Let's try south

Nice day.

Really nice day.

Today I rode in just shorts and even ended the ride in short sleeves (arm warmers pushed down). It was so nice that today produced that annual hideous display of worst case pasty white flesh. The tan line on my thighs is faded and a bit ambiguous but it was sufficient to allow me to haul the shorts up to the appropriate position and head out the door. A couple of hours later the skin tone is only slightly less hideous but as with many things in life, it is a process.

I have a couple of more or less standard spring rides, one north, one south. Each comes in at around 17 miles which allows for a couple of loops somewhere along the line and a ride of 20 miles. That is almost always enough for this time of year.

Today I did the ride to the south. 22 miles. It was hard.

The south ride takes me to Town and Country and back. The vegetation at the golf club is showing just the tiniest early tinges of green. Is there a color that fits that description?

The loop that I took to raise the mileage from 17 was a familiar one, through the Fairgrounds. It has been winter, it is time to check in and see what is new.

The official temperature has apparently climbed into the 70s, not so at the Cattle Barn (CB) at shortly past 2pm.The always optimistic west grandstand (AOWG) was 77. The EG display is still on the fritz.

Here's something completely new at the Fairgrounds.It is, I admit, a bit less intimidating than an alligator warning but that is only about two miles as the crow flies (or as the coyote trots) from my backyard. I guess I won't be letting my bunnies out to play in the yard overnight any more.

The Ford plant has closed. I read in the newspaper at the time that the last run of light trucks produced at the plant was a run for fleet purchase by, if I remember correctly, Orkin. The Ford plant is gone but there are several hundred of those white soon to be Orkin pick ups still hanging around the Fairgrounds.I posted this last year on April 12.

Aside from any criticism of the technique (unwarranted, I have since read the manual), this is interesting in view of this photo taken today from more or less the same area of the parking lot.The streets to the south are still a bit sketchy but I believe that for rides to the north that I could haul out the other shoes and the nice bicycles. The season has begun, with today's ride in the books I am now more than 1 percent of the way to the annual mileage goal.

It's a process.