Season ends deux

I am more or less positive now that the season is over. It was, apparently, standard time while I was out there riding around today. I checked the bicycle log and with today's ride that makes a total of 42 miles ridden this year during standard time. One ride before daylight savings, one ride after, that has kind of a nice balance I think.

It was November when I started out. It was cold and heavily overcast grey. The wind was quite strong but it was almost directly from the west. Wind on one of the cardinal direction points is good when you are riding on a grid of streets. The wind only punishes you in that one direction. Today I could ride both north and south without great difficulty. Furthermore, from where I live almost anywhere west involves a downhill. So I had downhill into the wind and tailwind for the uphill bits. It worked out pretty much OK. The temperature displays on the Grandstand are both turned off but it was 47 at the Cattle Barn, about the average high for today.

Then at about 10 miles the sun broke through. It got prettier out and warmed enough to verge on comfortable.

I pictured these trees about a month ago with the comment that when they turned orange they would be pretty enough to make your eyes water.The sun was just coming out when I rode past so I stopped for a photo. Pretty clearly I missed part of the process there, my eyes watered not even a little.

I rode on over to Raymond and University. The road is officially closed even when, as today, there is no one there doing any work. It should be fairly obvious from the photo though, that a pedestrian or a two wheeler with intent could pass through there without difficulty. So today I did.I didn't go far but I did ride down into Saint Paul for just a bit. That makes today a tale of three cities as I later got over to Minneapolis as well.

I have read the manual and have been practicing so I knew what to do when I got to the middle of the Stone Arch Bridge.

It's a little too long, isn't it?

I saw the word "snow" in the weather forecast for Wednesday. Last year my last ride was on Veteran's Day, November 11. It is going to take some luck to extend this year even that far.