Day 18 of the Fair

We tried to ride on Friday but had a bit of a setback forcing us to cut the ride short.  It was right on the verge of being too hot anyway.  Can you believe it?  Too hot in September.

Saturday we had both social and a commercial obligations which blocked out pretty much all of the time when we might have ridden.  It was right on the verge of being too hot anyway.  Can you believe it etc. etc. etc.?  The social obligation was a very pleasant luncheon, the commercial was the journey out to the hinterlands to a wholesale tree farm operation, a bunch of walking around in "the field" (think tall grass in sandy soil, cockle burrs and trees).  The commercial ended with the selection of THE BIG NEW TREE.

More on that as the saga continues.

Today I hesitated to ride as every single time I started out the door the feeling of impending rain seemed to increase in intensity.  Finally I just said, screw it, even if I only get a couple of miles, at least I will have been out.  I hoped for an hour.

It was definitely warm enough but overcast that the weather people had promised would stay north of Saint Cloud instead sagged into our part of the world and brought with it that feeling of impending rain.  It also produced a complete lack of sunshine meaning that the temperatures stayed in "warm enough" range instead of "too hot anyway".  But there wasn't any sunshine.

I was taking off on a route I often ride when heading out into a south wind but only about three miles out I encountered tiny bits of moisture striking me on the arms and sunglasses.  I turned and headed back.  Even before I was within a mile of home it seemed to me that I could probably still do some circles close to home and maybe still get my hour in.  If I was within a couple of miles of home a bit of rain couldn't be THAT bad.

So, circle through our neighborhood.  Circle through Falcon Heights.  Circle through the area where I walk in the winter time, up towards Snelling.  At about that point the impending rain seemed a bit more remote so I went ahead and plunged off towards the south (still on my side of Snelling).

Eventually I ended up on the Fairgrounds through the Larpenteur entrance.

Here's what the interior entrance there looks like on Day 18 of 12.

Oh, right, 12 days of fun.

Still lots of stuff in the process of disassembly, some of it interesting, lots of it not very photo worthy.  But one thing I always like to look at and something I hadn't actually been over to during our excursion to the Fair while it was in session was the recycled trash sculpture behind the DNR building.  It is a lot more accessible and available for photography anyway when there are fewer than 200,000 people on the grounds.

This year it is called "Homegrown" I suppose in reference to the fact that all of the materials of the sculpture were located at someone's home before they were discarded in the public waters of the state.  Every piece of the sculpture was retrieved from those public waters by volunteers in one of the DNR waterway clean up projects.

So here's something else I didn't know.  The giant big yellow and green slide is a "Division of Giant Rides, Inc." with outposts in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Australia?

The actual slide is visible there in the background as is the new Mancini's outlet, for perspective.

I rode past this.  It is a corner of the Farm Campus cattle pasture which abuts the Fairgrounds up there on Machinery Hill near the Northern Hydraulics tent and the new Home Depot outlet.

That's pretty much where all the geese in town are currently hanging out.  They probably get hassled there less than places where humans and dogs can chase them.  Over there they only have to deal with the occasional University experiment station cattle.

I ended up with the full two hour ride, miles I am VERY pleased to have accumulated.  Early predictions are that tomorrow will be too hot for a ride.  Can you believe it?  Too hot in September etc. etc. etc.