Ahhh, summer!

A noticeable change to my schedule as a result of not going to work every day is that the Guest Rider comes along on Friday instead of Saturday. It was beautiful, cool, nearly windless and dry this morning so we headed north.

It may not be possible to ride north very much for the next couple of weeks. The Roseville street maintenance guys are out and they are doing that oil and gravel treatment to the streets bordering on Hamline Avenue north from the city limits to Highway 36 or so. It is my impression that someone in the street department is getting a kick back from the gravel guys because the City of Roseville, when compared to, for example, Saint Paul, lays down about 3 or 4 times as much gravel. And there is also the fact that they extend the treatment well past the end of the blocks they are working on out into the traffic lanes of the intersecting streets. The effect of all of this is that if I want to ride on Hamline I have to ride through mounds of sticky with tar gravel.

I won't be riding that direction much for the couple of weeks it takes until they come back and sweep and scrape up the excess.

But we headed north today and it was extremely nice. We got to the usual turn around at Highway 96 and started back down the chain of lakes on the route of the 8 lakes tour. We rode down the hill to Lake Vadnais and discovered 10 swans cruising the upper end of the lake.We have seen swans there before but never this many at once.

We rode down to the mid-lake parking area and for the first time in memory there was not a single person fishing there. It was a sparkling blue day on the waters of the lake.Before leaving the lake we saw the 10 swans, either 4 or 6 great blue herons, a couple of white herons, and 50 or so ducks but surprisingly no geese. The lily pads are in bloom.

There is a house for sale on Lake Emily. We are not actually looking for a house, even one with "Price reduced", but we were looking for a photo opportunity.GRider is only pretending to be interested by acquiring the listing information available in that little box on top of the realtor's sign. You might be able to spot 17 acre Lake Emily visible down through the trees on the left.

There has apparently been enough rain for the corn.GRider for scale.