In Which We Get Lost Finding Butterflies

Marlon (above) reacts to having his picture taken. Three students and I (below) in official CR Biker Bike Club Ussie before ride.

Ride 2 of the MMU Bike Club: Marlon expresses his displeasure at having his photo taken, and then organizes our small crew for the photo.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We are going wherever you lead us,” Marlon answers.

So, instead of going south along Cedar Lake, I take the three students north on the Cedar River Trail. We are supposed to return to campus by close to 5, so it can’t be a long ride. Along the way, at a construction zone, I accidently turned into a street rather than the trail, so for about 10 seconds, they proved the folly of following my leadership as we were briefly lost. Still, the trail was never out of sight, and the point was to ride, right? There were perhaps a few sarcastic remarks as we made pointless parking lot loop, but I consider that all fair comment.

Then, at 42nd Street, I ask if we turn around or push on to go to Noelridge Park.

“We push on,” Marlon answered. “We’ve only been riding for 15 minutes.”

He is a man of few words, but they do work.

We rode on. I was on Clarence, my commuting hybrid bicycle, while they were on the heavier, older hybrids or mountain bikes owned by MMU. I was pushing it a bit, and asked if they liked the speed. They were fine. Those youngsters on their heavy, slow, old bikes have no trouble keeping up with an oldster on a much lighter, faster bike.

Well, there must be a reason CR Biker rides bike tours but never a bike race.

Anyway, we continued north until the side street that leads to the back end of St. Pius X. We went to the next short street just south of the church that cuts over to the north end of Noelridge—I was taking them, as a destination, to the city flower gardens.

The young woman on the ride, a local, had been there before, but not the two men. They did enjoy the flower beds. However, I wasn’t aware of the Monarch breeding area, and the woman with us was, so when she pointed them out we rolled across the grass to go see them.

On Cedar River Trail heading north. Besides mocking me for getting them lots, students noted I was often not pointing camera at them--it's not easy to shoot over your shoulder while riding a bike. This one worked.

At Noelridge Park. If you look at upper part of picture, you can see butterflies undergoing metamorphosis.Student (below) takes unofficial Bike Club Ussie.

And, they were very cool. They are mesh shelters protecting clumps of Milkweed plants used to breed butterflies. At first, I didn’t notice any butterflies—and it was the woman with us who again had to point out the sight—she noted the multitude of chrysalises hanging from the tops of the shelters.

Hmmm. It puts the bug back in my ear. Milkweed planting time is later in the fall just before the ground freezes, in this climate—I think it is time to revive the MMU pollinator garden project. Maybe we can get seeds in the ground this year…

Anyway, we headed back to campus. This second  club ride was shorter—about 8 miles, compared to the 15-mile ride the club took last week, but we needed to get back earlier, too.

Ride 2, I think, was very nice, butterfly nice. And now I have a cool idea for a project to try to sell to the club …

Sun streaming down on our way back to campus. Nice afternoon for a ride!