Monthly Archives: May 2010

It’s getting hot out here …

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We’ve probably walked by this tree on America Avenue lots of times, but today I thought it would be a nice tree in which to take a family photo (of four or fewer) if everyone scrambled up the slanted trunk and squeezed onto the also slanted branch. (It looks more plausible in person, I think!)

 

We ran across Pioneer photographer Monte Draper and his wife, Char, as they walked through Diamond Point Park on their lunch break.

We love taking outdoors pictures, but we can only dream of taking the beautiful images that Monte captures! The Pioneer is fortunate to have him, and people in the community tell me that all the time.

Now that the fat pink blossoms have fallen off, we’re seeing a lot of these pink blossoms out there. We don’t know what they are, of course, but they’re still pretty!

Today, we walked on sidewalks first and then hit the trail, so it was weird to go the other direction.

Quote of the day, as we approached this incline:

Laurie: "I’m hot."

Bethany: "I think we’d better get used to saying that."

We decided we should probably start carrying water bottles, or maybe even a backpack with some water in it so we can hydrate halfway through the walk.

I don’t know how well you can see the little chipmunk above, but I kept following it around the tree, so I was determined to get a photo.

I am going to go out on a limb and say I think this is a basswood tree because of the really big leaf.

I only know basswood and maple leaves, and maybe oak. And poison ivy, I think.

Perhaps we should hit the nature books one of these days.

The lake was pretty still today, although there were several boats out with anglers leisurely fishing on a beautiful day. I think there’s one in the left side of the picture. You might call it a dot! (No big zoom again today.)

Lest you forget we forgot about the lilacs, here’s yet another shot, this one from City Hall. These are smaller and more dense than what we normally see — these bushes are really packed!

This seems to be a new sculpture, although I can’t remember exactly where it was. Pretty close to City Hall, I think. I’d tell you the name of the piece and the artist, but there isn’t a placard on the base yet.

At first I thought it looked like a scary Halloween tree with limbs, but when I looked again, it made me think more of nature stretching out its arms to enjoy the warmth and sunshine, maybe even having a little dance.

If we find out the title and sculptor, I’ll add that information with another photo of the sculpture from a slightly different angle.

 Here’s another "OPEN" sign mystery photo. This one shows the background even more clearly than the last one:

 Our previous puzzler was the "I" in the Enterpoint sign.

 

We didn’t walk yesterday, but I did go to the Paul Bunyan Telephone Cooperative Celebration in the afternoon. Here are a couple of photos!

Take care!

– Laurie

 

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A BIG number — even bigger than we thought!

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Math is not the forte of your friendly (but now sheepish) Trail Mix walker/bloggers. We were thrilled today to surpass 10,000 hits in a little less than a year, but then we discovered a few hours later that the blog had 10,000 hits in *May*. The total hits are more than 85,000! So we’ll be celebrating 100,000 hits this summer — maybe July?

– Laurie

For the past week or so, Laurie and I have been watching … and waiting. 

And finally, today, we did it: Trail Mix has officially had 10,000 hits!  (I checked just before sitting down to write this entry at 1:32 p.m. and we had 10,011 visitors.) So thank you, readers. And now, as a favor, please leave us a comment and tell us why you visit, so we know what you like and don’t like about the blog. Seriously. We think we’ve got a pretty good rapport going between ourselves, and, hopefully, our blog readers, too — but we’re always open to change…

And, yes, it is just a number (kind of like the number on the scale?!) and we never set out walking to gain fans (I mean, it took us four months before we even started the blog) — but, still, I think 10,000-plus hits in the first year of blogging isn’t too terrible.

Update From Laurie: "How about 10,000 hits in May?"

We went over 10,000 in a month for the first time in April, when we had 10,300.

We actually surpassed 10,000 hits on Sept. 4, 2009, after less than three months of walking.

We’ve been noticing daily hits from time to time but haven’t paid much attention to cumulative hits. So when we saw the monthly total, we saw it was close to 10,000 and thought that was a pretty big number. Believe us when we say we are not numbers people! But if we’d given it more thought, we’d have realized it wouldn’t take a year to get to 10,000, if we’re ranging from 300-500 hits a day, and sometimes more. So we’re feeling pretty clueless right now.

So, yeah, we’re patting each other on our backs. (Metaphorically speaking, of course. Our backs are usually pretty gross after walking on warm days like this.)

We *were* patting each other on the back. Now we’re kicking ourselves in the butts. But we’re good sports, so we won’t just edit this blog and pretend we didn’t err by 75,000 hits. :)

About today’s walk: It was warm-ish and short-ish. We had a camera shortage at work today, so I volunteered my point-and-shoot, only to find out a few minutes into the walk that my husband needed the camera for his work (which, yeah, I guess, should take precedent over a recreational-activity-turned-pseudo-work-blog).

We still walked our trail, but we chopped off the Diamond Point portion of the walk and went back downtown.

Our trail was breathtaking today, as usual. Especially its colors.

We even re-explored the infamous "crevice" that Laurie long-jumped last week. Some people were unfamiliar with the area and the picture did not adequately show the depth and width of the hole.

(Of course, the above photo doesn’t really show how it is a hole and goes down — this makes it look like there is a trail that runs all the way through it.)

Just take my word for it – it’s a steep drop-off.

I don’t typically go down this way. But I did today, to take the photos for Laurie. And, since I was there, I just went up and over. While Laurie, of course, took the photo:

Laurie, however, had to show me up:

We continued along our trail until we got to the stone staircase, which we usually leap over with our tremendous jumping abilities (I’m kidding: we usually drag our rumps over while huffing and complaining, of course).

But, today, there was a very pleasant man sitting upon our "vault" and I just didn’t have the heart to ask him to move. So, instead, we hiked up the staircase. Which, we realized, we don’t like any more than the vault. In fact, we like it a whole lot less…

But up on top, we saw some pretty things.

Such as more lilacs (sorry, I know you are probably getting sick of these, but lilacs are our favorite):

And, we even saw a sailboat! (Keep in mind we had my cruddy little point-and-shoot, so just look for the white dot on the water…)

Impressive photo, eh?  ;)

Anyhow, again, thanks for continuing to check on us. We have no doubt that were it not for this blog, we would have quit walking months ago.

- Bethany

PS. Puzzlers. I always forget about these.

Puzzler for today…

 

Answer from yesterday…

The Puzzler was the "open" sign for Sun Real Estate.

A break in the rain

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I woke up this morning sometime after 9 a.m. to the sound of pouring rain and the thought of walking in it.

My cats kept racing from the bedroom window to the kitchen window, where water was so loud I thought I had a drip.

After checking it out, I crawled back into bed, wondering what we’d be facing for our noon walk. But by the time I woke up again around 10:45, though, the rain had subsided.

Despite the cloudy day and the dampness to everything, including the air, I thought it felt refreshing. It’s nice to have a day when I don’t rush in the house to hit either the shower or the fan.

Bethany said that although she likes the sun and the heat, she too thought it felt good to have a cooler walk.

We thought this was a really cute arrangement of little lawn ornaments.

"It looks like Snow White’s house," Bethany said.

Does anyone know what these bushes are? Bethany has these at her new house and we are curious what they are. We noticed these along Irvine Avenue.

 We also don’t know what this plant is, but I know I’ve seen it before.

Stuff on the ground: We’ve never seen toothpaste on the sidewalk before. Maybe somebody rushing through their hygiene ritual as they run to their car in the morning?

 

Today’s puzzler this "OPEN" sign that we thought was cool. I didn’t realize just how much of the background shows up, so this may be easy to figure out. :)

Yesterday’s mystery photo was from the tree outline at Northern Surplus.

Have a great week!

– Laurie

 

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Here is a Trail mix post.

 

Laurie

 

random thoughts unrelated to Trail Mix

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This is not your typical Trail Mix entry. Rather, these are just a pair of random thoughts I have this morning and wanted to share them somewhere, so I hijacked the Trail Mix site (without Laurie’s permission, I might add, so this afternoon could be interesting!).

First, about walking: Laurie and I have both signed up for the Simple Steps program (link: www.activelivingbemidji.com/active-living/171/simple-steps-bemidji). Through the program, Laurie and I track our daily Trail Mix walks, but you’re also supposed to track other walks, too. One such walk would be a destination walk – when you walk some place to which you would usually drive. And I took my first such walk this weekend!

My husband and I realized Sunday morning that we were out of vegetables for dinner, so we were going to make a quick trip to the grocery story. But the near-2-year-old was not in the mood to get in the car and kept asking for a "walk" (or, to her, a ride in the stroller). So we decided to just pack her into the stroller and walk to Lueken’s instead.

It was too far, although it was probably far enough that I should have switched out my flip-flops for sneakers (I have a few blisters today…) and it’s not like the 2-mile walk was exceptionally grueling or anything. But we felt good afterward, and, if nothing else, we saved a pinch of gas.

Second, completely unrelated to walking in any manner: The "Lost" finale. As native Twin Citians, Ray and I always feel most comfortable watching TV on Twin Cities stations. So last night, for "Lost," we had it on KSTP (channel 5). Just before the finale aired, the station began with the "beep beep beeping" to alert us to a impending severe thunderstorm.

(OK, side rant: Is it just me or did the weather alerts on all TV stations double – if not triple – in size in the last five years?)

And, as the rather excitable "Lost" fan as I am, I got nervous about constant interruptions about impending rain. And then I realized, "Hey, we live in Bemidji!" and switched the channel to KSAX out of Alexandria. And watched "Lost" comfortably without interruption.

And, added bonus, KSAX had a much better picture.

***

Ok, I’m done.  Check back later for a "real" Trail Mix entry. (As of 10:30 a.m., I still am willing to go out and fight through the rainfall. If not hail, from some reports.)

- Bethany

TRAIL MIX TEST

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TESTING TRACKING CODE: This is just a copy of the May 24 blog … move along … these aren’t the droids you’re looking for …

 

I woke up this morning sometime after 9 a.m. to the sound of pouring rain and the thought of walking in it.

My cats kept racing from the bedroom window to the kitchen window, where water was so loud I thought I had a drip.

After checking it out, I crawled back into bed, wondering what we’d be facing for our noon walk. But by the time I woke up again around 10:45, though, the rain had subsided.

Despite the cloudy day and the dampness to everything, including the air, I thought it felt refreshing. It’s nice to have a day when I don’t rush in the house to hit either the shower or the fan.

Bethany said that although she likes the sun and the heat, she too thought it felt good to have a cooler walk.

We thought this was a really cute arrangement of little lawn ornaments.

"It looks like Snow White’s house," Bethany said.

Does anyone know what these bushes are? Bethany has these at her new house and we are curious what they are. We noticed these along Irvine Avenue.

We also don’t know what this plant is, but I know I’ve seen it before.

Stuff on the ground: We’ve never seen toothpaste on the sidewalk before. Maybe somebody rushing through their hygiene ritual as they run to their car in the morning?

 

Today’s puzzler this "OPEN" sign that we thought was cool. I didn’t realize just how much of the background shows up, so this may be easy to figure out. :)

Yesterday’s mystery photo was from the tree outline at Northern Surplus.

Have a great week!

– Laurie

 

Jumping for joy!

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There is, to us, a very infamous portion of the dirt trail along Lake Bemidji’s shoreline.

Anyone remember these photos?!

We most certainly do! We lost Laurie’s keys at this location last year (October). It is a section of the trail where one route goes down along the lakeshore, but you have to side-step a hole to get around. (I, meanwhile, take another route that goes up and around.)

Well, apparently, Laurie is feeling confident again this year.

Not only can she easily hike around the crevice…

… but today she also wanted to prove that she could "long-jump" her way across, too!

Nice job, Laurie!  :)

(You can tell she was the former track-and-fielder among us!)

Today’s walk was pretty nice. I missed the sun a little bit, but, hopefully, it is saving itself for the weekend. That would be wonderful.

Our walk this afternoon was all about nature.

it started with this fellow:

And then we saw these guys:

But both of those photos were very weak compared this one:

(Seriously, this chipmunk did not care how close I got to him! He finally bolted after I got about 3-4 feet away.)

But the best photo of the day, in my opinion, was this:

(I love that shot. First off, they are resting just off of Birchmont Drive in Diamond Point Park, just a few feet from the roadway. But, more so, they just seem so peaceful and relaxed. What a wonderful way to spend a Friday afternoon.)

In addition to animals, I also took the following picture for Laurie’s mom, who apparently loves these flowers…

These were located alongside a roadway that had a yard sale going on. It is about that time of year where Laurie and I try to throw a few $1s in our pocket as we walk, just in case we find a sale too tempting to ignore.

(And, yes, we did stop today – but didn’t buy anything.)

All in all, a nice walk this afternoon. (And, it doesn’t hurt that we went 5-for-5 this week and walked all five workdays. Yay for us!)

Today’s Puzzler is…

The answer from yesterday is that the logos come from Hair Teasers downtown…

Have a great weekend! we’ll see you Monday!

- Bethany

An artist’s palette of color …

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The colors of spring in Bemidji have been great this year.

These lilacs are right by my house, and we’ve seen plenty of tulips and other spring flowers, along with the many flowering trees with blossoms of light pink, dark pink and white.

However, while we may have seen a lovely pallette of colors so far this year, it took us a while to recognize an "actual" pallette, as in an artist’s pallette, represented quite colorfullly at Glazed & Amused.

  

First we saw the holes, and Bethany promptly peered through one. I followed:

Since we had no one to take our photo, we had to take each other’s. I wanted to try to merge them, but I have way too much to do at work to figure out how to merge two photos.

Anyway, here is the whole piece:

After we finished taking photos and started walking down the sidewalk again, Bethany stopped suddenly.

"I just realized what that is — it’s an artist’s palette."

"Oh geez. Of course it is."

I can’t speak for Bethany, but I am neither an artists nor a big-picture person.

But I think I can speak for both of us when I say we miss a lot! :)

I know nothing about Gordon’s Daylight Grocery, since I’ve only been here for 5.5 years, but we’ve been past this older sign many times and it’s obviously one of those neighborhood grocery stores that used to be common (we had three or four in Crookston when I was starting my family a quarter of a century ago). Jerry at the Pioneer told me it was open for a long time but has been closed for a long time. He also talked about other neighborhood stores that used to operate in Bemidji.

 

We had a bit of a hard time with this word written on the sidewalk by Central Elementary School.

Bethany thought it said "START," but it looked like an "o" in the middle and the last letter didn’t look like a "t."

Finally she realized it was "STORM." I’m assuming it marks some sort of stormwater area.

Yes, we stop for the weirdest things.

I tried to grab a shot of a robin flying away from us. The bird itself didn’t turn out very well, but I like the shadow.

Today’s puzzler:

 

Yesterday’s mystery photo is of "Woman at the Well" by sculptor Daphna Russell, another of the many pieces we’ve highlighted along the Bemidji Sculpture Walk.

 

Take care!

– Laurie 

Sunshine and sails!

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It was a gorgeous afternoon for a walk! OK, Laurie would say it was rather warm. But I love hot weather – as long as it comes with sunshine – so this was getting pretty close to perfect for me. Once it gets above about 93-95 degrees, I get uncomfortable but I’d still rather it be hot and humid than cold and miserable.

This was the second day in a row that we were in tank tops and shorts. And Laurie even applied a second day’s worth of sunscreen. Laurie thinks we’re not going to luck out this year like we did last summer, when it was cool and comfortable about 90 percent of the time. Considering that it is May and already approaching 80 degrees, I think she’s afraid that we’re going to see a few 100s out there come July/August.

Laurie: "At least we have shade on the trail." 

And that is true. the trail is always our favorite part of our walk. It is cooler – both because of the shade and wind from the lake – and it offers the most seclusion and pretty views.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that while I love hot weather, I’m not, you know, immune to it. Today, we were pleasantly surprised to find the drinking fountains working at the main park building at Diamond Point. (Yesterday the ones near the restrooms weren’t on and I couldn’t get the one to work by the playground Saturday afternoon.)

I should point out at this point that, other than the above sailboat, I don’t have any other pictures from today. That’s not to say we didn’t see anything spectacular – but, rather, the cameras were all unavailable at work today, so I just used my own point-and-shoot, which died after I took this Puzzler shot:

Any ideas?

(The answer from yesterday is that the leaning tree is located along the lakeshore on the northern end of Diamond Point Park, sort of near the old stone bridge. [And, for the record, I am guessing at "north" - I am, as my husband says, severely directionally challenged. So if someone else has a better location description, please share. Thanks!])

Have a great Wednesday night!

- Bethany