Gambling report

Yesterday featured the annual excursion to the race track. Admission was free, hot dogs were free, and for a change I almost broke even on the gambling. All in all a successful outing.

I had four hot dogs, matching what has become my usual consumption on this national holiday. Four hot dogs may seem like a lot for one day and perhaps it is but the total is tempered somewhat by the fact that four hot dogs is also my total for the last year. And in fact, I was not even the hot dog champion of the group. The P.S.-ter also consumed four and she easily wins the first tie breaker in competitions of this sort, body weight. I checked at the snack bar and hot dogs were being sold for $3 each. This makes me $12 ahead on the hot dogs to go with $5 ahead on the free admission. The $2.80 that I lost gambling seems pretty insignificant.

We stayed for eight races and I successfully picked two winners. They paid $16.60 and $12.60 on winning tickets and that was enough to offset losses on pretty conservative betting.

Today we rode in a direction seldom taken. The ride took us into New Brighton, a route which requires a mostly west wind with a slight north component. Today was just that, a wind described by the weather channel as WNW. The Guest Rider kept proclaiming the route as an entirely new experience which it is not. I am pretty sure even GRider has been there before, certainly I ride there at least several times a year. We took our break at Valentine Lake on the campus of Bethel University.We eventually ended up on more familiar roads and passed up West Owasso Boulevard between Lakes Owasso and Emily. Just a couple of days ago I featured a photo of GRider in front of the house for sale on Lake Emily. Here's a picture of the front of the house, the side facing the lake, a photo taken from across the lake.We are facing west to take this picture. This angle is not a good photo opportunity at the time of day when until recently I did most of my riding as a photo taken facing west into the setting sun will most often have exposure issues. Today the sun was pretty much straight up overhead as we were there before noon.