Post a Comment On: A Nod to Nothing

People are going to be so disappointed with the title of this post. It's really about the 52 mile bike ride Ming, Kyle and I took yesterday on the Sunrise Prairie Trail, from Hugo to North Branch and back (via Forest Lake, Wyoming and Stacy). It's just that at one point during the ride, Kyle noted that he didn't have rear suspension on his bike. I pointed out I had a seat post with suspension. And noted Ming did too, and his bike was much older. Ming bounced up and down a bit to show him and, because he was riding in front of Kyle, I accused Kyle of looking at his taut Malaysian buttocks. I believe Kyle added "pumping", and then Ming added "sweaty". Besides, I couldn't call the post (Skyrockets in Flight) Sunrise Prairie Trail Delight, because that's just stupid.

Here's Kyle. That wrist thing is his way of flipping people off. He finds it more polite than flashing the bird. And yes ladies, his shirt does say, "I'm Huge."
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The trail is pretty nice, although extremely flat. There was very little climb over the whole 52 miles. In some places, it just shot off into the distance in a straight line as far as you could see. But that made it pretty nice for a casual ride, considering it didn't have a lot of traffic either.

However, you have to be careful about the crazy guy on his bicycle who shouts "nice helmets" at you. And then the red necks in the truck in North Branch who shout "nice hat". Apparently there's a real helmet bias north of the cities. Fortunately for me, only the crazy guy criticized my headwear, because I hadn't donned my helmet when the red necks yelled at Ming. Here's Ming, looking over his shoulder to see if the rednecks are following him, or if Kyle is examining his seat post.
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Of course, we should have suspected crazy helmet-bigots were around when we noticed the lawn jockey visible from the trail. Classy. The pit bull gives it that extra touch that sort of says, "The only black man you'll see in our yard is one the dog can't eat."
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We bought a lottery ticket while we were on the ride...three. Ming noted that the pot was at 60 million, and I said it was like you always hear on the news, we were in an out of the way place, away from home. So you had to buy a ticket and win to annoy everyone in the town. Ming wasn't going to let Kyle in on the action, as that would enhance the mojo by having the one guy who didn't get in on the pot and had to sue later because he wasn't offered the opportunity, but Ming's just too polite, so we're all in on a batch of three.

After the ride, we drove back north to Winehaven Winery and Vineyard in Chisago City. Kyle had heard about them and that they'd given a bottle of honeywine (mead) to the King and Queen of Sweden...or Norway...or Denmark. Probably Sweden...they're a sister city to some Swedish town...Glutengleetonglautengloben or something, and there were Swedish flags all over the place, so that's probably a hint. They do free wine tastings Thursday through Sunday, and we sampled several, and it was good enough to buy. A lot better than the wine I bought in Arizona. I bought five bottles (and then you get one free - sort of like getting the next house warming present you have to give someone for free) of a mix of medium-dry honeywine (my favorite - they did a nice job, the honey comes through and it's not bitter), semi-sweet honeywine (dessert - very sweet, lots of honey flavor), and rhubarb (I like good rhubarb wine, it's my grandma's fault. She didn't give me a lot of hooch as a kid - but she did have an inexhaustible supply of rhubarb in the garden in Montana). I think Kyle might have gone with raspberry or cranberry, and Ming went with the honey-based wines. They weren't all fruit flavored - there were a dozen of reds and whites, some of which looked wonderful and have fancy wine awards, but the fruit and honey ones were unique, so those were what got purchased. I recommend the vineyard if you're ever up Chisago/North Branch way.