Microblog

Cycled to the grocery store. I’m still figuring out the best balance of distance, aesthetics, and safety.

It still feels like a new experience to have a family meal in a restaurant and our young nephews haven’t trashed the place. Axel’s Bonfire, Blaine, Minnesota. They grow up fast.

Walked to Orchestra Hall.

Paused behind this sculpture in a Minneapolis park. A frieze depicts Father Hennepin’s first contact with the indigenous people. Above this scene, the Norwegian sculptor represents the arrival of pioneers. The displacement of the Dakota people is invisible.

Posted Travel Gear: Carry-On Backpack.

A cool breeze blew off Bde Maka Ska, creating a significant temperature drop as we cycled by. Today is the latest I have seen ice on this lake.

Wild spring onions, nettles, fiddlehead ferns, morels, spruce tips, ramps, the language of springtime. Tonight I’ll make morel risotto.

A friend flew in unexpectedly. Over beer we revelled in common experiences, New Zealand, India, Japan, Australia, making the workplace work, Heinekin at Schiphol, openness to opportunities to be in other worlds.

Lifted my bike off its rack, third day in a row.

Enjoyed a mid-morning coffee at the University of Minnesota. The steel balls under the glass tabletop once crushed taconite into fine sand. Huge magnets then separated out high-grade ore. The process, developed at the U of M, established Minnesota’s Iron Range.

Cycled across a roiling Mississippi.

Bonus post: depiction of airport congestion, AMS, Amsterdam Schiphol.

Au revoir Hadrian’s Wall, airside at NCL, Newcastle upon Tyne. Today: NCL-AMS-MSP.

My brother walked with me for the last few miles to the end of the Hadrian’s (Roman) Wall Path at Wallsend. The signs in the Wallsend metro station are in English and Latin

View from my Wylam room. After walking 18 miles today, I’m too tired to cross the road.

Posted Snapshots: Hadrian’s Wall Path.