Late Winter Mid-Michigan Style. . .

Loading up the trusty Outback for some afternoon fun after a morning of meetings and student paper grading in the run up to Spring Break next week.

I had the wooded trails all to myself during the early afternoon today.

Not a sound except for the quiet schuss-schuss-schuss of my skis and the occasional creaking tree limb.

The second time around was a bit faster as I retraced my tracks but in reverse.

My 90-minute jaunt went by all too quickly, but not before I snapped an obligatory shot of the 19-year old Norwegian skis that I purchased in December 1999 at the G-Sport in downtown Trondheim, Norway.

I learned to cross-country ski the winter I was 33 while studying and conducting research on 19th century women dialect authors in Trondheim, Norway at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the one time University of Trondheim. It was a snowy winter that year, and the network of groomed and lighted municipal trails surrounding the city was extensive. I was able to ski (clumsily given my beginner status), for example, from my front door in Steinan student village on the outskirts of the city up into the woods in just about 10 minutes.

It was the perfect way to figure out the classic diagonal stride for propelling oneself along although I later did make sure to take one formal lesson that winter -- A grueling hour with a small, blue-eyed, blond instructor named 'Hans.' -- while visiting a large skiing resort at Geilo in southern Norway for a weekend of conference that February with the other Fulbright fellows in the country during the 1999-2000 academic year.

Oh, and Hans and I managed to keep the entire lesson in Norwegian too, thank you very much.

Wednesday afternoon, I once again indulged and strapped on the skis for an hour and a half or so of solo fun in the Michigan woods. As a result, I was more relaxed than I have been since the last outing on skis at the start of the month. And also very tired but in the best of ways. Funny how some plain old physical exercise will clear the head and lead to that feeling of contentment.

The Grand Duchess brought home Thai food for dinner yesterday evening, and the Young Master had a good day at school. Continued cold and some more light snow throughout the next several days. All is right in my small corner of the world.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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