critical mass september

"What is Critical Mass?

Critical Mass is a bike ride plain and simple. The ride takes place on the Last Friday Of Every Month (in Chicago anyway). A Critical Mass is created when the group of riders comes together for those few hours to take back the streets of our city. The right of the people to assemble is guaranteed in the Constitution, and Critical Mass helps people remember that right. The Mass itself has no political agenda, though, no more than the people of any other community do. Critical Mass is open to all, and it welcomes all riders to join in a celebration of riding bicycles. Why? Because bikes are fun!


Sure, as with any community, you'll see people of all types. Some people see Critical Mass as a forum for grassroots political change. Some people see it as a protest against cars. Some people just like to ride. The Mass, however, is just that...a bunch of bike riders. You can drive a car the whole month and ride in the Mass. You can be an anarchist and ride in the Mass. The point of the Mass is the Mass, nothing more. Critical Mass has no leadership. It is a ride where no one is in charge. At any time, riders are free to leave, stay, stop, or even help out. Everyone is responsible for themselves and the Mass. Learn how to get involved!


Once you realize that, you're free to enjoy the exhilaration that is a large bike ride. It's quite a sight to be parading down Michigan Avenue with thousands of fellow riders, wishing pedestrians and drivers a "Happy Friday!"

Chicago Critical Mass is a community, yet it's also part of a worldwide Critical Mass community as a whole. Critical Mass rides take place all over the world each month, and Chicago is proud to join in to proclaim our love of bicycles. If you love bikes, and you want to show others how you feel about cycling, come join us!

For more information on the origins of Critical Mass, please see the excellent Wikipedia page on the subject.

 How did it get started?

It started in August 1992 in San Francisco when a group of bicycle commuters decided to ride home together.

 

Why is it called "Critical Mass"?

The name "Critical Mass" comes from Ted White's bike-umentary Return of the Scorcher. This video shows intersection crossing etiquette in China's big cities. Cross bike-traffic waits until it has enough riders, i.e., a critical mass, to push it's way through the intersection. "

http://chicagocriticalmass.org/about

Designed by Chris Drew, Maria Wohadlo for the September, 2010 Ride

 we sure did have some fun. believe it or not i have never ridden in a critical mass before. it was something i have always meant to do but would forget every month until it was to late. however it has been a big part of the lives of some friends of mine. some have even gotten engaged during critical mass: my friend Michelle Simon

if you guy read the article you should watch the video is really cute. i was unable to re-post it here.

well it was a blast. the same giddy feeling overtook me as it did with the naked bike ride. i have no idea how many people rode this last week.. i would say over five hundred. it was quit something.

what a really noticed was the pedestrians and the car drivers reactions. some people lit up and cheered us on. other remained numb. i wonder how these people go about their lives? something unexpected is happening to you on your friday commute home or where it is your going. and you remain numb? come on people embrace the unexpected!

i look forward to next months on october 28 for it will be a halloween ride. halloween is my favorite holiday! i adore fall. i just hope i don't have to work!

promised fairytale eggplants

in my last post i was kicking myself from not photographing the visually striking fairytale eggplant....

we all know how i am fascinated with purple food.


the other day went like this.... i have been working seven days a week for a few weeks now. true that some days its only for about 5 hours or so but still it's seven days a week. random hours too. some days i work at eight in the morning and other days i work till ten at night. to help me out and just be a sweetheart in general k has been making dinner and having it ready for my arrival home when i work late. that way we can actually spend like two hours together before we both need to go to bed instead of that time being taken up by having to make dinner and such.   

so the other night for dinner k decided we really must finish up the rest of that scrumptious tomato sauce. side note: now that its gone i miss it so so much and need five pounds of tomatoes again so i can make it asap! so he recreated the pesto stuffed tofu stakes.

when i walked in the door the house was swarming with mouth watering aromas. the tofu was sizzling in the fry pan. on the counter sat two gorgeous fairytale eggplants not yet knifed. k came up behind me and handed me a camera and told me here was my chance to photograph them for my blog. he had read the last post. he actually reads my blog!    

i think he might be a keeper

tomatoes

labor day turned into the the day of tomatoes for me.
lets begin

in the morning i was on my way to go get me hair cut. i had promises of bagels for jen. i take my bagels with hummus and slices of tomato. so i picked these three things up at the store. when i got to jen's she had a tomato in the fridge that was in more need of being consumed then the one i had brought. mine was kept jen's was eaten.

later in the day i had a late lunch with my parents before my dad had to catch a flight back to florida. my mom presented me with a huge zip lock bag of red ripe tomatoes. when asked where they were from she replied with from a friends farm.

upon arriving back to k's he opend up the fridge and showed me a giant yellow heirloom tomato the dill pickle had gifted him earlier that day.

what to do with all these tomatoes? something grand had to happen.

the next day, which also happened to be my first day back to jcys, i found the answers. after flipping thought cook books i came across summer time tomato sauce and then pest stuffed tofu steaks with summertime tomato sauce in vegan planet. it was more perfect then i could have hoped for. k had made a big batch of pesto from two basil plants on sunday while i was at work.

so the two of us lovingly spent the evening in the kitchen listening to tomatoes simmering and tofu frying along with wait wait don't tell me and sound opinions.

to add to the tofu we had picked up some fairytale eggplant that k prepared while i worked on quick boiling the tomatoes to remove their skins. the fairytale eggplant was from the dill pickle and i must say i have never seen eggplant quite like it.  i wish i had been mindful enough to photograph it for you before we chopped it up. maybe ill try to pick up some more in the coming days.

and of course we needed to add a portable mushroom to our meal.

the month of september has brought with the cripes clean air of fall and newness. the tomatoes had locked the flavor of summer deep within them. as the simmered it unlocked and released into the juices. this meal was a heartwarming way to tast the summer and say goodbye one last time.  

Garden of the Gods Two: Sound Included

so here are the the few other pics and all the videos i mentioned in my last blog post.

glen o jones lake :




view from camp ground # 9




wild turckys

ponds hallow

bell springs




little forest frogs





iron furnace

Garden of the Gods

"mama the gods made all this"
"no honey mother nature did"

after our wonderful bike trip three weeks ago (which i still need to blog about sorry!) k and i were itching to get out of dodge again. about two years ago we went to a music fest with our dear friends gtb who were playing in the cave in the rock in the shawnee national forest. i had heard of the garden of the gods but we were not able to go see it at that time.

so i decided the seven hour drive must be endured and camping was to be had. we left chicago with warnings of watch out for ticks and the locals (who by the way i found to be all quite nice, the locals not the ticks) and you must get camp site #9 at the pharaoh camp grounds (thanks zack). we didn't get #9 but were right next to it and enjoyed it's view while we drank our morning coffee.

the image above is of the sunset view from camp site #9 on the evening we arrived. 

i spent the trip living in spandex yoga pants and my chaco's seeing very few people, and loving it all.  the people we did interact with were wonderful. camping next to us was a older guy named dan from indiana. upon his departure he gifted me a jar of honey from a bee keeper friend of his. you all know how much i love local honey. it tastes of apricots and wildflowers. also there were two artist brothers with their sweet dog, maggie, and their mother. they were from right out of chicago. the younger brother, matt showed us a sketch book of his work and gifted us a drawing. they spent some time hanging by the fire with us and were really nice guys. matt brought a drum and it echoed about as he played. otherwise, there we few other people at the camp grounds the entire time we were there. we met few people on the trails we hiked except the main garden of the gods observation trail which had tons of people.

i must say the best part was the lack there of mosquito's. this is very unlike our bike trip which once again i still really need to blog about and will soon!

it was hot while we were there. we welcomed the rain that started very late our first night there and laid in the tent listening to it's song. by morning it turned into just a light drizzle and we found a misty looking forest.

this is me stumbling around early in the morning drizzle

i have a hard time sitting and relaxing. well in fact i just have a hard time relaxing and being in the moment. that's chicago mentality. my mind is always on the next task and worried about it. high paced city life, high paced jobs always worried about the next task that needs to be completed.  k, however, is from the pacific northwest and knows how to take his time, take it all in, and enjoy. the garden of the gods observation trail is only 1/4 mile long but it took us almost two hours to complete. we bouldered up rock formations and spent time sitting looking over old growth forest where a sea use to be. this is how the garden of the gods was formed, by and ancient sea that no longer exists. at first i was ancy but k insisted we sit and take our time.        

after lunch we hiked the indain point trail then took a little drive and ended up at glen o jones lake.

above is the butterfly that loved the car below is me playing with lens flare. i love lens flare.

the next day after our coffee and granola we went over to ponds hallow and hiked the beaver trail from the pond over to the ox cave. this cave was used by the pioneers as as shelter and the would heard their oxen under the ledge and built a little fence (long gone) to keep them there. this cave protected hundreds of travelers keeping them safe.   

after our hike we were very hot and sweaty and took a dip in the pond. the water was warm and you could see baby trout swimming by the shore and full grown trout jumping in the distance. we had a little bottle of dr bronners with us and washed in the pond. it felt great to get the bug repellent, sweat, and sunscreen off. my hair was light and fluffy and clean and i felt great.

we meet an older couple that was from the area and the told us all about the concert's and events that go on while we had lunch. the man cracked me up especially when he said "sodie" pop.

after lunch we sat around and read for a while then got back in the pond for some more swimming. then some more reading as we dried off.

so the shawnee forest is huge. the garden of the gods and surrounding areas are more on the east side of the forest closer to the ohio river. it is however just a small part of the forest as a whole and there are lots lots more place to explore. one of the places i wanted to see was burden falls which is the tallest waterfall in il. k obliged my interest and we drove for about 40 min to where the falls were. the state of il is very bad about clearly marking things and roads and we never found the falls. we did however have a very nice sunset hike through the bell springs recreation area. we had wished we could have hiked longer but it was getting dark and we had left the head lamp at the camp site. we did however make it to these natural bridges made up out of cliffs. they were some of the strangest rock structures i have ever seen and almost felt hallow with black moss growing on them. it was very breath taking.

     
in the evening we ate our dinner and hung by the camp fire. the moon was almost full and lighting up the sky. later that night i work up needing to pee. i have no idea what time this was as but the moon had moved and the stars were out and dancing. i woke kev up and we sat in the dark star gazing.

in the morning we went and sat on the rock at camp site #9 one last time. i sat and thought about the history of the place. they even have the trail of tear marked on the map. i wondered if everything having native america themed names was a nice jester or if was all just something else that was taken. i though about what what life was like for the native americans when they lived in these woods.

after packing up and rearranging the car we took one more quick spin on the observation trail to look once more at the amazing rock formations.

afterwords we drove over to see the iron furnace which is a stone medieval looking tower with furnace in it used to make cannon balls during the civil war. i broke out the camp stove (thanks greg) and made us breakfast/ lunch siting on the side walk while k photographed the structure with three different cameras.          

on our way out of town we swung through elizabethtown (is that where the movie with the same name was filmed? im not sure). well it was a super cute town right on the ohio river. from there you can take a free ferry to kentucky and elizabethtown is home to the historic rose hotel, which is the oldest still operating hotel in il - constructed in 1818. after a quick spin we hit the road.

around three or four we stopped in champaign urbana to grab some lunch. it turned out it was the first day of school for u of i. kids were everywhere! they all looked so young and i suddenly felt old.    

there is a lot more of the shawnee i would like to explore. the entire time i was there i would find myself saying i bet this place is amazing in the fall. also i know they do horseback riding and would like to come back in the fall and do that. i called my mom and told her she should really come with us in the fall. say replied with she's not really the camping type but i think she would find it quite beautiful.  i saw places that had cabins and a few lodges and maybe ill talk her into it!

i have a few more photos and some video's that i would like to share. however the are on another camera and it's in a different location then i am right now. that's what happens when you live in two different houses and have two jobs. stuff ends up in different places then where you want it to be! i hope to be posting those soon so please keep a look out!

thanks for reading for i like to share with you.