In Which a Butterfly Fails at a Heist

I thought I saw a monarch, but now I think it's a viceroy. Stripe on back wing and smaller size.

Hot times in Iowa! Today, Monday, June 29, I was too tied up for biking, which I regret because the sun was shining, but I was out with a grandchild at several parks in the late morning—and my regret is a bit muted, because—yuck!

Hot, almost 90, and sticky, oppressively humid—I saw that my hardy sister did a tour of Marion today, and more power to her, but I was indoors today.

I hope to get more miles in this week, but we are finishing some home projects. Monday was a biking fail and Tuesday looks iffy. Maybe I will be lucky and get a few evening miles in.

Sunday was also hot and humid, but not quite as bad as today. And I did get miles in. Around noon, I rode my hybrid bike to a nearby school. My 4-year-old grandson had been desperate to get a toy he had left at our house, and rode a small bike (his mom walked with him) to retrieve it, and after that his mom and I accompanied him to a nearby school playground.

Grandson on his bike rides to playground.

The plan was for me to then leave on a longer bike ride, but then I heard from the bike shop that I could pick up my road bike that afternoon.

So anyway, I went to the school with the boy, played for a few minutes, and then left for a quick ride of the Boyson-Lindale trails in Marion.

And that’s where the heist was attempted.

Last week, while riding with the grandson, we had spied what we thought was a monarch butterfly on clovers on a sunny hillside on that trail. I didn’t have my good camera and didn’t capture images of it. On this hot Sunday afternoon, I turned from the Boyson Trial to head up the hill on the Lindale Trail, and I idly wondered if I might spot said butterfly again.

Above and below--I shot images of a bee while hunting an elusive butterfly in the clover.

I neared the top of the hill and was getting past the clover patch, and I was sure luck was passing me by. Suddenly, something small and orange flitted out of the underbrush and buzzed my bike.

Well, I have seen a few monarchs this summer, but not many, and I had the good camera with me on this ride, so I stopped. The butterfly darted off, of course. I decided to walk over to the clover and just watch for a while, in case it returned.

It was hiding in the grass. I almost stepped on it, it rose up, and then it flitted to a flower to have its image made.

Butterfly (above and below) on clover.

And then the little scamp headed over to my parked bike and landed on the handlebar. I think of it as an attempted bike abduction with only the physics of such a tiny creature being unable to move the weight of my bike as my saving grace. I did get some cool butterfly on a bike images, though.

Brazen butterfly bandito attempts bike heist. Fortunately, it's too small to ride off on the bike. Same shady character in the sunshine below.

At the time I wondered a bit--it looked like a monarch, but seemed a little small. And a closer look at the images shows the characteristic back wing stripe of the viceroy, a butterfly that closely mimics the monarch in appearance, but is a different species. It's still a pretty butterfly, and the smaller size of the viceroy means it has even more chutzpah to try to ride off on my hybrid bike.

Later in the afternoon, I picked up the road bike from a shop in NewBo. It was still hot, and I thought I would just ride home rather than getting in more miles. I tried to get there via the Cedar River Trial, but near the federal courthouse, the Cedar River was not beside the trial as it usually is, but was across the trail.

Road bike by flooded trail. Turned back and rode streets through downtown.

Well, I rode an alternate route through downtown, and headed north on the trail where there were no flooding rivers.

It was good to be on the road bike again, and despite the heat, I decided to ride the quick ride up to Lafayette before heading home. They have a brand new and pretty cool bottle filling station at the Hiawatha trailhead, by the way.

I’m glad to have the road bike back and hope to get more miles on it, since it will probably be the main bike for faux RAGBRAI. The mountain bike is still in the shop, and I may explore the grassy part of the Grant Wood Trail after I get it back later this week.

One final biking note—my wife and I spoke with our son who lives in San Francisco Sunday via video call. He showed me his new, second bike—a black mountain bike that he’s planning to put a seat on so he can take his baby son for rides when the baby gets more confident sitting up. It was cool to see, and I thought of the bike that’s in the shop. It’s a mountain bike, too—black. And it originally belonged to the said son. Not sure how it can happen, but maybe someday we can take the young grandson for a ride on a trail riding our black mountain bikes.

That would be cool. Even more cool than a hot day attempt by a butterfly at a bike heist.

Summaries of Sunday rides--why Element and Map my Ride don't quite agree, I don't know:

In Which I Dream of Biking Spring

Burning bush in my yard today. It was a bit winterish outside.

For many bikers, weather like today would be the end of the season. Overnight we had more than 7 inches of snow, and in this suddenly cold Saturday (after a long and warm fall) it feels like the “winter” switch was thrown rather abruptly.

Well, I shoveled my sidewalk and took some winter photos today, but did not ride a bike. Then again, it’s not the end of the bicycle season for me—depending on the weather and my assessment of street conditions, there is a decent chance I will bicycle to work Monday, although I may regret that neither of my mountain bikes is ride-able at the moment.

Today would have been the last hurrah Mount Mercy University Bicycle Club ride. More than a week ago, in our sunny, warm fall, the MMU club officers and I decided one last longish ride on a Saturday, before the bikes were all stored, would be nice. Weather permitting.

Weather did not permit.

KCRG posted map of snow totals. It SNOWED.

Still, we had a bike club meeting Friday, which I was able to attend just the tail end of. I had a bunch of newspaper contest entries that had to be submitted by a Friday deadline, and I had been tied up earlier in the week by the impending end of a faculty series that I coordinate—so I got to the 4 p.m. meeting about 4:20 or so.

Anyway, even if we’re done riding (we, the club, not me, the crazy CR biker) for the year, the students are making some exciting plans. There will be bike club shirts available soon, and you all need to buy one. The club wants to look into the cost of arranging a day-trip “away” ride, possibly to the High Trestle Trail.

And butterflies came up. The club is still working on service ideas. One that they definitely plan is some sort of bicycle safety program to present to some school group in town.

US Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

The other is my idea. I want the club to join ongoing efforts to promote the Monarch Butterfly by planting milkweed. We could either find space on the MMU campus, or aid some local conservation group that is already planning Milkweed planting.

Well, time for some spring bicycle dreams.

May many more students—and staff and faculty—be motivated to join us as the weather warms and we resume bike tours of the Cedar Rapids area.

May we figure out the details and some Saturday actually visit a cool trail elsewhere in Iowa.

May we find new leadership, as Mark, the main moving force behind the bike club will graduate.

And may we plant some pretty native flowers that feed an increasingly scarce, majestic butterfly.

Another USFWS photo, both on the agency's flckr stream Butterfly image by Michelle Woods, flower image by Francie Stotz. Both images show Monarchs of varied ages on Milkweed plants.

In Which Safety Bikes Are the New Hot Fad

Getting ready for the afternoon bike ride today. A 5-year-old and 7-year-old confer. While a 2-year-old and 4-year-old tease each other. The 4-year-old will be a passenger on Francis, my unseen bike parked to the left of this photo.

I’ve not gotten in as many practice miles in these past few days as I would like. In fact, I missed the Raccoon River Ride this year, one of my favorite RAGBRAI prep rides, despite having a spiffy new bike that would have been perfect for that journey.

Why did I miss the RR Ride? I have a daughter who is on vacation, and my wife and I are tending their four children, who range in age from 7 to 2. It’s been a few days that remind one why parenthood is for the young—but don’t get me wrong. Despite major disruptions to my routines, including missing many bike miles, it’s been a blast.

And, while I have not gone on any 60-mile epic journeys since the near 60-mile experience that got me a new bike (which since that day has been parked in the garage), I have had a few very enjoyable short rides with the kids.

And biking has become all the rage among the younger set, something that they ask for and enjoy.

It began Saturday. Friday had been a big day—featuring a trip to the Children’s Museum in Coralville. We had planned to lay low on Saturday, recuperating, and lingering dampness in the world helped enforce that plan. But by late Saturday, it was drying out in the cloudy world, and the older two kids, age 7 and 5, were desperate to break out their bikes.

So we did. I put a younger child on the toddler seat on Francis, and the older kids all rode their bikes.

It was, for the most part, a fun outing. Near the end of it, however, the 5-year-old took several tumbles. It turned out that his right training wheel had become so loose that it would not support his bike, and if he leaned that way, down he would go.

He has a scratch on his head, but not directly from the falls. We’re not sure how or when he scratched his head originally—it’s a scratch, not a bike bump—but, nervous about the falls, he absentmindedly fingered his head while on the ride, opening the tiny scab on the scratch and leaving him slightly bloody at the end of ride, an incident which greatly perturbed him and his sister.

Well, grandma was out on a walk with the youngest child, so I had to play nurse—cleaning the wound, putting on antibiotic ointment, adding a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid. He took it like a brave 5-year-old, and was quickly recovered from trauma.

Clearly, the scratch incident didn’t bother him much, because the next day, today, the grandkids started the drumbeat early. “Can we ride our bikes to a park? Can we? Can we? Can we?” I got out a wrench and tightened some bolts first, but then we were ready to ride.

We headed out to Bowman Woods School playground, because it was an easy ride that involved no busy streets. When we got there, the two older kids, despite it being a warm, muggy day, refused to remove their helmets. And during playground play, they spent some of their time riding up and down an adjacent sidewalk on their bikes.

On the way home, the older child got a bit grumpy because the younger one insisted on always leading. We had a bit of a controversy over resting arrangement at nap time, and the compromise I suggested was that she give him the bed he wanted, and he would agree that she would the leader during the next bike ride.

And the next bike ride came right after nap time. The oldest child had not slept—she doesn’t always, she is a bit old for naps, unlike me—but she had been quiet and allowed others to nap, and that’s a “win” with this crew.

Anyway, this time we were headed to C Avenue Park, a slightly more distant location that did involve using lights to cross busy streets. The older grandchild proved to be a competent bike leader, and both she and her brother followed directions and paid attention to traffic and lights, I’m happy to report.

This time, in the hotter, muggier afternoon, they didn’t fight with my wife and I when we suggested one doesn’t need a helmet to play at the park, but they did don their helmets again in the midst of playtime for some extra sidewalk bicycle rides.

At C Avenue Park. It's a hot afternoon, with high humidity, but these young bikers are undaunted.

Bikes, it seem, are a hit with the generation after the next (their parents are the next generation).

I thought that the daughter, the oldest child, had bargained for the right to lead only on the ride to the park. But her brother, who is a bit rule-oriented and picky, would not have it. She had to lead there, on any bike rides that occurred there, and on the way home, too.

On the way home, the oldest child reminded me that I had suggested we might try a little practice of her riding without the training wheels. We’ll see. We only have them for half a week more, and we have at least one day trip planned in that time. But, maybe we’ll find a soft level place for some actual biking practice.

And, as if the enthusiasm for bike rides from the grandkids was not enough, there was a bonus today.

During recent rides I have noticed a few Monarch butterflies, but so far they had always been flitting quickly by and could not be photographed. Today, at C Avenue Park, I finally caught a little queen at rest. She’s cute, no? I’m hoping to persuade the Mount Mercy Bike Club to consider a Monarch-related service project (planting Milkweed), and I was pleased to see this butterfly on today’s new generation bike journey. Hope for the future.

Most welcome park visitor. Head over to my place, baby, I've just planted some Milkweed this year.