Didn't expect this

No, not that land of Goshen.  Apparently I should have said Land O Goshen which the website I am looking at describes as a phrase which is an expression of amazement or frustration.  Some call it southern in origin, suggesting that a person with a Southern Baptist background is the most likely to understand it.  Others suggest the expression is Midwestern in origin, another says Maine.

The best one though, is that the phrase was a favorite usage of the cartoon character Loweezy, wife of Snuffy Smith, in the comic strip Barney Google.

So, what I meant yesterday was land o Goshen, it poured hard mid-afternoon.

Today was a plenty nice enough day for a bicycle ride until I got about nine miles from home. At that point 30 percent possibility turned into a series of real ominous black clouds. I lost my nerve and headed back towards home. I was approximately at the Shoreview water tower where new construction is underway to replace the strip mall that formerly housed Anne Marie's Dog Grooming.

There aren't many clues yet but today they had the street closed indicating to me some serious plumbing work.

Often when the authorities say road closed they only actually mean road closed to automobile traffic.  I rode on down there and discovered that this time they meant it, road closed.  Lucky for me the work is going on next to a complex of several apartment buildings on the shore of Island Lake.  The buildings have an interconnecting series of parking lots.  I turned into the driveway of the first one and successfully rode along until I was past the construction and able to exit back out to the street.  It occurred to me that this constituted new pavement ridden on as I am quite sure I never rode through that parking lot before.

So new pavement always seems worth remarking upon.

Having cut off the ride I had to ride a loop near home but just as I reached the point where I intended to start the loop another series of really ominous black clouds rolled through.  I finally got the miles I wanted though even if the loop I eventually did ride ended with me facing head wind on the way home for more miles than I prefer to ride into a head wind at the end of a ride.

77 at the Cattle Barn, nice when it was nice, but occasionally pretty scary looking.