each other. So Doug and Terry were brought to Pierceton since that was somewhat the "middle" distance between Goshen and Columbia City.

When the time came for Doug and Terry to go back to their respective temporary homes, apparently we all started crying and quite simply couldn't be separated. Each time one of them would get into the car the crying would resume. I'm sure there is some exaggeration on the part of the adults regarding the extent of the hugging and crying ;-) at least there are no pictures of that! Bottom line, we all ended up staying with Aunt Phyllis in Columbia City for the few remaining days until our parents returned. Hers was a full house with her own four children and the four of us, but comfy. And we were together. And it didn't matter that we had to sleep on the floor!