New Brighton

As I was leaving the bicycle shop the other day I met yet another person who thinks he knows me because he sees me riding in his neighborhood all of the time. This guy was from Lauderdale and I do ride quite often in Lauderdale. I explained to him where I DO live and how I let wind direction determine the direction of my rides and how this often results in me riding in his neighborhood. He was satisfied with my story and then told me his. He rides very often but almost always on the same route. The route takes him around Lakes Johanna and Josephine. On the day we spoke he was riding in the opposite direction from his usual route. We had a nice discussion of how reversing direction on a regular route makes for a completely different ride.

So I thought about Johanna and Josephine for a couple of days and today set out to ride around those two lakes myself.

I had the Guest Rider today so first we detoured down to the parking lot at the end of the University tramway. The University football team had its first home game of the season today and we wanted to get a look at the tailgate party in the big parking lot over there, the first local manifestation for this academic year of Gopher Nation.

We then headed north back along often ridden routes looking for the seldom taken deviation across Snelling that would lead to Lake Johanna. We crossed at the street intersection in front of Northwestern College. They had a football game about to start there too. We paused to observe for a bit. Northwestern College is Golden Eagle Nation and illustrated by what they have out in front of the football field.We rode away from the field just before they had the pre-game prayer which we could still hear over the public address system. Northwestern is a religious school (I am going to refrain from calling it a bible college this year) so they can go ahead and say a prayer before the football if they so desire. We rode down through the rest of the campus. As with nearly every college campus in the fall, it was pretty and serene, idyllic even.

We rode on, passing through the western city limits to spend some time riding in Arden Hills and then eventually even into New Brighton. The route back led us past Mounds View High School, down the hill to Lake Valentine and then up through the campus at Bethel (also not a bible college). There was no football today at Bethel but the campus was every bit as pretty and serene as Northwestern's.

It was warm and really, really nice. It was warm enough to be summer but the lower angle of the sun gives the season away, it isn't summer any more. But it was in every respect a beautiful fall day, a day of the sort that no matter how many of them you experience you never really have enough of them in any one lifetime.

OOTNDITHOD.

FC Nantes did not play a league game last week. The league took a break to allow for the playing of the round of 32 in le Couple de la Ligue and also to allow for international qualifying matches for next year's Euro 2012 tournament. FC Nantes travelled to Sedan and bowed out of the League Cup by 2 nil. The team returned to league play this week and played a 1-1 draw at home to Le Mans. The team stands 15th the the league table with 5 points from 6 league games.