I rode the Capital Loop in reverse. Having ridden it a couple of times now in reverse I cannot imagine why I ever rode it in the other direction. That whole two legs into a quartering head wind to set up an about 7 mile down wind leg? It is starting to seem like such bad, bad planning.
Much better is 7 miles into the wind (although that leg also includes a nasty hill which is even nastier when it is directly into the wind) followed by a couple of long blissful legs with quartering tail winds.
Yup, this way is better.
I stopped at the Empire Builder's house. The house has a fence and two gates. One gate is directly in front of the main entrance. This one is almost always closed although it was open today. The other gate is at the edge of the property at the gatehouse and has been open twice in all of the times I have checked to see if it is open. Today was the second.
The camera angle from the gatehouse is much better.
Well, he WAS rich, it figures he had a pretty nice house.Here I am standing in exactly the same spot but have turned towards the other historically significant building in the immediate vicinity for a photo opportunity. This shot includes one of the gate posts, a nice bit of nearly full bloom lilac, and the cathedral dome.
The dome has been re-coppered within the last, oh, I don't know, several years. The copper dome will eventually turn green again but for now oxidation has advanced only to the color you see.
I was just cruising through my Bicycle 12 photo folder and noticed that I had not published this one:
That's one last memory of our trip out of town to Duluth, TOPWLH on the dune at Park Point with Wisconsin in the background.I promise that there are a couple of references in this post that will be revisited in the next few days.
I promise.
I passed through the Fairgrounds on the way home.
EG: NA
CB: 59
AOWG: 69
Pretty nice day but clearly not qualifying as OOTNDITHOD. It felt good to be out there, mostly (with two tail wind legs) I felt strong, I felt relatively fast. Bicycling is good.
2 comments:
When I checked temperatures after my ride today you were 10 degrees warmer than we were. 52 and 62, I think.
Great house. I love the carriage entrance. I always wanted a house with one of those -- though they aren't very practical.
Your lilacs are quite a bit ahead of the ones I've seen here. Urban heat island effect?
I really like that photo of Mrs. Smith.
Excellent photo of the Hill House. Andy and I took the tour not too long ago - there is a section of the house above the organ room (yes, a real, still-functional pipe organ) where the supporting steel beams are exposed. We couldn't help but note that they are stamped "Carnegie."
Excellent biking report.
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