A River Runs Through It

The city of Ann Arbor is shaped roughly like a heart, either anatomical or Valentines, depending on the creative license you take. It’s outlined by US 23 on the east, M-14 on the north, and I-94 on the south and west. The Huron River cuts diagonally through the city, more or less leaving the left atrium to the north of the river and the left ventricle, right atrium, and right ventricle to the south. I’ve biked the entire length of the Huron in Ann Arbor, as well as visited/hiked¹ the dozen or so parks along the river. Recently, I met up with a couple friends to share some park experiences by the river, plus catch up on the last six months or so of life.²

Both friends have been taking reasonable coronavirus precautions (i.e. not flying everywhere because cheap plane tickets #YOLO, don’t think masks are oppressive government propaganda, aren’t partying with their 500 closest friends in an unventilated basement where everyone drinks from the same cup, etc.), and we would be outdoors, moving, moderately distanced, and avoiding other people. Since things were pretty stable in Ann Arbor and hadn’t blown up with the arrival of the undergrads, I thought it was time for some real life human interaction.

I met the first friend at the Furstenberg Nature Area, between the Arboretum and Gallup Park but typically much less crowded than either of the two. It connects to Gallup Park and is opposite the river from the Border to Border trail. I’ve been there a few times now, and it’s a nice option for when I want something different from the parks right by my apartment but don’t want to haul myself all the way across Ann Arbor. It’s mostly wooded with views of the river, though it also has a boardwalk/prairie area and some marshy parts. By this time, the city-run canoe and kayak liveries had both stopped renting boats for the year because they had a positive coronavirus test early in September. They were originally going to close and reopen like they did in July, but I suspect part of the decision to straight up close for the season was because the city wasn’t happy with the university’s (lack of) reopening plans and didn’t want to deal with students. Even so, the river was surprisingly quiet, not that I missed the tube flotillas filled with drunk sunburnt (usually) young people blasting music.

The Huron from Furstenberg; the Border to Border trail is somewhere behind the trees across the river.

The next day, I met a different friend at the Bird Hills/Barton Nature Area(s). Two bike rides in two days; my calves have never looked better. I biked there on the Border to Border trail, which was less terrible than I was prepared for. It was well-trafficked, but most people were pretty good about sharing the shared-use path, minus a couple spots going through Bandemer Park. [There’s a disc golf course there and walking paths, so we shift from exercisers/commuters back towards families/sunbathers. Really. There are docks that I believe are intended for the crew team to launch their rowing shells but often get taken over by half-naked (usually) young people.]

Not from this year, but recently it's looked pretty much like this.  Earlier in the summer the rowing club or the city tried to caution-tape off the docks, but looks like that's not a thing anymore.

Anyhow, I made it to the Barton Nature Area without incident. We hiked a loop through Bird Hills, Kubler Langford Nature Area, Hilltop Nature Area, and Barton that took us through woods, by the river, and along the highway. Nothing like the roar of the M-14 to really hammer home the fact that you are in nature. Hilltop is interesting because it used to be a Girl Scout campsite, and there are still signs of it – stray picnic tables and clearings, faded informational signs, stairs to nowhere. Bird Hills is entirely wooded, but Barton is nestled between the railroad tracks and a bend in the Huron. It has, in my option, one of the best views of the river in Ann Arbor at one end and the Barton Dam and Barton Pond at the other. I do plan to publish a series of posts going into more detail about all the Ann Arbor parks I’ve visited (maybe eventually all of them), but that’ll be a bigger undertaking, so this is all for now, folks.

The Huron River

Barton Dam

Barton Pond

¹Or more accurately what I’ve termed Hiking Lite^TM. The trails are unpaved, but you never feel like you’re more than a few hundred feet from a road, there’s traffic noise unless you’re standing right next to a fast-flowing portion of the river, and the longest loop you can put together is ~5 miles, which will involve chaining multiple parks to each other.

²I’ve been following along with peoples’ lives via Facebook, and a decent percentage of my Facebook friends have announced engagements, weddings, pregnancies, graduations, moves, and new jobs since coronacation started. I’m still in school, have no job prospects lined up, and the only thing I could possibly get engaged with in the near future is my thesis.

There’s a Fungus Among Us

In my latest wilderness wanderings, I’ve encountered some fungal friends. Actually, I have no idea if they’re friendly or not. Probably not. Besides bracket fungi, I haven’t been able to identify many of the others because online sources are all concerned that you’re trying to figure out what they are so you can eat them and don’t want to get sued to Mars and back. Don’t worry; I’m not particularly interested in eating the mushrooms you can buy at the supermarket, so I’m very uninterested in eating random mushrooms I find on the forest floor. I do know they’re not the highly prized morels, or the highly poisonous Amanita ocreata (also known as the death angel, destroying angel, or angel of death, which besides often being fatally toxic, is similar in appearance to multiple edible mushrooms). Anything in between, including species that are merely “inedible” or “not recommended” to be ingested, is possible.

Don't know what this guy is, but it was a solid foot wide.

Just your average bracket fungus.

Another bracket fungus.

Some sort of honey fungus?  Don't quote me on that.  Likely at least mildly poisonous, not that I have any intention of letting it anywhere near my mouth.

No idea.  Might be a fungus.  Could be a lichen.  Or maybe paint.

Your biology lesson for the day: fungi are a kingdom of organisms that include yeasts and molds, as well as mushrooms. They’re eukaryotic, meaning they have a nucleus within a membrane; heterotrophic, so they can’t produce their own food; and have spores. Mushrooms don’t have roots, but rootlike mycelium, made up of hyphae, which are collections of cells that form long branching filament-like structures surrounded by a cell wall. In fungi, the cell wall is primarily chitin, as opposed to cellulose in plants. And lastly, there are approximately 14,000 species of mushrooms, tens to hundreds of thousands of types of molds, and around 1,500 yeasts, so there is indeed a lot of fungus among us.

#MLSisBack (. . . again, for real this time, probably): part 2 of stage 3

After stopping and starting play more than traffic on I-95 past New York City (not really, but you get the point), this latest group of games has been the longest stretch of continuous play for most teams. The Revolution have at least met the benchmark of not being terrible, but they still haven’t convincingly proven that they can play a game resembling soccer on any given night.

Wednesday, September 2 vs. NYCFC – 0-2 L – Still at home at Gillette, the Revolution suffered their first loss in eight games (which isn’t as great as it sounds – the seven prior games included five ties). They were outpossessed, couldn’t hold on to the ball in the middle of the field, kind of shot (hey, at least they registered shots on goal), and generally looked . . . not good. Michael Mancienne, replacing Andrew Farrell at center back, scored, for the wrong team, not for the first time. Look, everyone makes mistakes, but one of your big concerns for your center back should not be if his header/slide tackle/attempted clearance is going to end up in his own goalkeeper’s net whenever he touches the ball in the penalty area.

Sunday, September 6 at Chicago Fire – 2-1 W – Back on the road, Chicago and the Revolution began the game by trading goals off of defensive mistakes. New England scored early after Gustavo Bou won a ball in the midfield and centered it for Adam Buksa, who dropped a header behind his defender for Tommy McNamara to run on to. McNamara passed the ball across the face of goal where Teal Bunbury was waiting to knock it in. On the other side of the field, the Revolution were not dealing well with corner kicks, and conceded after the initial corner was cleared, but Brandon Bye kept a Fire player onside when the ball was played back into the box by Chicago. Nevertheless, the Revolution were rescued by none other than Teal Bunbury, who in his Bunbury-est goal of 2020, scored when his attempted cross to find Bou or Buksa curled beautifully into the top corner of the goal. To make things even better/worse, former Revolution player Bobby Shuttleworth was in net for Chicago. After that goal, New England decided not to test their luck any further and dropped back a lot and played defensively for the rest of the game.

Midweek – In the latest installment of “Bruce brings back Friedel’s fired footballers,” Lee Nguyen was reacquired by the team from Miami, joining Kelyn Rowe (and Seth Sinovic, but he left much earlier, when Steve Nicol was coach) in coming back to the Revolution after Brad Friedel chased them off. I still don’t agree completely with Nguyen’s behavior in bargaining for a higher salary in 2018 (he had recently signed a new contract), but Friedel was definitely a large part of the problem. A team doesn’t go from losing two games in five days with a combined score of 11-1 to grinding out ties and wins with the exact same players after the coach is fired, unless there was a problem with the coach. Nguyen’s older now, and hasn’t been playing the same kinds of minutes as he was with the Revolution, but at this point in this season, why not give him a try? The Revolution didn’t play with the same kind of fluidity after he left until Carles Gil arrived, and they haven’t looked like that since Gil’s been injured. He knows the league, the team, the players, the location, the stadium and field. [But the training facility is new. No more riding golf carts to the practice fields. Which seriously was how they used to get to their grass fields from the locker room.] So why not? Let’s give it a shot.

Saturday, September 12 at Philadelphia Union – 1-2 L – On the Revolution bingo card: lose a game they might have tied on a last-minute-of-second-half-stoppage-time-corner-kick goal – check. For the third time in eight weeks, the Revolution had a game against the Union, this time heading down to Pennsylvania for the away game. Gustavo Bou, having played the majority of the five previous games in seventeen days and seeming visibly tired in the Chicago game, started on the bench. Joining him was Lee Nguyen, who shortened his quarantine by driving (not flying) directly from Florida to Massachusetts, the same evening he was traded, in a Tesla. Because of course. Anyway, the players on the field had an uneventful first half, managing to keep Philadelphia off the scoreboard while not creating many chances for themselves.

Shortly into the second half, Matt Polster picked up a second yellow card for pulling a Union player back, which is rightfully a foul, but I would argue the play also included the Union player flinging himself to the ground like he’d just been karate kicked in the back of the head. The Revolution then park basically all of their players in their half of the field, which goes decently until Philadelphia scores on a typical defensive circus of errors. However, after already subbing in Scott Caldwell to cover for Polster, Diego Fagundez, and Tajon Buchanan, Bruce Arena uses his final two substitutions to bring on Bou and Nguyen for the last fifteen minutes of the game. Almost immediately, New England’s presence in the middle of the field improves. Whether it’s because Bou has gotten some rest or because the Revolution really have been missing someone who can keep and pass the ball in the middle of the field, I don’t know, but in the moments leading to their tying goal, there were glimpses of the 2014 MLS cup team there. The goal came off a give and go with Bou and was Buchanan’s first ever MLS goal, so congratulations to him. In typical Revolution fashion, they then hang in there until the very last corner kick of the game, when Fagundez’s clearance travels about five feet out of the box to an unmarked Union player directly in front of the goal¹ who takes his time and space to score a(n admittedly nice) goal. No points for you, New England.

¹Defending 101, taught to literal children: clear the ball to the sidelines, not the middle of the field, especially if you’re only going to kick it about three feet and literally almost any other action (kicking the ball way, way down the field; out to the side for a throw in; or into empty space in the midfield), would probably slow down the game enough to make it to the final whistle.

Takeaways: Not much Matt Turner could have done. Andrew Farrell and Henry Kessler continue to look like the team’s best center back pairing. Alexander Buttner, at left back, had a couple decent crosses and one very good one. Polster, minus red card, has been a good fit at defensive midfield, but Caldwell had the most solid game I’ve seen from him since Montreal at the Returnament, especially once Lee Nguyen came on. Based on his limited minutes, Nguyen still looks like he could play very well with this team. And even without the goal, Buchanan has looked better in his recent appearances – less likely to dribble directly into opposing defenders and take absurd shots. So it’s on to the next set of three games. Montreal has been freed from Canada, so get ready for #MapleSyrupDerby time again.

#MLSisBack (. . . again, for real this time, probably): part 1 of stage 3

In the latest installment of the 2020 MLS season, the league released a set of six games for each team against teams in their general geographic area so that the away team can take charter flights to and from the game on gameday itself. One more funny thing to add to the absurdity that’s already been the 2020 season so far is that because crossing the US/Canada border is currently restricted, the three Canadian teams (Toronto FC, the Montreal Impact, and the Vancouver Whitecaps) can only play each other right now. The majority of teams (all except FC Dallas, Sporting Kansas City, Orlando City SC, and Real Salt Lake¹ is what I’m finding online) have not had any fans present, though the Revolution had socially-distanced drive-in viewing parties in Gillette during the Returnament², which were a big hit based on what I’ve seen. After these six games, the league is planning for twelve more games before the playoffs, ending up in a 23-game season – the 2 games played before the season was postponed, the 3 group stage games at the Returnament, these 6 regional games, and the final to-be-released 12 games.

So far in the season, the Revolution have at times looked pretty good, and at others been uninspired. However, uninspired is miles better than last year’s “how do I play soccer” team under Brad Friedel, so I’ll take it. Here’s how New England did in their most recent set of games:

Thursday, August 20 vs. Philadelphia Union – 0-0 T – Following their return from Florida, the Revolution resumed training in preparation for their rematch with the Union, their first game at Gillette since March. The broadcast wasn’t too bad – the crowd noise wasn’t too overpowering, but they put fake virtual tarps over the empty seats that block the ball in the air. Otherwise it was soccer as usual, with a couple twists. Five substitutions per team allowed at a maximum of three different stoppages plus halftime, and hydration breaks at the referee’s discretion if it’s above 82 F, but we’re talking about New England at the end of summer going into fall so we’re more likely to need the orange snow ball than water breaks. Without the injured Carles Gil, the team at times struggled to create chances on goal, but they had a few decent attempts, and the defense was solid. Matt Polster, acquired during the tournament, looked pretty good as their defensive midfielder; Andrew Farrell and rookie Henry Kessler might be the team’s best center back pairing right now; and Matt Turner continued making saves when he needed to.

Tuesday, August 25 at DC United – 2-1 W – In this trip to the nation’s capital, New England opened the scoring after Gustavo Bou collected a missed corner kick clearance for his second goal of the season. Shortly after, the game was put on pause for a lightning delay. Upon its return, Teal Bunbury scored a header off an Alexander Buttner corner kick, which turned out to be the game winning goal when DC was awarded a penalty kick in the middle of the second half. Based on how much the Revolution weren’t arguing the decision, it was probably a pretty blatant handball in the box. Again, not a bad performance from the Revolution, but this was their first multigoal game of the season, and a lot of questions remain. (Their last weather-delayed game before this one was their July 4th game in Colorado last year. They also won that game 2-1 as part of their climb out of the basement of the MLS standings, Teal Bunbury had the game-winning goal there as well, and Matt Turner was in goal making great saves. Maybe they should install lightning rods at all the other teams’ stadiums.)

Saturday, August 29 vs. New York Red Bulls – 1-1 T – During the week, new Revolution players Tommy McNamara and Kekuta Manneh joined the team after 10 days of quarantine. McNamara and allocation money were acquired from Houston for Wilfried Zahibo plus a temporary international roster slot while Manneh was a Cincinnati player traded for another temporary international roster spot. So the Revolution gave up a player who wasn’t getting many minutes and international roster slots they weren’t/aren’t using for two players and money. Say what you want about the front office’s penny-pinching ways; their stockpiles of allocation money and roster flexibility do occasionally come in handy. As for the game itself, it wasn’t terrible. In the first half, the Red Bulls scored by breaking down the Revolution defensively, but the Revolution equalized minutes later on a goal from Bou, assisted by Bunbury and Cristian Penilla. The second half was less eventful until the final minutes, when New England pushed for a goal, but it wasn’t enough to scrape out a win. Kessler and Turner continued to look solid, though Andrew Farrell had a bit of an off night; and McNamara saw some minutes and looked okay.

This got longer than I thought it would, so I’ll stop here and return with the final three games of this six-game stretch. Believe it or not; things get ever weirder.

¹So generally teams from states that could be said to not have taken coronavirus as seriously as they should have. (Though it looks like Inter Miami FC and the Houston Dynamo, who share states with Orlando and FC Dallas respectively, aren’t having fans at games.) Maybe also worth noting that FC Dallas was one of the two teams who didn’t play in the Returnament because of positive COVID-19 tests, the other team being Nashville SC, which again plays in a state that falls more on the “what’s the big deal?” side of the coronavirus matter.

²To the (non)surprise of most Revolution fans, New England was knocked out of the Returnament round of 16 by the Philadelphia Union, ending their time in Florida.