September 2 was my first full day in Iceland, and as detailed in my last post, it began with picking up a rented bicycle.  Once I rode back to the apartment I’d stayed overnight in, I packed up my things, including trying to compensate for the broken zippers on my luggage.  I loaded the panniers … Read more

I arrived in Iceland in the late evening, not long before midnight local time.  The international airport is not in Reykjavik, but about 30 miles southwest, in the city of Keflavik.  I had no trouble entering the country – the officer at Passport Control just looked at my passport, looked at me, stamped it and … Read more

In September, I went on my very first overseas trip.  I had left the US many times before this year, but always on trips to Canada.  In this case, I headed off for a 2-week vacation to Iceland and England. The motivation for this trip was an event announced back in March.  Kate Bush, one … Read more

This past summer I attended a Hadley Select Board meeting.  As the meeting had high attendance, I could not park around Town Hall, but had to park a ways away and walk back across the road to get to the meeting.  Later in the evening, when I had left the meeting and was waiting for … Read more

I have posted each of the past few years as we got blooms on our night-blooming sirius plants.  For each of 2011, 2012, and 2013, we had exactly one bloom.  This year, we had 2 flowers growing in late July.  Even though we have 2 separate plants now (having divided the original plant in the … Read more

On April 12 of this year, I went to the town of Clinton, MA for a “Golden Spike” event where updates were provided on the Massachusetts Central Rail Trail (MCRT).  Presentations were given on each section of the trail, what had been done so far in terms of planning or construction, and what would be … Read more

The title of the post refers to the blog itself. I’ve gone a year without posting anything, but there are several set of pictures and some travels that I want to post, and I thought that would dovetail nicely with National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), which is the month of November. I wanted to start … Read more

So, as promised, here is the full write-up on my 100-mile (actually more like 105-mile) bike ride for the Food Bank of Western Mass. Will Bike 4 Food took place just over a week ago, and I showed up bright and early.  I arrived at the Food Bank’s headquarters in Hatfield at 6:30am.  It took … Read more

Before I do my long post recapping the Food Bank ride, I have one more post about a training ride.  This one is also an organized ride, though – as I did the 2013 NCC Bikefest the weekend before the Food Bank event. As I did last year, I registered to do the 72-mile route … Read more

For some reason, this entry could not be posted when I was at the Food Bank, so I’m posting it from home. I did finish the ride, but it took 12 hours, which is considerably longer than my time of 10.5 hours from 2 years ago.  More detail on the ride will be in a … Read more