You would have thought it was the middle of summer as nice as the weather was this past weekend. Don't believe me? Just wait till you see some of the photos I took! You had to look really hard to find even a single cloud in the sky. It was the sort of thing that idyllic suburban dreams are made of.
Temps were in the mid 80's during the day. Farenheit of course! You can do the conversion yourself should you be so inclined. Meanwhile, at night we saw the mercury drop down in the low 60's and high 50's. Just about the perfect weather for anything you might want to do short of snow sports.
@mrsbozz spent Friday evening washing the outside of our trailer, then we headed in to have some homemade pizzas and watch the college softball playoffs.
Saturday morning I had to run over to my parents house to do some work on my dad's riding mower. It hasn't been properly serviced in quite some time, so I had to take the deck off, clean it up, lube the grease points, and replaced the belt. It was a fairly quick job that took less than an hour to get done, so I spent a bit of time visiting with my parents before I headed off to my next stop.
That next stop was the meat market where I purchased two New York Strip steaks, two pork steaks, and about 25 pounds worth of chicken for me to process over the weekend.
I got home a little before noon, so I quickly got our lawn mowed before it got too hot in the afternoon.
After a little lunch I lay down on the couch and took a bit of a nap while the college softball playoffs continued.
Before I knew it, it was time to get the grill started for dinner. I got the coals lit and then I sat down in the shade to enjoy a nice beer for #beersaturday sponsored by @detlev. I'm not really sure how this Crushworthy from Great Lakes Brewing found its way into my fridge, but it was absolutely delicious and the perfect light beer to have on such a hot day. I'll be interested to see if @cryptictruth has had this brew before.
I doubt it is as accessible as Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, but if it were, I would totally make it my new summer beer of choice. Plus the fact that it only has 105 calories is kind of nice too. I've got to stay in peak swimsuit shape! Okay, maybe just peak dad bod shape.
After dinner on Saturday night, @mrsbozz and I decided to process the chicken so we would have to deal with it on Sunday. I took the two pounds of ground chicken I bought and made it into burgers for her. I then took the 20 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts and cut them up in to chunk chicken, shredded chicken, and breast that we can marinate and throw on the grill.
Finally, we settled in Saturday night to finish watching the Apple TV Plus show "Sugar" and some more college softball.
I knew Sunday was supposed to be just as beautiful as Saturday was, so Saturday night I suggested we take a walk the next morning. We made our way to "The Tridge" in Midland, MI. It's a wooden bridge that spans the confluence of two rivers (The Chippewa and the Tittabawassee). As such it has three different spans that take you to different areas between the rivers all connected to a central point in the middle of the confluence.
This is one of the approaches in the photo above. If you look really close, you can see the span that goes to the left and then another heads to the right. We took the right path.
The right path takes you to this central park area that tends to flood when we get any significant rain in the area. I took the photo above because I was annoyed at how careless of a job they did mowing. If they weren't going to rake it they should have at least bagged it. It ended up looking more like a hayfield waiting to be baled than an area where you would want to play or sit down to have a picnic.
This central area also has a skateboard park, two dog parks (which was a bit bittersweet for us), and a couple pavillions for events.
We opted to head under the M-20 bridge and walk along a length of the Tittabawassee River. It's a quite beautiful walk and they have really added some nice features to make it a place you would want to hang out. The photo above shows a viewing area they designed. You can't see it in the photo, but on the other side of the river is a trail that used to be an old railroad line.
That was our ultimate destination.
But first we had to cross the bridge you saw in the opening photo. Next to the Tridge, this is one of the most iconic bridges in the city of Midland. It's called the Curie Parkway Bridge and over the course of my life it has been closed to traffic several times.
I am pretty sure one of the times it closed due to the flood of 1986. It became structurally unsound due to the massive amount of water that flowed down the Tittabawassee River during that storm. Another time I think someone drove a truck over it that was too heavy and damaged it.
They recently renovated it, but it's still only a one lane bridge, so you have to wait your turn to drive on it. Thankfully, they added a walking path to the side of it.
This is the view from the other side of river walking back towards where we parked our car. The amount of green that just suddenly appeared out of nowhere the last couple of weeks is stunning.
the main focus of this photo was the cool bicycle maintenance station they added on the side of the path. It has a pump area and an assortment of tools in case you need to adjust anything on your bike. Which is pretty cool because this point where we parked is the beginning of that thirty mile rail trail I mentioned earlier.
Best to make sure your bike is in tip top shape before you head off on a 60 mile round trip ride!
If you look really closely in the background you can see two of the Tridge spans again.
After our walk, we headed to get @mrsbozz's car washed, then we set our sights on home. When I was down in Columbus, OH last time, I asked my brother in law if he knew anyone that was selling a baseball/softball hitting net for cheap. He mentioned they had an old one in the garage I could take if I wanted.
I've been wanting one for a while so I could practice my disc golf drive. After we got home on Sunday I quickly assembled the free net and I started working on my throwing in the backyard. @mrsbozz thought it would be fun to take some shots of me.
After lunch I hit the couch again to watch more college softball and a couple episodes of the final season of Star Trek Discovery.
Honestly, it doesn't get much better than this!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
It was a nice weekend weather wise. With all the construction going on I hadn’t been able to mow my lawn. What a mistake that was….. I spent 3 hours trying to cut knee high grass.
I do the same thing with chicken. I process it all and then use the Foodsaver after it’s all portioned out.
Yeah, that's what we do too. My wife doesn't like having to touch it, so she loves that she can just cut open a bag and dump it in the pan. I usually thin down the breasts and throw the back half of them into the instant pot to boil down for shredding. For a while we were grinding our own chicken too, but the price benefit became negligible during Covid. This time of year is always pretty crazy. You could easily get away with mowing your lawn twice a week if you had the ambition!
Look like you had a great weekend full of activity, some of the things I miss of a house is putting the grill, my entire childhood I use to live in a house with a backyard, how you like the ending of Sugar? Im planing on making a Season review, I guess they putting out a second season because now he is after Henry, but the ending of season 1 was a bit weak imo ✌️
I love my backyard. I just wish there was a bit more shade back there. I love sitting out there and grilling. It was better too before the people bought the land behind us and built a house. When the leaves are on the trees you don't see it. In the winter though it stands out. I thought Sugar was pretty good. My wife was pissed. She was not a fan of the twist at all. I'm surprised she finished watching it with me.
Yeah on the episode that he turns blue at the end it was a big WTF 😂 I thought this was ridiculous, they just ran out of ideas and all of the sudden the guy is an alien, although the extravagant killer skills and that he never gets drunk 🤷♂️👽
I guess it depends on how you look at it. If that was the plan all along then I do respect it. If they just ran out of ideas, then it is a bit lame. We did see him inject himself earlier. I'm looking forward to season 2. I am not sure my wife will continue. I want to see what he does now with limited resources.
A light beer that actually taste good...what will they think of next.????
Well this post got boosted as you came very close to the right answer on last week's riddle
Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, it was actually a really tasty beer.
I want to photograph this bridge, old bridges always give good black and white pictures, but at the same time this strong red color also gives good color pictures... here I not have this kind bridge 😅👌👌👌😋
We have several of these in the area where I live. The one is closed down and in quite a state of disrepair. It has been photographed a lot over the years.
https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=truss/smithscrossing/
https://cityofmidlandmi.gov/1672/The-Tridge
wooooo, that place looks wonderful to be at least one week on vacations also the beer with orange and lemon i want it; sned a six pack hahahahhaha
I think the place that makes it is fairly close to where I live. I might actually have to try and get a growler of it sometime!
That bridge! I love bridges like that, with the girders and rivets showing. Brilliant weekend and looks an interesting beer! As for the net well seems a cool thing to get so oyu can perfect that disc throwing technique!
Yeah, these old bridges are pretty cool. The one they are working on over by my house is going to be nice when they finish it up.
Sounds like a great day, and really nice photos.
Thanks, it was a pretty awesome weekend!
It sound like a great weekend, as photographer I just love the bridge ❤️
It really was and thank you, it is quite photogenic!
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What a great weekend! Perfect temperatures, greet steaks and beer, and a nice relaxing walk. Sounds perfect! You even got in some extra exercise at the end. Glad to hear you had a great weekend!
Thanks, it was really quite productive and relaxing despite all the work we got done around the house.
I love the bridges and the park! I wish we had a park like that around here. So nice they have a bicycle maintenance station!! That would get stolen here within a day. 😐 Processing so much chicken in a day is a big job! Wow! Sounds like a great weekend with some rest included! Have a great week!
This was cemented into the ground so it would take a lot for them to walk off with it. Midland is a pretty low crime area anyway. Mostly domestic disputes and stuff like that. Thanks for stopping by. We have a ton of cool parks around where I live.
Ah, that makes sense! We have crimes of convenience here - you left your bike out, so you must not need it or think it is valuable, so I will just take it. We have a lot of beautiful nature, but very few parks. It is one thing we miss!