160

All that angst for no good reason, as it finally turns out. The goal was to get in 160 rides at an average of 25 miles per ride, 4,000 miles for the year. Today I took my 160th ride, the average is above 25 miles per ride, bingo. It turns out it was a done deal the whole time, nothing to it, pfft.

*pause*

OK, the fact that I am now riding very near to the end of the 8th month of a 7 month season may have something to do with it. As I was riding today it occurred to me that a definite upside of a bonus 8th month of riding is that next season is only 4 months away instead of the more usually expected 5. Yup, that's the sort of stuff I think about while riding.

The sun was out today and it was a couple of degrees warmer than yesterday. The sun doesn't really provide much warmth at its current angle in the sky but riding in the sunshine just feels warmer than riding under heavy overcast. I started closer to my usual starting time which allowed me to finish before the local school patrol was out and about. So it was good, it was warm enough, it was light enough, I enjoyed it, I had a very nice ride.

Gear adaptations also help, I went with the windstopper booties over my shoes (toes were getting cold yesterday) and the full winter mittens, the heavier weight with the wool mitten liners as opposed to the ones with the fleece glove liners. Wool mittens are way warmer than fleece gloves.

I felt so good that I set off for a late season visit to the northern lakes. My only concession to November was that I took the absolute most direct route. I did this in case it was too cold and I had to beat it for home. Usually I ride a route north which takes me along the way to places I like to ride. The route is a couple of miles longer each way than the absolute most direct as a result.

A direct result of the direct route is that I found myself at a spot near Sucker Lake that I don't get to very often.That's what happens when I ride directly east on Highway 96 instead of back through the neighborhoods behind Snail Lake School. I entered the Sucker Lake portion of the park on the bike path off Highway 96 instead of along the vehicle driveway off Rice Street. Different spot, different perspective.

Does a picnic table count as a bench?

I think the vehicle driveway may have been closed as I did not see a single car in the park on a day when it was sunny enough that I expected to see at least a few cars.

Further down in the park I came across evidence that it is November. The lake is still clear but the water in the slough across the road has a skim of ice.You have to be out there late in the year to find this, Vadnais is closed to cars.Over there on the left, though, you can see that the pedestrian gate is open. I had already ridden some on the bike path up at the north end of Sucker Lake so I was feeling enough like a pedestrian that I went ahead and rode through the gate and down to the lake.

I was hoping to see the big white birds but was disappointed again. I got a couple of photos of an absolute giant raft of ducks, mostly mallards but decided after getting home that they were not particularly distinguished. They didn't make the edit.

I was nearing home when I came upon a drastic example of the brush whacking that has been going on under the power lines around here. There is a spot where all summer I rode past where a willow tree had grown out over the road and dangled the very end of a branch at just helmet top level at the edge of the road. I had fallen into the habit not of avoiding the branch but of seeking it out to give it a little head butt. I didn't even particularly realize that I was doing this until today I discovered that I won't be doing that particular maneuver again any time soon.I was about to put the camera away when I glanced to the right.I got the full standard distance and was home before the curtain fell.

And a shout out to tech support everywhere. When I had a job the actual tech support conferred upon me the honorary title of "power user" indicating that I had more of a clue then the average user about how all of this data processing machinery works. As a retired person spending time in the same building (our house) as a still actively employed non-power user I find that I have been converted to, for the purposes of this building, tech support. Today I showed her how to get her bookmarks back after they had mysteriously completely disappeared leaving her unable to access without difficulty the sites she uses to go about her still active employment. If you don't know how you don't know how but those of us (power users and above) who know how know that you right click the "bar" area at the top of the screen and toggle on or off any of the bars that are active in your browser. Somehow or other her menu bar, which includes the bookmarks, had been toggled off. Such is the life of tech support. She knows how to do this fix herself now. At least I don't have to show her how to turn the monitor on.

True tech support and probably even most power users will recognize what our browser of choice is from the terminology used in the above discussion.