Another nice day for roofing

The roofers finished yesterday but today we had still some roofing residue to deal with, mostly installation of the new gutter guards.  It was a plenty nice enough day for that which means, perhaps obviously, that it was another nice day for bicycling.

The wind was from the southeast, dictating a ride down into the big city.  That whole Fair thing provides a massive obstruction along the route that I usually use to ride south.  We had to improvise.

Well actually, there was very, very little improvisation.  I have ridden this route at least a few times before.  We rode through some extremely troublesome people trying to park on the street relatively near the Fair hassles but eventually got out to Como Park near the pool and wandered on down to Lexington for the path leading to the new bridge over the railroad tracks and Pierce Butler.

We crossed over into Saint Paul and looped past the Emily tree and on over to the campus.  Some will know that the GRider has been involved in a pretty stressful move from the office she has occupied over there for many years to a building that, unlike the old one, hasn't actually been condemned.  In fact it looks pretty modern.

That's where she will be officing and apparently sometimes teaching.

Not as funky as the old but from the outside it looks like it may be functional.  I really don't have any credibility to comment, I don't actually have a job.

Once in that neighborhood I set out to find this historical anomaly.  This alley runs diagonally through the block bordered by Aldine, Wheeler, Blair and Van Buren.

The alley is one of the very few surviving reminders of Territorial Road, once the main road between the settlement at Saint Anthony Falls and the settlement at the upper landing in what is now Saint Paul.  It is a remnant of the old ox cart trail that linked those two communities.

We rode down the alley on our bicycles.

I like that old timey stuff, the ride through the block on that alley felt way cool to me.

We continued on south until we came to streets quite recently chip and sealed.  We got a bit of stuff on our tires and were pretty quickly discouraged from trying to head farther.  We turned back after reaching the bell tower at Macalester.

Riding back through the campus at Hamline we came to this sign at the corner of Hewittt and Snelling.

I confessed to the GRider that the sign left me uncertain about what it exactly was that I was supposed to do.  I could understand that I, being a bicyclist, was to stop on, what, I don't know, something, and although the sign appears to be missing a verb I believe I was to (wait) for green.

Communication is fraught with peril.

A nice day for roofing and a nice day for bicycling must also mean a nice day for going to the Fair and it appears that lots of my fellow citizens today availed themselves of that opportunity.  The Fair provides "park and ride" shuttle bus service from a raft of relatively nearby patches of asphalt to the front gate of the Fair (actually I think a side gate, but I digress).  We are within a mile or so as the crow flies of the Fair which makes the nearest park and ride to us look like a this is a pretty good spot to lots of people who live farther away than we do.  The parking lot almost always fills up and there is some overflow parking on the nearby streets.

Well, we are a complete two blocks from the bus stop (a quarter of a mile for those keeping score) which means that parking in front of our house doesn't seem to me like it should be that attractive an option.

Numerous of my fellow citizens disagree.

This is the suburbs.  Typically the street is completely clear.  If there is even one car parked in the street those of us who live on the street look at it quizzically and wonder who is visiting the folks in whichever house the car is parked in front of.  Not so much today.

Who the heck are all these people?

Looks to me like a possible record attendance at the Great Minnesota Get Together.

We will be going some day next week.