Some More Summer Photos

Not far from Valentine is Smith Falls State Park, complete with the tallest waterfall in Nebraska. Wow, who knew the flat state of Nebraska had such a great waterfall? We were all quite impressed by Smith Falls.


Brent, Rhonda, and Russ at the falls.



Rhonda, Brenda, and Russ



On the way back to Gothenburg, a train was blocking the only way back to the highway we wanted to be on. Did that deter us? Not a chance. Russ pulled a state trooper turn and headed back down the way we had come, and turned off onto a different highway for the trip back. Well done, Russ, we saw parts of Nebraska we didn't know existed. The highway was full of ups and downs and I kept thinking, "This would be a tough little hill on the bike!"

Just prior to rolling into Arnold, we were struck almost dumb by the sight of this canyon. NONE of us had ever seen it. It was a fitting end to a really nice weekend with good friends.

A Few Summer Photos

It's raining cats and dogs here in Taipei, I'm not going to be riding my bike, and I don't feel like starting my resume just yet, so I'll pop on some summer photos. I finally uploaded them from the camera yesterday. Good grief, am I getting lazy or what?!

Russ, Brent, Rhonda, and myself enjoyed a lovely weekend in Valentine, Nebraska. We stayed in some little cabins not too far from town. Sitting outside, looking off into the distance (you could see darn near forever), enjoying good conversation as well as the resident dog, and simply relaxing...this was a really nice respite from the relaxation I was already enjoying.

Interesting Statistics

Taipei "Lovely" Weather

Yeppers, it is a bit hot here. Feels like 109 degrees? No wonder I haven't any energy.

Ya Think?

Here's an article from Yahoo.com:


High-Fat Diet May Make You Stupid and Lazy
LiveScience.com

By now, we've all heard that high-fat diets are bad for our health in the long run. But what about the short-term?

A new study on rats finds that 10 days of eating a high-fat diet caused short-term memory loss and made exercise difficult. While the finding may not seem a big surprise, the researcher say it might suggest that high-fat diets make humans lazy and stupid.

"Western diets are typically high in fat and are associated with long-term complications, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, yet the short-term consequences of such diets have been given relatively little attention," said Andrew Murray, co-author of the study and currently at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "We hope that the findings of our study will help people to think seriously about reducing the fat content of their daily food intake to the immediate benefit of their general health, well-being, and alertness."

The findings are detailed in the FASEB Journal.

Rodents are thought to be good analogues to humans for studies like this, but research in humans would be needed to confirm that the effects cross over. Also, because rats live much shorter lives, study effects may play out on significantly shorter time scales than in humans.

Murray and colleagues studied rats fed a low-fat diet (7.5 percent of calories as fat) and rats fed a high-fat diet (55 percent of calories as fat). Muscles of rats eating the high-fat diet for four days were less able to use oxygen to make the energy needed to exercise, causing their hearts to worker harder - and increase in size.

After nine days on a high-fat diet, the rats took longer to complete a maze and made more mistakes in the process than their low-fat-diet counterparts.

In the fat-laden rats the researchers found increased levels of a protein called uncoupling protein 3, which made them less efficient at using oxygen needed to make the energy required for running.

"It's nothing short of a high-fat hangover," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of journal. "A long weekend spent eating hotdogs, French fries, and pizza in Orlando might be a great treat for our taste buds, but they might send our muscles and brains out to lunch."

Back in Taiwan

After a lovely summer spent relaxing and biking in Nebraska, I took the big bird back across the pond. After four uneventful legs, I arrived back in time to find everybody preparing for the first typhoon of the season. Since I had been gone for the summer, there wasn't much food in the cupboards and practically nothing in the fridge, so I hightailed it to the nearest 7'Eleven and picked up a few things.

Yesterday was spent inside the apartment listening to the wind howl and watching the rain come down in occasional torrents. The rain is a very good thing because Taiwan was in the middle of a drought and this will help fill up reservoirs. Not sure where the eye of the typhoon currently is, but I'm hoping it's on the way outta here quickly.

Sublime Solo Saturday

What a beautiful day for a bike ride. The bike took me on Highway 47 south toward Farnam and back. Had some nice gently rolling hills, very little wind, and tons of blue sky. Saw three rabbits, three families of wild turkeys, and one deer. Ended up with a scant 30 miles, which was just fine by me.

7/9/09

The bike took me on the old highway out to the Cozad road and back. I then went home to replace my new saddle with my old one. Back out...and the bike decided to go the south road nearly to Cozad and back. Kind of a hard ride, but not hard enough to deter me from getting 54 miles today.

Weather Conditions: Dark black clouds for a bit, southwest winds while heading east, southwest winds while heading north and east, north winds when heading south. Misted on me a bit, skies remained overcast. Temp was perfect!

Solo Sunday 7/5/09

What a beautiful morning for a 35 mile ride...not much wind, blue sky, white puffy clouds and very friendly folks. Went the old highway to Cozad, then took the south route back to Gothenburg. Stopped for a bit and watched the crop duster. I don't particularly like the chemicals, but it is fun to watch the flying.

I am so lucky to be able to ride here in the summertime...the people really are amazingly friendly and give me plenty of room when they go around me. Add that friendliness to the wide open spaces, the green fields and hills, and we are truly blessed to be here.

Oh yeah, I did have one dog try to give chase on Highway 47, but since I was already cruising at 18 mph, I just bumped up the speed enough to leave him in my dust.