reflections in glass

reflections in glass

striped awning, striped bench, two friends

summer excursion

My friend Sallie and I both take joyfully Julia Cameron's injunction in The Artist's Way to take a weekly artist's walk. So on a mild summer day we drive an hour east to Burlington Iowa, an old town on the Mississippi. When we park (no parking meters), the street slopes down to the river two blocks away. Our first stop is the Art Center, for "Global Faces" by Maurice Sanders, dozens of portraits of native peoples from all around the world. Well done! I'm envious of this photographer's travels and ability to poignantly capture all those faces.

Outside the gallery, Salllie poses on a colorful bench that says Art Knows No Age. How true.

A big building that takes up a full block is being renovated. Pop art.

  

One of the many old churches in the downtown area is getting a tuck-pointing by a man on a high cherry-picker. The buildings seem to lean up the steep hills of this river town, originally called Shok-ko-kon, Flint Hills, by the Sac and Fox tribes. This town is famous for Snake Alley, a one block serpentine brick lane, now the site of an annual grueling bike race, uphill!

For lunch we discover Digger's Rest, a little coffee and sandwich shop run by an Asian woman. Her mother doesn't speak English but has the biggest smile when she delivers our meals. 

I order a chicken and avocado wrap and a fresh blackberry smoothie. Too hot for coffee, though they have an impressive selection of "specially sourced" organic coffee beans.

Next we walk west a block and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring a series of little shops all in one block on the south side of the street. Fiber Addicts is bursting with gorgeous yarns and cotton quilting yard goods, set off with antiques, including a spinning wheel and drop spindle. Seeing a lovely quilt wall hanging, Sallie goes into shopping mode. After all, birthdays and Christmas are almost upon us!

Weird Harold's Records, a real throwback in time. Apparently you can still buy recently recorded records as well as oldies, and a record player.

Also some of the old hippie accessories, such as incense. 

While Sallie shops for birthday cards, I laugh at the hilarious magnets on a Coca Cola case. Sallie buys a few of these as well.

High on a wall way in the back of the shop, I discover a collection of antique mannikin heads modeling antique hats. I'm a hat person, so I'm totally enchanted. I want that little straw saucer with the red ribbon. Fortunately, they're not for sale.

At The Tattered Parasol, Sallie finds a fun coffee mug for one of her daughters. We both slather on some Naked Bee Pomegranate & Honey lotion from a tester dispenser (no artificial ingredients). I check out the rack of colorful Happy Socks (mostly cotton, too) and the room full of antiques in the back. They also have a connected store full of ornaments, including Disney and Hallmark, but the 2016 "Frozen" ornament (for my granddaughter) isn't out yet.

By this time I feel like we've been snaking in and out of shops in "Shopper's Alley" and it's time for a snack. Voila! A sign on Nature's Corner (on the corner of the block, of course), says "Frozen Peach Yogurt." They only serve one flavor per day, but peaches are in season, so no problem. Gallon glass jars filled with seeds and dry beans line the wall in back of the counter.

  

This must have been an old pharmacy. They've kept the antique rolling ladders, still used to access the rows of vitamins and other supplements. 

We wander through the store, which is really two connected stores, eating our curly cue cones (deliciously cold and not too sweet). Both of us try some of the testers of essential oils, clary sage on one wrist, lavender on another. Sallie buys more goodies, teas, a protein bar, African black soap, organic buckwheat cereal. All my senses feel completely saturated. Neither of us even stops when we pass a sidewalk sale. Time to head home after a memorable artist's walk.

racing to the top

racing to the top

of Snake Alley a biker

pants, tongue hanging out

Over 700 bikers come from all over North America to pit their muscles and endurance against one of the most physically challenging races in the Midwest. The Snake Alley Criterium is held on a 15-block course in downtown Burlington, a historic town on the Mississippi River. 

What makes the races especially challenging is a one-block climb on a nineteenth century brick street named Snake Alley. The 276 foot (84 meter) street has seven switchbacks in 60 feet (18 meter) with an average grade of 12.5 percent in that one block, making it one of the crookedest streets in the world.

Snake Alley was built in 1894 by three of the town's German founders (a landscape engineer, the city engineer and a paving contractor) as an experimental street design and a shortcut between the business district on the river and the neighborhood shopping district on the hill. The locally fired, blue clay bricks and limestone curbs are still in place after more than a century. 

However ingenious and practical, the street proved too challenging for horse-drawn carriages. There is a legend that the fire department used the alley to test horses. If a horse could take the curves at a gallop and still be breathing when it reached the top, it was considered fit to haul the city's fire wagons. Unfortunately, many teams ran out control or stumbled over the limestone curbing, sometimes resulting in a broken leg.

For the past 30 years Snake Alley has been used to test bikers. The Criterium, one of several qualifying races for amateur cyclists to compete against the top professionals at the Nature Valley Grand Prix, includes races for bikers ranging in age from 10 to 60 plus, with a separate race for women. 

The test on the alley involves racing up and around seven steep serpentine turns on a corrugated surface to the top of the hill, not just once but ranging from 4 times for the youngsters up to 20 times for the final men's race. 

It's breathtaking to watch the racers in their colorful gear come barreling up from the river in a pack of up to 150, spread out across the wide city street, then charging up the narrow alley, wheels nearly touching. Amazingly, there are very few collisions.

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the Snake Alley Criterium, and the race is made even more challenging by an unusually hot day for late May, 95 F (35 C). The last race of the day, the hottest part of the day, features the men's class 1, 2 and pro teams, competing for the top prize, $10,000 for ten places. 

Thousands of spectators line the winding curves of Snake Alley. 

Coaches and fans yell their encouragement from the sidelines.
        

Some even run alongside to give a boost to a racer.

While others spray the bikers with water to cool them down. 
  

Many of the men are doubled over, grimacing or gasping for breath at the top of the tortuous hill, before the long descent to the river and another loop of the circuit. 

The grueling event was won by Paul Martin, who started out in 84th place in the 118-man field. At age 39, this was Martin's fifteenth try. He and his Panther teammates held hands as they crossed the finish line.

Mississippi ice

Mississippi ice

half gone – bald eagles soaring

and diving for fish

A few miles from home we see a pair of bald eagles right by the road. The one sitting on a fence post flaps its wings, each as long as the bird is tall, but does not fly away. The other, standing on some small prey, just gives us the eagle eye. At the Mississippi River in Burlington we see many eagles by the beautiful new bridge built after the Great Flood of 1993, when water rose to the bed of the old bridge and the auditorium looked like an island in the river. Now the river is half free of ice. Some eagles sit on the ice, others are soaring and diving for fish, so striking with their white head and tail, black body and wings.