Electrolyte replacement

As I have detailed here before I try to ride on virtually every day when it doesn't rain. I hate riding in the rain.

As detailed here two days ago on my last ride I felt very much like I would benefit from a day off.

Yesterday's bike log reads as follows: "Too hot, too muggy, too windy." I had a day off.

As often happens when I take a non-rain day off the immediate aftermath was overnight rain. It was too wet to ride this morning and it seemed likely to be too hot and too muggy by the time the streets dried. It looked like a really large month of riding would be curtailed by missing riding on the last two days of the month.

But TpluckyOPWLH started pestering me for a ride. How did this happen is what I want to know. But she was right and after checking the street and the radar we headed out in the late morning into not much wind but rising temperature and humidity.

We had a nice ride. The obstacle of the Fairgrounds and continuing southerly winds have got my regular routes all mixed up. I have been to the Falls and I have taken the Capital loop lately so we headed off towards the UofM. I considered a bend to the west just before the stadium to take us across the Franklin Avenue bridge and into south Minneapolis. The wind at the precise moment when I had to decide encouraged me to instead continue through campus and down towards the Stone Arch Bridge. But I have been there enough times for this year. Mind you, it is a great, great bridge for pedestrians.

Instead we followed along Main Street and embarked upon a circumnavigation of Nicollet Island. The DeLaSalle high school football field that many island residents so fiercely resisted leaves one wondering what all the fuss was about. There are some great old stone buildings and lots of picturesque old wooden houses in what is essentially a pretty park-like setting, including a brick road. OK, I guess I can see what all the fuss was about. All those people living in a park-like setting apparently ended up thinking it was an ACTUAL park and wanted to keep it that way.

We ended up at the downstream tip of the island, behind the Nicollet Island pavilion. The GRider provides context for the river just above the Falls of Saint Anthony and the Central Avenue Bridge. I know that people on the downtown side of that bridge usually refer to it as the Third Avenue Bridge. It is Central Avenue on the Nordeast side of the river.I also got a photo of this plaque commemorating the spot from which Father Hennepin first viewed the Falls in 1680. The link here is, of course, Hennepin was traveling with DeLaSalle. I am glad I got the ride in as it ended up being a pretty significant mileage total for the month. I ended the month with 702 miles, the most miles in a month since July 07. It is a lot of miles to be sure but only the fourth most ever ridden in August, trailing all three of the TRAM years.

We got home before it was completely awful but not before it was hot. You know it is hot out when you can get started on electrolyte replacement by licking your shoulder.