Wikle Family Circles North Shore of Lake Superior

Laura and I have been wanting to circle the north shore of Lake Superior with the kids for a couple of summers. I’ve been making trips to the Canadian north shore once a summer for almost five years. I’ve been fortunate to have so much flexibility to see a lot of the shore from a sea kayak. The drive is nothing short of spectacular. It was great to see Sleeping Giant Provincial Park from the land, and to see Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota. This is a great family trip. We camped a few days and then stayed in hotels a few. The kids can get out and do short hikes to waterfalls, amethyst mines, and all sorts of accessible natural beauty.

We drove along highway 17, through Ontario, stopping in Wawa, Neys, Thunderbay, and Duluth before heading down to Devil’s Lake to see Jessica, and Matt Flowers, (Laura’s youngest sister). We went to Noah’s Ark water park, and did some local paddling with Derrick Mayoleth and family. We also went to Madison for a day and witnessed the awesome spectacle of the Taste of Madison.

Other than hurricane force winds at the Greenland Symposium in Wawa, a little bit of rain here and there, my mortal fear of heights and concerns for my children while climbing the peaks at Devils Lake, this was an awesome vacation.

Our kids Gabriel and Isabella both said that this was by far their favorite vacation.

I am going to let the pictures do the talking now:

Sick of looking like a cycling dork?

Try one of these bad boys for girls out. Yakkay Brainwear for Smart People Helmets and helmet covers.

I have a hard time getting my wife Laura to wear her bicycle helmet. She is unfortunately stricken with a strange affliction I was clearly inoculated against. She is image-conscious and fashionable. So therefore getting her to put the brain pan on before going for a ride seems to be an uphill battle, if not impossible. So when I spotted the Yakkay Helmets on Boing Boing this morning, I said Eureka!!!

As a cycle commuter and also a cycling enthusiast, I often don’t care what I wear, how I look, or worse (for those around me) how I smell. So while I think image is frivolous in comparison to say weight, durability, and function, I recognize that not everyone feels that way.

Also check out the fit video. (Psst marketing director of Yakkay let me give you the best advice of the year post this on you tube!!!). I’ll take my SEO/M consulting check now thank you.

We’ve been fortunate to have a series of good live shows come through the Detroit area in the suburb of Pontiac over the last few months. My parents still live in Clarkston, so we manage to coordinate a visit and seeing a show in the same weekend. I’d been waiting to take both kids to an outdoor show somewhere like Pine Knob or Meadowbrook where they could stretch their legs and wander off within a greater margin of safety, but these shows don’t seem to happen. So I made the call to let Gabriel our eleven year old come to these two shows.

Last month we saw The New Pornographers and Okkervil River at the Crofoot Ballroom. And this weekend we saw the National. Both shows were excellent, but for the first time we decided to take our eleven year old son to the shows. The Crofoot is not a kid friendly venue. It is a nightclub. Plain and simple. Smoky, crowded and with a full bar.

My parenting instincts were plainly in conflict with one another through the whole experience. The two sides of parenting, are protect/expose. And this is a constant battle from the day you have a child. Gabriel, our eleven year old son has been curious about music since he was small. He is now playing the saxophone at school and keeps talking about starting a band, (which I would encourage).

I keep imagining myself at his age, and wishing I could have seen some of the bands that were coming to Detroit in the early 1980s. I mean how cool would it have been to see U2 in a club when you were eleven years old? Or maybe the Clash, Elvis Costello, or the Smiths? Granted I saw some pretty out of control shows when I was in High School and College, Fugazi, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, The Jesus Lizard, that I don’t think I would take Gabriel to see any of those shows considering the content, or the danger of the crowd.

All three of these bands were of the fairly tame and upbeat variety, but still very good music with a very low probability of riot or crowd dissent. (Nevermind that I witnessed a fistfight at a Camera Obscura show in Kalamazoo). The club is pretty new and is pretty low occupancy. Gabriel was pretty typical as a kid, he came in, explored, got bored for a bit, when the music starts he stays focused for a bit, then becomes unfocused, then refocuses. And then it’s time to go. People are smoking, using inappropriate language, drinking, and generally having a good time. But it is not meant for kids really. Except that my kid knows who the bands are and can sing along to the music.

Certainly I don’t think my son is going to become a drug addled rock star because I took him to see a punk rock band twice when he was eleven. Nor do I think he will become a musical genius just from seeing a few shows. I also don’t believe I will become the cool dad for taking him to a show. Trust me when I am coercing him to stick nearby in a crowded club he is rolling his eyes at me already.

But I do hope he will see that his parents who aren’t going out and getting loaded at the show, are getting excited about music, are engaged, and present in the moment. That just because you’re old, (34 is old to an eleven year old), doesn’t mean you shrivel up and die.

I’ve noticed some fellow parents give me an odd look when we tell them we took our kid to a New Pornographers show. Granted they had never heard of them before, and assumed it was naked women with guitars. I guess I am not sure what the right decision is either. I certainly felt on edge at both shows, and I had to make sure Gabe was nearby before I could really feel I was having a good time. And I had to keep watching him to make sure he was sticking with the show. And for the most part he did. He also seemed to take cues from me. When the National played Abel, (my favorite tune by The National) I sang along, clapped and hooted, and Gabriel seeing my enthusiasm, cut loose a little too.

Gabe had a unique opportunity to meet Okkervil River due to our position sidestage. The band as a support act had to load their own equipment. Gabriel being eleven walked right up and started talking to the band without fear of being uncool, or their rejection, and luckily the band, not used to seeing an eleven year old at a show warmed to him. The drummer gave him a drumstick and had his photograph taken with him. He still has the drumstick and he whips it out as a cool factor whenever he feels cheeky. Also Neko Case winked at Gabe during the show!

Okkervil River and The New Pornographers were really excellent, good tight live shows. The National was a really awesome show, great sound, great band. They played nonstop for almost two hours. They dedicated another fan favorite to Barack Obama, Mr. November

I have tickets to see Wolf Parade at the beginning of July. That show may be less tame than the last two, and I may have to make a judgment call that Gabriel won’t like. But it may be what is right for him now.

Inguinal Hernia Surgery Tomorrow

Tomorrow I face the surgeons knife. Hopefully this will lead to a short road to recovery. I know in my heart it will be longer than I’d like. But I hope to be out kayak surfing some time in early June.

I will most likely be doing a lot more strength training before I begin serious running/cycling again.

Wish me luck!

Ten years ago today, Laura and I were married. It was the warmest day on record for February in Michigan. I like to think the sun defeated winter for us, and whether by happy accident or twist of fate that sunshine in winter (I try not to think of it as global warming) has been our blessing. For all who have witnessed it, it is a hot intemperate love that riots against the season, against all advice and counsel, against all rational thought, and one that can both repel with it’s heat, and pull you in with its gravity. Because of this giant ball of gas, (my wife can attest to this) it will burn immemorial, perhaps not as a lesson to others as the best way, but it is our way; to be both wild and constant in the face of adversity.

My love for Laura in this leap year can now have its day twice in a row in California.

When we were married, we had no money, no place to live, and a young son. Some folks start out with a lot less, we had good family and much support in those early years, so in some ways, this day is as much for them as it is for us. Hopefully we can give back in the years to come while we have more in the material wealth and youth.

For Laura, (my laura not Petrarch’s Laura)

Petrarch

O blessed Sun! that sole sweet leaf I love,
First loved by thee, in its fair seat, alone,
Bloometh without a peer, since from above
To Adam first our shining ill was shown.
Pause we to look on her! Although to stay
Thy course I pray thee, yet thy beams retire;
Their shades the mountains fling, and parting day
Parts me from all I most on earth desire.
The shadows from yon gentle heights that fall,
Where sparkles my sweet fire, where brightly grew
That stately laurel from a sucker small,
Increasing, as I speak, hide from my view
The beauteous landscape and the blessed scene,
Where dwells my true heart with its only queen.

A good friend of mine told me yesterday that after six months of being seizure free with epilepsy he had another seizure. Essentially revoking his license to drive, his freedom, and his ability to paddle. This really wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t already been through this cycle once before.

No one wants to hear the caged bird squawk. It is unpleasant, they sound like dusty old flatulence. However if I squawk for him he seems like a noble, injured creature deserving of our encouragement.

So with this in mind, I give you D. H. Lawrence:

Self Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

I hope he is on the mend soon, and out on the water.

Embrace Your Inner Nerd

For a couple of years, Gabriel and I have played strategy games. We started with chess and Risk. We then tried DND minis, Heroscape. DND minis is a fine game with a long history dating back to the first TSR wargame Chainmail. Warhammer’s been around since I was in junior high. It started as a fantasy wargame with metal minitiatures. The Warhammer franchise has grown quite a bit and hit its zenith with branding when their Lord of the Rings minis hit the shelves around 2000.

I think we may have hit our sweet spot with Warhammer 40,000. Unlike the other wargames, Warhammer is sort of a total package. Games Workshop sells unpainted metal and plastic miniatures. You do the rest. So far I’ve only got one set of troops and it took me 3 weeks to paint them. But time would virtually disappear when I was painting. Gabriel took decidedly less time, he’s only 11. It’s a lot more fun than I imagined before I started. The game itself is a gas, with more intricacy and nuance than DnD minis.

The army building and selection is a time intensive and laborious process that is not a trivial undertaking. The miniatures are more expensive and the preparation and care taken in painting the models is as deep as you want to go. I felt I did a pretty good job painting my first set. I will have to take some macro shots and post them soon.

I chose the Eldar as my army. I have to be honest I chose them purely on aesthetics. There are more powerful armies that are more aggressive with more straightforward tactical advantage. The Eldar tend to have more advantage defensively, at distance, or in hit and run tactics than straight on hand to hand combat.

Gabriel chose the Tyranids. The Tyranids rely on being able to close to hand to hand range and their typically superior numbers.

So far it’s been a good father son activity. He is learning to take his time on his painting, to pay attention to detail, and to see how a lot of hard work can pay off with a very cool looking miniature.

Note all shots from this post are from Games Workshop.

I’ve had these on a hard drive for ages, and they are a bunch of what I think of as great photos of the family and our honeymoon trip to Ireland.

Enjoy

In 2004 Hollywood actor and uber boy toy Ewan (pronounced you-an) MacGregor otherwise known to the general public as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his fellow actor and best mate Charlie Boorman set upon riding around the world by Motorcycle. While I generally think motorized transport is for pansies, the idea of a cross continental journey on the back of bike struck me as an evocative idea. My father recommended this movie to me ages ago and I just never got around to it.

Ewan and Charlie share a lifelong passion with motorcycles something I at least understand a little. They decided they would ride all the way from the UK through western Europe, (France, Belgium Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia,) to the Ukraine, through a little bit of Russia almost all the way through Kazahkstan, through another little part of Russia again, and then into Mongolia, and then back into Russia again along the Road of Bones, and then over to North America by plane, down through Alaska, into Canada and then down through Montana, the Dakotas to New York, in total some 20,000 miles.

The beginning of the journey is the most difficult to watch. Ewan and Charlie attempt to get sponsored by an Austrian Motorbike company called KTM. KTM sends out a consultant who informs them that the Road of Bones section in Siberia may defeat them. KTM renegs on their offer of sponsorship and the pair are pretty despondent. Ewan thankfully confesses a little sheepishly that maybe they are behaving like petulant asses. He admits that expecting to receive free motorbikes for a trip they want to do is a little silly. Who else would expect this kind of treatment. In fact though it wasn’t mentioned, the KTM consultant did part of the trip on a bike he paid for himself.

I thought about this in terms of the sea kayaking world. I think sponsorship is a great thing. But if you wouldn’t be willing to do the trip on your own without a free kayak or free gear, did you really want to do it anyway? Granted if you could get a free kayak/motorcycle that would help with your trip why wouldn’t you? But should you expect anything? That’s another story.

I found it amusing, but not surprising that the high spirits and the exuberance lasted as long as the tarmac did. Ewan and Charlie became quite despondent when the road turned to trail. The struggle to remain on two wheels was pretty epic. Everytime one of the BMW bikes went over, everybody had to pitch in and help the rider get up again. Due to the extreme weight of the bike lifting it solo appeared to be impossible.

Once Charlie and Ewan made it to Mongolia the real pain began. But so did the beauty. It seemed they were surrounded by endless plains, prairie, mountains, and river valleys. The Mongolians they encountered seemed genuinely curious and interested in the pair. I kept wondering if a bike tour would be crazy in that area of the world. Jon Turk and his daughter passed through part of Mongolia on their Altai tour. On their blog, I read a lot about pushing bikes and running out of water. Our erstwhile hollywood stars had a support vehicle that the hardy Jon Turk could not afford. I know it’s not apples to apples here, but it just furthers a deep, deeeeep respect for Jon Turk.

The ups and downs of long trips can be like drug addiction, the ups are so up you become giddy, and the downs are so low you become almost suicidal. Separated from home and family for months on end, hardship and suffering are not passing moments, but a daily reality. The only thing that keeps you going is the tunnel vision of the finish line, and your friends. Certainly many people will never understand this. When I saw Charlie and Ewan hit tarmac after 600 miles of hard off-road riding in Mongolia and they actually laid down and kissed it, I completely got it. Having paddled into 20 knot headwinds for three days while towing a paddler between islands has left me with an appreciation for the sudden twist of fate that puts the wind at your back. When you coast for 20 miles with a twenty knot tailwind you know what it is to see God after feeling forsaken.

Ultimatley Charlie and Ewan toughened up quite a bit and when the riding became ludicrously hard, they just focused on minigoals, and began to laugh at how silly they were for imagining they could fly through the miles and miles of offroad riding.

I am not a celebrity worshiper by a long shot, but I do respect folks who achieve something tangible. For the riding through Asia and Russia’s Road of Bones I salute the Long Way Round. It seems I am also on the cusp of something monumental too. When I can say more I will. You only live once, you may as well chase the dream right.

My father called me yesterday. We chatted about his soccer games and the wonderful kayak video Wesley posted about. He asked me a strange question in a hesitating demeanor quite unlike him. It’s a familial trait, where if you have something to say, your mouth just opens and words tumble out without any forethought for what the other person might hear.

He asked me if (in my High school days when I was a manically expressive teenager who was confronted and often bullied), I thought of seeking some sort of violent reprisal in the way Harris and Klebold from Columbine, and Cho Seung-Hui did.

I can say honestly that I didn’t. In some cases I can’t even remember the names or the faces of the kids who bullied me. Funny how time fades all things. I do remember the kids I pushed around, and twinge at the edge of sleep some nights unable to forgive myself for what I might have said or done. When I think about how it made them feel, I feel small. No one is invincible from the socialization machine that is public school. I really wish I had the money to send Gabriel and Isabella somewhere else. But such is life, my parents didn’t want to send me either.

I had too many doors open to me, two well educated parents who are married and in love, solidly if not overly middle-class. I had theatre, writing, soccer, sailing, music, and lots of friends to carry me along. Even when things looked especially bleak, I always knew there was something good around the corner. This may reveal my inner optimist, but I never got the darkening tunnel vision that I imagine Harris, Klebold and Cho Seung-Hui might have experienced. A world without options is a dark place. I never went to that place. I could always see a sunny green pitch with a round ball rolling over it even when things especially seemed bleak. I can’t speak for anyone else, I just know why I was able to see my way out.

The literary model in my brain wants to say that these young men are part of a culture of affluent waste. For the most part they are part of a world where there is too much to choose from, and therefore so much to be disappointed with. Too much to not have. Either a pretty girl, a flashy car, or whatever and when their efforts fail to deliver the life they seem entitled to, they want to burn it all down. A sort of Post-modern viking mentality. When Norway became very crowded in the 8th century and all the tribal chieftans started to unify under Harald of Norway. Life got very limited for young men in Norway. They began to build ships and branch out into bullying the rest of the North Atlantic into giving them (what I am sure they saw) as their due. And if they liked the looks of the place they might stick around, (Orkney, Dublin, Iceland, Greenland). Maybe we need to start some Outward Bound programs for young men where they build viking ships. I would totally sign up!

The Joy Division song that comes to mind, is Atmosphere. If there is a possibility of dialog with a young man in that dark place; this song speaks to it, eerily from the grave of Ian Curtis. Someone needed to open a door for them to let a little light in.

Sometimes I see these young men like giant pieces of fragile ice
stuck somewhere halfway between falling in the sea, and hanging on to Antarctica. The sun eventually just melts them down and they fall into the sea. If we are lucky they do not collide with us, if we are unlucky, they sink us all.

Atmosphere

Walk in silence,
Dont walk away, in silence.
See the danger,
Always danger,
Endless talking,
Life rebuilding,
Dont walk away.

Walk in silence,
Dont turn away, in silence.
Your confusion,
My illusion,
Worn like a mask of self-hate,
Confronts and then dies.
Dont walk away.

People like you find it easy,
Naked to see,
Walking on air.
Hunting by the rivers,
Through the streets,
Every corner abandoned too soon,
Set down with due care.
Dont walk away in silence,
Dont walk away.