View allAll Photos Tagged bridgingthegap
After getting into Detroit Lakes around 2am, Jon [with a little help from Amtrak customers waiting in the little station house] put the 2 trikes back together, finishing between 5 and 6am.
Yes, trikes WILL tip over. WITH all the weight in the panniers, and the Walmart stuff sack on top of that, the trikes were a little top heavy [as Earline found out when trying to turn around on an inclined side road!].
One of the first MRT signs we saw. Guess we are on the right trail! [The Great River Road was in the development stage as far back as President Roosevelt, and is for motorized traffic, but often would be the same route as the MRT.]
The road to Lake Itasca from Detroit Lakes was a little more desolate than we had imagined! [And not having yet learned to reserve power, our phones [think GPS] died, no stores, no phones to call and verify where we were...interesting day!] Total distance traveled - about 70 miles. We arrived at Camp Itasca just AFTER sunset - out of food, out of water, and wondering if we were EVER going to get there! [almost 10pm].
We also didn't realize until Tuesday night that all the while Earline's weighed down pannier rack was actually rubbing slightly on her back tire, which didn't ease matters. But we MADE it, and we were grateful. [I did tell Earline, however, that this mileage didn't count...oops!]
A nice little climb up from the headwaters area....by this point we had actually already crossed 4 bridges over the Mississippi River, and our Mission POSSIBLE Tour didn't officially start until the next day, Tuesday, June 1st. [Photos of ALL the bridges we crossed over the MR can be seen on our blog, as well as on a special section of the Mission POSSIBLE DVD that will soon be available on the GHA web site.]
Seeing this bridge for a couple miles before we had to cross it made it a little more nerve-wracking, I think. This was right during afternoon rush hour, and really the first large bridge we crossed that did NOT have a separated cycling lane with barricades or partitions between us and the traffic. Plus, a little older bridge, maybe a little creakier, and little more unstable....oh-oh....the imagination takes control!
Impressive looking bridge, and with a MUCH wider shoulder, Earline was not nearly as apprehensive on this one as she was on some of the other ones. Didn't need a police escort for this one!
A cool but sunny day, it was good thing that convenience store was there by the train station, because it was the LAST store we saw all day! Later in the trip we weighed our gear: Jon had almost 100 lbs of gear [tent, air mattress, clothes (AND Earline's books)], and Earline had almost 50 lbs [sleeping bags, clothes, clothes, and, did I say, clothes?] [In a few weeks she sent a big bag home!]
The I.C.E. trikes handled the weight MOST excellently, however. Not only was maneuverability not adversely affected, but propulsion - our ability to MOVE this weight down the road - was BARELY impacted by all the weight. We were VERY pleased with the quality of these trikes. And, of course, the fold-a-bility of the I.C.E. trikes made it possible to even get them to Northern MN in the first place!
Built in 1977, the New River Gorge Bridge held some records for quite a while, such as longest single-span arch bridge, and worlds highest bridge carrying a regular roadway. Of course eventually those titles were overtaken by other bridge projects, but it's still a mighty feat of engineering which made traveling in the area a much easier task, both in the past and in current day.
Hope I put these trikes together correctly! There was a convenience store/gas station just across the tracks that had just opened up the previous week, so we were able to stock up on food supplies and water.
SDOT worked with the Beacon Hill neighborhood to develop a plan to improve the walking and biking environment on 15th Ave S. As part of this process we learned that the community was also interested in traffic calming and all-day on-street parking.
These changes were implemented in September, 2010. This project is funded by the “Bridging the Gap” transportation levy approved by Seattle voters in 2006.
More info at www.seattle.gov/transportation/15th_south.htm
In St. Paul, Minnesota, this is Lock & Dam #1 on the Mississippi River, built to help control the potential annual flooding from all the snow melt each year.
Beautiful, albeit wet gardens in St. Cloud, MN. At this point, 2 weeks into the tour, we were starting to develop consistent strategies for packing our gear [AND protecting our things from the rain]. A HUGE thank-you to David and his wife from Jandd Mountaineering in San Diego for their gracious and THOUGHTFUL gift of waterproof pannier sacks - they worked GREAT! Find them at www.jandd.com [And the Old Navy plastic bags covering our side bags worked pretty good, too!]
Have a great day....dear friends!! :-)
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Philippe Crist, Economist, ITF questions the panel during the side event "National Urban Transport Policy: Enabling More Sustainable Development in a Changing World”, organised by ITDP, UITP, GIZ and Bridging the Gap initiative as part of 2014 Annual Summit of the International Transport Forum “Transport for a Changing World”, in Leipzig, Germany, on 23 May 2014.
This was the first bridge where we called the local police department about 30 minutes ahead of time, and told them we would like a police escort over the bridge. As you can see there is no pedestrian or bikeway path, or even a shoulder along either traffic lane.
In all four instances [well, maybe three!] that we called ahead, the local police were very cordial and helpful in guiding us across the bridges. [Plus the oncoming traffic was VERY curious as to who we were, or what kind of celebrity we might be....so we smiled and waved!]
There is a very good, and well-maintained system of bike [trike!] trails in the Twin Cities area. This is the trail approaching Lock & Dam #2.
This is a pretty bridge, and one of the first built over the Mississippi River. It is now just a recreational bridge for cyclists and joggers.
Of the 10 states we went through, we did more mileage in Minnesota than in any other state, so after Minnesota [with a little bit of Wisconsin thrown in the middle] it WAS exciting to finally cross over into another new state [especially because this was the state Jon was raised in].
Today's event, called Lights on Afterschool, served to shed light on the
importance of after school programs. Creating our own narrative, our
varsity team played along side of NYPD's finest, Assemblyman Goldfeder and
bridged a gap. The surrounding community was in full attendance for an
evening filled with dances, smiles and a phenomenal basketball game.
We had a photobooth, cotton candy and hot dog machines, a basketball bouncy
house and performances from our chorus and dance teams.
All of this - to help stop the violence because all lives matter and
instead of making this an "us versus them" thing, we united and showed our
youth the right way.
#lightsonafterschool
#alllivesmatter
#unity
#bridgingthegap
#youthdevelopment
After leaving Perryville, we had one of those days, when it was too wet NOT to have rain gear on, but way too hot to leave it on if it STOPPED raining.....HA!
Notice that there is no shoulder here, but traffic for the most part was light, our yellow bags were very visible, our recumbents were a curiosity to many [and we had many curious on-lookers as a result], and the full-sized Slow Moving Vehicle sign was familiar to drivers in this rural, agricultural area. As a result, even with no shoulder, there were very few times over the course of the entire summer that traffic was a concern for us.
We started this journey by boxed each trike in its own box, and shipped them via Amtrak from Orlando, where we live. We had to ship them "freight" because with the box they were over the 50 lb limit. Read the very interesting story on the blog of how we got the trikes from Minneapolis to Detroit Lakes, which is NOT a manned, freight station!
Don't really know what these big tubes are for, but there is a lot of industry all the way along the river, and there are a LOT of goods that move up and down the river every day. This is a part of Dubuque down by the MR that we had to go through in order to get to the Julien Dubuque bridge.
This is the first bridge over the Mississippi River that we crossed on Day 1, after passing over this "tiny creek" 3 times yesterday when visiting the Headwaters in Lake Itasca State Park. Looks like the guys canoeing down there got stuck!
Pretty, but wet. There was a nice tourist reception area in a refurbished train car at the start of the northern end of the trail in Savannah, Illinois, but there was some confusion as to whether the trail was finished or not. [We later ran into some dump truck loads of dirt on the trail that tried to block our way....but what to do? We went around them!] See Day 37 of our blog at www.wifipedalers.com .
Some of these bluffs were a real bear to climb, but the views of the MR valley from top of the ridges were jaw-dropping spectacular. [Notice, again, no shoulder here, but the traffic was very light between these small towns in Northeast Iowa.]
More rural roads and hills...we had actually camped overnight in a farmer's yard just before this hill when we got a flat tire as the sun was approaching sunset. No one was home, so we left a note on their door, and a few days later we got a call from them, saying they were sorry they had missed us! [And yes, that little speck in the road way up ahead is Earline!]
Just as the heavens opened and it started to pour, I noticed a little picnic shelter just off to the right. We dashed in there, and Earline sang praises to God while we waited. You can just barely make out the MR through the trees on the upper right. And with all the rain that we had experienced so far along the MR Valley, the river is high, and the current is fast. While in the shelter we saw a barge going down river, and he was booking!
And this was a problem. With the barricade on the left, fairly heavy and fast traffic, and the rumble grooves in the middle of the 4-foot shoulder, we had no place to ride. We tried going really fast, with the center wheel on the grooves, which kinda worked, but was hard on the trikes. So slow and creeping was the best alternative. This would NOT be a problem, really, for BIKES, but for our trikes, this 10-mile stretch north of Galena, Illinois was VERY unpleasant, and dangerous.
[P.S. An idea for some aspiring road construction engineer....if the grooves were only half as wide, they would still effectively wake up intruding vehicles AND WE would be able to straddle the grooves between the front and rear tires. Might be a little LESS expensive also if the grooves were not cut as wide. Food for thought.]
The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, presents members of the 9th Commando Kandak with an award at the Commando camp in Herat province Dec. 26. The Commandant presented the Kandak with a commemorative Kabar fighting knife in memory of lives lost in battle. He also expressed his appreciation of the excellent work they are doing alongside Marines, sailors and Soldiers defending their country from the activities of the insurgents. (U.S. Marine photo/Sgt. Brian Kester)
As we left our Balltown campsite on our way to Dubuque, we were treated to more spectacular views of the surrounding area with the Mississippi River in the distance.
"You have reached the southernmost point in Louisiana." That's what the sign says. The sun had already gone down, and I wasn't able to get a really clear picture - but it is the thought that counts....over 2,200 miles! We DID it! Yea!
Project area:
The south side of SW Cloverdale Street between 8th Avenue Southwest and 9th Avenue Southwest
Project elements
● Building a new sidewalk (with planter strip in some locations)
● Installing ADA compliant wheelchair ramps
● Constructing new landings at all four corners of SW Cloverdale St and 9th Avenue SW
● Rebuilding portions of some driveways to smoothly connect to the new sidewalks
● Relocating the marked crosswalk at 9th Avenue SW and SW Cloverdale St to the south side of the street
● Planting trees and grass where possible
● Artwork will be embedded in the new sidewalk
Lake Pepin is a naturally occurring wide place in the river, and we were camped in a little town park in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, right on the edge of the water. A tremendous lightning storm hit around 2am, and it finally let up just after sunrise. See Day 23 at www.wifipedalers.com .
A little bit of a shoulder here, on the road between Nauvoo and Hamilton which was really pretty and RIGHT along the river. There usually is a fair amount of debris [rocks, sticks, cans, garbage. etc.], however, on many of these roads, and we really couldn't ride out to the edge of the shoulder because of it.
This bridge creaked and groaned and swayed as we went over, rumbling from all the rush hour traffic. Earline was scared to tears, but you wouldn't know it from this picture. Check out the web site photo where she actually STANDS UP on this bridge (HER idea), as a semi truck goes by!
This barge is really a continuation of the previous photo....the trail on top of the levee went UNDER the auger carrying grain from the elevators on our right to this barge on our left. They were loading the back end first, and notice how much lower that end is sitting in the water.
This is the flat plain leading west to the Mississippi River and Nauvoo, Illinois. This is where the Mormans had settled before they eventually moved to Utah. This is also close to the location where Joseph Smith lost his life.
Not well maintained, and unmarked.....just for fun! Quite a bit of debris, and the trail would often be right beside a busy road, so it wasn't much different from being on a wide shoulder. The biggest challenge was not having it marked....I understand that they say for legal and litigious reasons the state of Illinois was the only state that did not have MRT signs. And since the route sometimes was a separated trail, sometimes it followed side roads, sometimes it....well, it was just very hard to follow.
There were A FEW Great Illinois bike trail signs, but there were often missing, and unreliable. [Just keep the River on your left, the River on your left.....WAIT - your other left! Keep the river on your Right, the river on your Right!] Thankfully some biking locals helped guide us through the Quad Cities over the Government Bridge. They were great!