Sunday May 5th 2013 Ride on the Hennepin Feeder Canal

It was such a beautiful day that we decided to take a ride, we planned to ride down to where the pipeline crosses the canal, which is about 6 1/2  miles from the Guard Lock at the Rock River, I also decided to check the mile marker posts for accuracy, as we progressed they were further and further off. First some background information. My neighbor Ed Kobbeman made these marker points many year ago, when he and his group volunteered taking care of the canal. They mowed, trimmed, pulled trees out of the canal, kept the path clear and more. Ed took small plastic buckets and filled them with concrete and added brass house #'s to show the distance from the Guard Lock. They went out with a distance wheel and walked from the Rock River to Buell Road, marking off the distance and then digging a hole and setting the marker post he had made into the ground. That was about 30 years ago, and they are still there. My hat is off to them, they did a wonderful job with what they had.

Here is Mile Marker 0.0

When I checked I found the markers are off a bit, I have now checked them twice and am satisfied how far they are off, such is the accuracy of GPS, so I plan to move these markers to a more accurate position in time.

 This is what the Canal needs VOLUNTEERS, the state doesn't have the manpower or the money, Ed and his group provided the equipment, fuel, and supplies out of their own pocket. No reimbursement from the state was expected. They all fully retired many years ago, Ed is now 95 and still very active taking care of his own property, mowing his yard, trimming his trees, and splitting wood. But he doesn't do the canal any more. 

So we need to convince the state that a new group of volunteers is ready to help.Along these lines, there was a tree limb hanging in the middle of the path just south of the Interstate 88 Bridges, 

So I decided to trim it back as best I could ,I hung my lopping shears on the handle bars and rode down to it and cut back as high as i could reach and cut the largest portion of the limb as I could with my shears.

I was afraid that someone might run into the stub ends, so I marked them with florescent paint and hung an old T-Shirt I found laying on the path, plus a pile of sticks under the lowest limb.

My little part in volunteering.

Back to today's ride, just south of Buell Road I saw this group of 9 Soft Shell turtles sunning themselves on one log.Only the smaller ones slid off the log when I made a sound, the bigger older ones, with more experience, felt safe I guess, and continued their sunning.

We rode to our turn around point and started back, when we got back to Buell Road, we stopped for a drink of water, while we were there, a couple rode up on Collapsible Bikes, we got to talking and found out that they were from Chicago and were on their way back from Kansas and had flown into the Whiteside Co. Airport and they said they had seen the canal from the air and as they like to do, stopped and rode over to the canal path to ride, they carry the collapsible bikes with them for just such occasions, I gave them a map of the canal and a little background about the path Sonia and Don, I hope you enjoyed your ride, and will come back again to ride some more. And me who always carries a camera, didn't take their picture, Duhh, so here is their picture off Sonia's card.

It was a beautiful day for a ride!

Here is the Garmin report from today  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/308321746