Pentagenarians & Beyond: May 11, 2025

Today I decided Jane Adams Gentle Yoga, Morning Energy practice for 18 minute. Yesterday was my rest day and it was raining and cold (for this time of year) all day. Today is more of the same.

Hello to everyone and have a wonderful Mother’s Day.
 
Good morning. we rode the regular trail this morning for 15 miles. took a little longer because we are paying close attention to the population of common mergansers. found two again this morning, sitting on gravel bars one on a creek another on the river. assume they have nests nearby.

on the way back to our car I was riding along an area of trees and shrubs about 12 mph when a deer nose came out of the bushes. i heard his hooves dig in, he rocketed across the trail in front of me. i didnt have any time to react. not sure how far in front of me he was, maybe 6-8 feet? not much. did not have a chance to brake, he was in front and on the other side in 2 leaps. scared the crap out of me after i realized how close it was. i would have definitely come up the loser in a collision. a deer ran in front of me once a long time ago but nothing like how close this was.

DH is having problems with his knee so tomorrow cant come soon enough to see orthopedics.

diane sue I hope Im not repeating myself here. for the back pain try lidocaine patches. OTC and go right on the sore spot. i use one on my low back when it hurts. . if your pain is higher up you will need DH to put one on for you. I use is Salonpas from costco. about $15 for a box patches. they are sticky and floppy and peel on and off and come in at least 2 sizes. i have trouble with waistband of pants peeling it off. they help a lot, stay on for 8 hours.
 
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I spent today recovering from my 8 hour shift at Home Depot yesterday. I did a short Peloton ride and Restorative Yoga.

Carolyn-Nice job with Jane Adams Gentle Yoga, Morning Energy Practice. I hope you had a very nice Mother's Day.

Valerie-Nice job on your trail ride this morning. I'm sorry about your husband's knee.
We stopped using Open Office a while ago. We installed Office 2021 on all of our computers but if Microsoft forces Office to become subscription only we will switch to LibreOffice, which seems to be a newer version of OpenOffice. I installed LibreOffice on my laptop to see how it worked with excel files and I didn't have any issues going back and forth between the programs.

Hi to Diane Sue, Cathy & Shannon
 
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Judy i downloaded open office because i need a word processor program occasionally for simple things. what im looking for is a way to alphabetize a list. ive been looking for 'sort" and anything that will organize things in A to Z way. I used to use WordPerfect and never learned Word or Office and dont want to start now. there must be a function like that but i don't see it. if you happen to know offhand what i should look for that would be great. if you don't, don't worry, i can sort things myself. not trying to give you extra work to do here.
 
Good morning, everyone. Saturday I did a power walk followed by yard work, dog walks and walking around during a family gathering … my legs were totally worn out. Sunday I was a couch potato, still tired from Saturday. I have been trying to do power walks on the weekend as something different for my cardio. It’s a good workout, but it’s just not working for me. I need to go first thing in the morning in order to beat the traffic, because we don’t have sidewalks out here. I am finding that the impact and fast, repetitive motion tires my feet and knees too much, since I have to do yard work and house work on the weekend. So I guess I’ll go back to my regular DVD cardio.

Carolyn – it’s been chilly and rainy here too. In fact, it’s raining as I type this. Suits me fine. I don’t want summer to come, LOL. Nice work with your yoga.

Valerie – I had to google what a merganser looks like. It’s a very striking duck, isn’t it? Whew, you are so lucky to have missed that deer! Did you have to stop to calm down after the fact? I would have. I’m sorry about DH’s knee. I sure hope the doc has a solution.

Judy – I’m glad you had some nice recovery time after your long day at Home Depot.

Hello to Diane and Cathy.
 
Shannon i actually didn't stop. it happened so fast I didnt miss a single pedal stroke. there was this flash of a deer head in front of me, very close, and it was gone. i heard the hooves jamming into the asphalt. DH was behind shouting if I was OK. looked like a collision would happen and then it didn't. good thing for me deer are very fast. hard braking would have sent me over the bars.
DH pulled up next to me, rode to where we usually stop in half a mile. it was too close to even react. never got that awful anxious sense of a near miss. the trail has some very lumpy sections because of roots buckling the asphalt so instead of being on the right I was on the left which is where the deer launched from.

there are several kinds of mergansers. common, red breasted, and hooded in the US. all look quite different. these are common ones. they hang out on freshwater like rivers and streams.

walking does get tiring. i cant do distance as I used to so what I do is make the lesser distance more intense with uphill.

we rode a lot this past week and are taking today off. been chilly and rainy here yesterday especially. we work around the rainy spells. will do upper body later today.
 
Today I did JS HiiT Walk for 30 minutes, 212 calories burned, average heart rate 136, and maximum heart rate 169. I didn’t sleep well last night and was really dragging this morning.

Valerie, nice job with your usual ride, but that deer incident sounds scary.

Judy, taking time to recover from the 8 hour shift sounds like a good idea. You probably walked a lot too.

Shannon, nice job with your weekend walking.

Hello to Diane Sue and Cathy.
 
Good morning, ladies. Yesterday I did LMR Total Body. It’s a good workout. I also had a video call with the team who is going to Africa. We leave in about a month. We fly out of Newark … I sure hope they have all their issues worked out before we go.

Valerie – I sure am glad you’re okay after the event with the deer. Regular walking is still fine for me, like when I just take a normal road walk for the fun of it. It’s the power walking that gets me, and I usually don’t feel it until after I get back. I hope you enjoyed your rest day.

Carolyn – I’m sorry you didn’t sleep the other night. I hope last night was better. Good job on getting your workout in, even though you were tired.

Hello to Diane, Judy and Cathy.
 
Yesterday I did a 30-minute Peloton ride and 10 minutes of ab work. This morning I did 45 minutes of Yin Yoga. My left hip, knee and low back are really bothering me so I may make this an active rest week. I probably need to go to the chiropractor too.

Shannon-Great job with your Power walks, all the other walking you did over the weekend and LMR Total Body.

Carolyn-Great job with JS HiiT Walk. I’m sorry about the sleep. Yes, I did a lot of walking at work on Saturday.

Valerie-That deer incident sounds frightening.

Hi to Diane Sue and Cathy
 
This morning I did Ramped Up Upper Body. My time was 55 minutes and 183 calories burned, average heart rate 110, and maximum heart rate 147. I did rest better.

Shannon, nice job with LMR Total Body. I agree that it’s a good workout. Your upcoming trip sounds interesting. I hope that the airport in Newark has worked through some of it’s problems by then.

Judy, great job with the Peloton ride, Ab work, and Yin Yoga. I’m sorry that you are having pain.

Hello to Valerie, Diane Sue, and Cathy.
 
Popping in to say hi! I got to Derek's yesterday. It was so nasty hot when I arrived! 99 degrees. Nick is hotter today and tomorrow, but yesterday in Bismarck! will be my hottest day. Got in some good hikes in Marquette. I even decided to try to do the trail along Dead River Falls. And the use of the word trail is used loosely. It gets used quite a bit, but it's not an officially maintained area like the other places I go there. Basically you for a good portion of it, you figure out your own way. Including steep hillsides that are nothing but roots. It's crazy. And it used to be that you went over 4 tree branches that someone had laid down side by side to cross over a small inlet to get over and continue along the river, but they had moved apart, so I had to work my way down and cross on a fallen tree that was maybe 15-18" across. My biggest drawback in short legs. I told Derek it was either brave or stupid. At the point where I'd gotten past all the falls, and in spring they are very cool, sat to rest by a pond area at the top, and contemplating the return I was totally thinking stupid, because I was going to have to go back down that rooted hillside. LOL But, part way back I noticed that away from the river if you went down a hillside that was mostly just hill, there was a gully at the bottom and I followed that till I had to go up again, and then I'm standing up there contemplating my life choices and looked down to realize that I could see the fallen tree, and while it was very narrow and right along the river, a path that meant I had to deal with less rooted downhill. Turned out to be quite the adrenaline rush. LOL Minnesota Zoo is very good and it was hot! that was my first hot day. I had gotten in before 10 and was done by 1:30, so missed the worst of the heat. Definitely want to go back. Today we drove a couple hours to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and did the drive there. Amazing landscape and the prairie dog towns are so fun! Saw quite a few bison, though no large herds. Had a couple along the road, but managed to get past them, helps that it's spring and not mating season, but we were definitely being careful. Saw some pronghorn, but they were along I-94 during the drive. Going to his zoo here tomorrow. Friday I head down to Nick's. I've gotten in a few workouts, and after my day and a half of hiking various places around Marquette I didn't think my legs were ever going to forgive me, but by the next day they were okay. Given how much they were complaining that night, I was really surprised.

And Derek is famous now. He was on the local TV channel for their monthly zoo spot. https://www.kxnet.com/studio701/zoo-news/baby-bison-arrive-at-the-dakota-zoo/
 
Good morning! Yesterday I did All Out Low Impact HiiT and LMR lower body balancing discs. I really want to use the balance discs more often but have a hard time fitting them in. Last night, I really wanted to keep moving because I was so tired of sitting all day. The LMR bonus worked well, because it’s not an intense full workout.

Judy – I hope your hip, knee and low back are feeling better today. I’m really sorry you are in pain. I hope your active rest week helps to settle things down.

Carolyn – Nice job with Ramped Up Upper Body. Yes, I’m really looking forward to the mission trip.

Cathy – I watched Derek’s video. He’s a very well-spoken young man. And OMG, that male bison is HUGE! The Dead River Falls trail sounds like quite an adventure. I’m glad you made it back in one piece, LOL.

Hello to Valerie and Diane.
 
This morning I did KCM’s Cardio Quick Fix, workout one. That was 26 minutes, 177 calories burned, average heart rate 133, and maximum heart rate 156.

Cathy, I’m glad that you are enjoying your trip. Derek did a nice job in that interview.

Shannon, great job with AOLIH and Lower Body Balance discs.

Hello to Valerie, Judy, and Diane Sue.
 
Did stacked upper body yesterday after a 10 min spin as a warmup and also my regular therapy.

DH is going to almost certainly need a knee replacement partial or total, we will see when we see the surgeon. the meniscus tore loose and is not likely fixable. maybe if we were 30 but not at 70. meniscus is worn and torn. . he is getting a supportive brace that might delay this a little but unclear right now. my knee is behaving reasonably well lately so im ok with delay.

i will look at Dereks bison video later, gotta get to the store. Cathy.... what the majority of trails are like here. all the rain exposes roots plus the trees grow that way to begin with. rooty! its hard for walking and bike riding. there is nothing more slippery than a wet, downwardly angled tree root. deadly! work your way around as best you can.

ETA I cant get the audio to work but I could watch the interview. Cathy i will try on the laptop. sometimes sound does not want to come on on my system, yes bison are very large. what makes them seem even larger is walking out in the park where there are no fences. they feel even bigger... whats amazing is the idiots who harass by not respecting their space, moving too close, trying to feed them etc. driving thru the park weve seen people reach out of their car windows and grab the fur, a really supremely stupid thing to do. we have a lot of experience with bison and give them a wide berth. they are not friendly. when walking past them you need to keep a close eye on them and adjust your route to give them the most space.
 
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Today I did 15 minutes of light upper body work and 30 minutes of Yin Yoga. I felt much better today but my left hip and low back are still sore. At least I’m moving a lot better than I was yesterday. I think I will continue with light upper body strength work and Yin Yoga/PT for my lower body for several more days.

Carolyn-Great job with Ramped Up Upper Body and KCM’s Cardio Quick Fix, workout one.

Cathy- Your trip sounds like a lot of fun. Derek did a great job in the interview.

Valerie-Great job with stacked upper body, spin warmup and therapy work.

Shannon- Great job with All Out Low Impact HiiT and LMR lower body balancing discs. The active rest week seems to be helping so far.

Hi to Diane Sue
 
Good morning. Yesterday I did Super Cuts with the Core #2. It’s always been one of my “feel good” workouts. It works me in all directions, which feels great after sitting all day.

Carolyn – Great job with Cardio Quick Fix.

Valerie – Nice work on Stacked Upper Body, etc. It sounds like you got a solid, comprehensive workout. Dang, I’m sorry about DH’s meniscus. Why doesn’t he just bite the bullet and get the replacement? Your comments about bison and idiotic people reminds me of the summer I worked in Yellowstone when I was in college. There were horror stories about dumb parents trying to set their little kids on bison’s backs to take a picture. I remember once when a friend and I were hiking. We looked around at one point and saw a bison following us. Wide open field, no protection, nothing. We were like … okay … don’t run, don’t make eye contact, just keep moving … Fortunately he decided to stop and eat. Whew.

Judy – I’m glad you’re feeling better. It sounds like you have the right idea!

Hello to Diane and Cathy.
 
This morning I did STS 2.0 Chair Yoga. I had planned to add that on to another workout, but I didn’t have time for anything else. My schedule has been hectic this week with unexpected events. My husband started at home PT and OT this week. Each therapists called the day before to set up a time so I didn’t have much advance notice. I need to work those into my weekly schedule. And today I have the plumber coming and I still can’t leave. I haven’t even had time to go to the grocery store!

Valerie, great job with 10 minutes of spinning, Stacked Sets Upper Body, and therapy exercises. I’m sorry about your husband’s knee.

Judy, great job with 15 minutes of light upper body and 30 minutes of Yin Yoga. I’m glad that you’re moving better.

Shannon, great job with Supercuts and abs #2.

Hello to Cathy and Diane Sue.
 
we did a road ride this morning, an hour and 20 minutes. no ducks to be seen this time. what DH is finding is that if he stays off direct pressure on the knee that he feels pretty good. Thanks for your kind words!. he is not a good person to rest. he is getting a brace today, faster than expected. it helps it reduces the urgency of the surgery but we havent a clue what the surgeon will recommend and how soon he will have an opening. when i saw the ame surgeon, it was 5-6 weeks wait from the time you commit. I had some things I needed to do first but they are all taken care of so I was thinking maybe late fall. my knee is less bothersome lately so its not going to heal itself but im also not under pressure to fix it immediately. carolyn, you are so right on messing with your routine. you always need to allow time before and after and things like plumbing can morph into marathons or be done in 10 minutes.

Shannon we've been visiting yellowstone for 50 years. we're experienced around bison and give them a wide berth. people do the dumbest things. around bears, bison, and especially elk. a pissed off mama elk will put you in the hospital! its not a petting zoo. it gets more challenging in snow when a bison or group of bison parks itself on the route. we always were able to avoid disaster. it used to be much less crowded than now. off season, walking anywhere off the road, and going early in the morning will still help and get better wildlife viewing.

Cathy i never got the audio to work but i got the subtitles to come on so i read all about baxter the picky guy, bianca and beverly very cool.. he has a delightful job..
 
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