Exotic fauna

I didn't say he was dead, I said he was mortal. Today he was the fastest mortal at the line.

Still, a cautionary note. Petacchi was coming. Watch the finish again if it is still available by the time you read this. Petacchi makes a move along the barrier on the right. Garmin is leading at this point and Tyler Farrar makes what he admits after the stage was a mistake. He moves to the outside of his lead out man, Julian Dean, when the correct move was to the inside. Farrar's move to the outside closes the door and Petacchi cannot get through. Out in the middle of the course Cavendish is the fastest.

We had a bunch of rain again yesterday afternoon, and it finally, FINALLY moved the muggy air mass out of here. Today was warm and sunny and quite pleasant. I think it might be just a tick or two short of being . . . wait for it:

OOTNDITHOD.

But it was plenty nice.

GRider indicates she might be interested in her weekly ride some day soon so I rode out to the lakes to once again provide some motivation. Along the way I came upon some street repair in Shoreview. Mine, and everyone's least favorite form of street repair is the extremely bicycle unfriendly oil and gravel. The tar and toilet paper patch is, if you get there too soon after application, nearly as objectionable (from a bicycle riding perspective only, obviously). Today I was out there enough after the fact so that the street was only interesting instead of a caution.I wish I had had this photo for that strange sign theme day. It strikes me as another example of people wanting to control property that they don't own. I am a little bit sympathetic, those train horns can be loud. But the railroad was there first. You mean you didn't notice the tracks when you built that house?Vadnais was spectacularly scenic today. I was looking towards the lake on my left as I rode through lining up potential shots. I glanced towards the usually less photogenic lake on my right and stopped immediately.It isn't completely out of question for us to get storks but it is without question unusual. There were about three dozen or so storks on the lake, you can see a big gaggle of them off in the distance behind the main stork in this photo. I believe that this is the more or less common wood stork.

Down at the end of the lake here are both a blue and a white heron in the same frame. The blue is a little hard to see but white is frame left, blue is frame right. There are also a few storks out there in the background.I was just sitting there admiring the birds and all I had to do was pivot to get this other white one. I think the white ones are commonly referred to around here as egrets. Once again, several storks in the background.Here is what will be regarded in certain circles (inside my house) as the biggest news of the day: The sweet corn girl has returned to the hardware store parking lot.