Biking in the Venise Verte...and more Cucumber Salad

First the cucumbers:  They are worse than the zucchini!  They are dividing and cloning overnight!  We're eating as fast as we can!  What is it with the cucurbits (cucumber, zucchini, cornichons, squash, melon)?  They produce like crazy, cross pollinate and produce strange, yet disturbingly familiar offspring the next year?  I digress.
My Mother's Cucumber Salad

3 - 4 cucumbers
1 tbs salt
2 tbs sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tbs fresh chives, snipped
1/2 tsp pepper

Thinly slice cucumbers and layer with the salt in a large bowl.  Cover with a plate, add a weight of some sort and let sit for 2 hours.  Drain, rinse lightly and squeeze dry.  Add remaining ingredients, mix well and refrigerate for at least an hour.  Serve.

Yesterday I found another wonderful Cucumber Salad recipe at AnneCuisine that I tried last night.  It's different than the ones I normally make, simpler and very fresh tasting.  I loved it!  It's going into the recipe book.

On to the bike ride:   Last week, prior to the computer meltdown, we packed up our bikes and went to the Venise Verte for a ride.  It's a gorgeous preserve of bike paths and waterways (and hunting so be careful in the fall).  It's very flat (so not much of a challenge) but lovely for an easy day's ride.  There are great spots for picnics and a lot of lovely secluded glens for camping.  There are bicycle rental shops everywhere as well as boat rentals:  paddle-boats (the bicycle pedal type) canoes and larger boats for families and bigger groups - either by yourself or with a guide.  As we had our picnic we were speculating as to how many people inadvertently extended their hourly rental boat contract by getting totally lost.  There are 'Vous Etes Ici' signs on the bike trails but probably not on the water.  We get lost anyway but that's half the fun. Even in the heat of summer it's cool, shady and tree-lined paths are refreshing.  In the hidden glades you can spot lots of wildflowers - like the purple loosestrife that was the bane or our existence on the lake we lived on in Minnesota.  There it was a horrid weed; here, in the Venise Verte, it belongs...it's beautiful.....