Six in a row is almost a week!

A parade of thunder boomers rolled through overnight accompanied by waves of rain.  I have heard reports of power outages and sleep interruption but MY actual first reaction upon being awakened was rest day.  I went right back to sleep.

It was wet when I got up.  The heavy overcast was forecast to burn off creating hot and humid conditions leading to another round of storms for tonight.  It was too wet for a morning ride and it figured to be too hot for a mid-day ride.

Rest day.

But the pesky overcast refused to burn off.  At noon it was 68 and although the humidity was high and rising, humidity is not in and of itself a disqualifying factor, especially at 68.

Six in a row.

September 22 through October 3, 12 in a row.  I don't think that one is in much jeopardy at this point.

It seems that a few of yesterday's topics are still open, at least it seems so to me. Here is another example of change wrought by the bridge falling down.

I don't ride down there very much as to do so requires venturing into some traffic a wee bit more extreme than is good for me and it's only worth a couple of miles anyway.  A ride down to the end and touring every single piece of pavement down in that neighborhood on the way back out never gets me even to four miles.  It really isn't worth the bother.

But down at the end of County Road B there used to be an intersection with Highway 280 and a traffic control device (stop light for we traffic amateurs). When they had an additional couple hundred thousand cars a day on that road the intersection was closed. When the bridge reopened people liked the fact that the neighborhood was way more peaceful without cars turning off the highway and racing past their homes at freeway speeds. The intersection has remained closed.  The change is SO dramatic down there that even part of the right of way has been abandoned and what was part of a county road is now a private drive.

And over in Lauderdale here is a place where you used to be able to merge onto the highway. Judging by the tire tracks through the weeds it looks as though an occasional person still does.

That was left open due to a need by city crews to access some facility out there in the right of way, a lift station if I recall correctly.

Here is a more complete look at the turn around here spot.

It is only a turn around, nothing else. The sign at the end of the car length incursion onto the lawn there warns that you shouldn't even think about it, you can't park there either.

The old cars are in town this weekend and eventually I filtered my way over towards Saint Paul to see if I could get a look. I never found a decent car viewing spot but I did ride past my favorite rain garden.

Looking mighty well advanced at mid-summer's night. As it should, there has been plenty of rain.

I discovered that in the big city they still call a dead end street a dead end street. No mere dead end, none of that new age no outlet for the capital city. Dead end street.

Although maybe I'm wrong.  What's the deal with dueling signs?  Dead end street on one side, merely dead end on the other.  Both sides of the street are Saint Paul.

I got home before it got hot. Good thing too, as a trip to the grocery store ended up with a teensy bit wobbly legged bicyclist milling across one of those giant asphalt parking lots with the heat rising in waves. It is muggy NOW and the predicted second round of thunder boomers seems like a good bet to me to actually occur.

Rest day?

Light changes

It looked a lot different to me out there today.

Today was the first time in forever that it was warm enough to ride in the morning.  It was already 74 by 9:30 so I went out then.  The real reason for going at that time is that if it is 74 at 9:30 it is going to be too hot by noon.

And it was.

It is muggy and hot meaning we are expecting stormy weather, all things considered I was glad to get in a ride.  That's five days in a row for the first time since October 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33.  Go ahead and convert October 32 and 33 to November 1 and 2 if you must.  The point is that's rides of the standard length on five days in a row for the first time this year.

The light is a lot different at mid-morning.  I may have looked at things a little differently.  I rode past things that I have ridden by lots and lots of times without thinking anything at all about them but today they looked like photo opportunities.

This one struck me as a "no kidding" moment.

One of the best ways to convince me that the road ends is to build a giant wall across the end of the street.

Before the 35W bridge fell down that was the entrance from Roselawn onto 280.  When 280 had to be used as part of the detour around the fallen bridge the massive increase in traffic volume meant that that entrance was temporarily closed for safety reasons.  While the entrance was closed people found out that they really didn't actually NEED an entrance there and when the new bridge opened this entrance didn't.

It is a DEAD end.

I like this one even though I didn't actually feel like turning around.

That's near the Fry Garden neighborhood.  They are trying to discourage state fair parking seekers from driving up into the neighborhood (where parking is not allowed anyway) by saying that THIS would be a good spot.

Storms are expected but they haven't actually arrived so I was a little perplexed when I came across this in a secluded neighborhood on the other side of Lake Como.

I don't even remember any particularly strong winds over the past several days.  A close look at the trunk of the tree convinces me that this particular tree had some issues unrelated to storm which may have led to a giant piece of the crown falling into the front yard.

I took a really close look and convinced myself that the tree is a yellow birch.  Birch trees in general don't do that well in an urban setting.  That one is pretty big but we should not be surprised that it's overall health is quite apparently not that good.  It doesn't like being THERE in the first place.

I liked the Outlaws quite a bit myself and find it impossible to argue about the Duane Eddy version.  I dismissed the Judy Collins version without actually listening to it but I DID listen to two versions by the Sons of the Pioneers (possibly featuring Leonard Slye aka Roy Rogers).  I was struck by the percussion, one version has brush drumming and the other has an apparent absence of percussion, it sounds like the guitar is the one keeping time.

OK, now I really am done for now with Ghost Riders.

Nothing to see here

While the GRider and I were out yesterday we passed a couple of city street crews patching pot holes in what might generally be called the Como Park neighborhood.

A.  This is problematic based on my past experience that the Saint Paul patching crews use a particularly oily patch mix.  You can get stuff on your tires.

But . . .

B.  Perhaps this means that the potholes at Deadman's Curve have been filled in.

I rode over to find out.

Oddly enough the southbound lane (the way out) has NOT been repaired but the northbound (the way back) has been.  This works fine for me as I don't have any problems with taking the lane southbound, the cars can see me for about four blocks and they will know what I am doing.  On the northbound side I have no such confident feeling.  Based on the behavior of all of the motor vehicles I have encountered over there on numerous passages of that underpass my practice is to hug the curb.  The potholes on the hug the curb lane have been filled in.

So I rode down into the big city.

Recent newspaper articles have detailed the beginning of the demolition of the now inactive Ford assembly plant in Saint Paul.  A columnist who I sometimes read stated that a green tarpaulin had been affixed to the fence around the site blocking all views of the site, the idea being nothing to see here, everyone should just move along.

I wanted to take a look and what I discovered varied quite a bit from everything the newspaper has reported.

No tarp on the fence, the gate was open, it was, in fact, by far the most open that site has ever been in all of the times I have ever been there.

Probably what the deal is is that demolition began with the paint building.  That's probably a good idea as there is certain to be lots of contamination at the paint building, clean up there may be the lengthiest and most expensive, good place to start.

Where I was was the main assembly building, the building out on the River Road which is the building that most of us think of when we think of the Ford plant.  Nothing much is going on over at that end of the complex and there appears to be no need for additional security precautions.

I rode across the lawn to this artwork on the wall near what was the main entrance.  I love the inscription and is that a bas relief?

LOOK at "Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor".

Here's a detail of the work, that looks to me like an old timey Ford truck being held by a figure representing I assume modern man and labor.  Serpents and everything.

I have no idea but I found myself wondering if there is any plan to preserve this particular piece and/or anything else from the old building.

From the Ford plant it is a short ride over to the Falls.  The Falls are looking quite a bit like a tourist attraction right now.

Just a further note about the choice of music for yesterday's post.  There are a bunch of different versions of that song available on YouTube, I browsed and considered several of them.  The Frankie Laine version is there.  The song seems more cowboy than country to me and Johnny Cash is more country than cowboy but I have a fondness for the man in black based partly on his spectacular 1969 duet with Bob Dylan on Girl from the North Country on Nashville Skyline.  My favorite cowboy version is Marty Robbins although apparently Marty himself didn't think it was worthy of release, this version only came out after Marty died.  There were two that surprised me with how much I liked them, both claiming to be the original recording of the song, a very cowboy version by Vaughn Monroe and a ballad by Burl Ives.

It was fun listening to them all and I probably will again but I think it is time to move on.

Guest Rider in the sky

Right click on the link and open in another tab.  And then imagine that every time Johnny Cash intones "Ghost Rider" what he is ACTUALLY singing is "Guest Rider".

Today was the season debut of the GRider.  Her bicycle fitness level can best be described as not yet adequate.  But she was out there and we had a nice ride.

I took her around the nearby areas where construction of various kinds has changed the landscape since the last time she was out.  That includes demolition of the burned out house in Lauderdale, about three major construction projects at the Fair (68 at the Cattle Barn) and the MAJOR new construction to a private charter school being backed by public bonds.  We made a turn back point at the top of the new bicycle/POF bridge over the railroad tracks on Lexington.

For me it was three days in a row with a ride for the first time since May 23, 24, 25, putting me on pace to match the longest stretch so far this year of four days in a row (May 5, 6, 7, 8).  We had a nice time even though after 800 miles of solo riding it seemed a little odd to have to be shouting responses to her questions back over my shoulder.  I can get used to that.

Yippee-yi-yoh, yippee-yi-yay, Guest Rider in the sky.

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.

Bilin’ down me repoort

TCWUTH reports that she got in some bicycling yesterday morning, and good on her I say.  During the time of day when I like to ride we were doused again.  It was nice in the morning and nice again in the evening but land of Goshen it poured hard mid-afternoon.

Land of Goshen, good one, eh?

I am pretty sure this isn't good for the corn, a view of the corn field after the rain stopped.

Stupid ducky, I wanted him to hold his head up and pose.  I even walked over toward him thinking he might alert to my presence and take a look.  But, no, urban ducks aren't much impressed by humans.

I got this one before it rained, your yard could look like this too if you had a giant cottonwood tree next to the garage.

 TOPWLH and I were trying to remember how all of this stuff disappears and where it goes.  We couldn't come up with anything other than we know that the stuff that appeared last year isn't here anymore, that's all new stuff.

And this one I actually took today while riding my bicycle.

The UV index was extremely high so I was looking as much as possible for places to ride in the shade.  It's pretty in there. But the truth is that yesterday I was off again, today on again.  Tomorrow?  Gone again?

Technology note, once again today three different cameras were used to produce the images seen in this post.

Flag Day

I know at least one corn field that is not going to be sprouted by Flag Day as they were planting it today when I rode past.

After a beautiful morning a "system" moved through beginning at about noon.  It never actually rained but it was too windy for bicycling.  Bicycling isn't much fun in the wind.  I spent the first half of the ride battling upwind trying to find a place from which I could enjoy the second half of the ride.  I did all of this amid a gathering expectation of rain.

It came out OK, I felt strong, I felt fast, it didn't actually rain.

Off again, on again, gone again.

The passing of the "system" can be traced through the flag photos I compiled on Flag Day.

The first one is right at the end of the block where I live.

It is still sunny and the wind isn't blowing much.

I didn't want to get too far from home but eventually circled out through Falcon Heights.  This one is across Snelling but before you get to Larpenteur.

Still a little sun but the wind has picked up.

This is a house in Saint Paul near Como Park where I was expecting to find something different.  These people fly a flag every day but most often it is a Norwegian or a Finnish flag.  Today they knew it was Flag Day and put out the stars and stripes.

 Not any sun at all any more, the wind is still pretty strong.

I saw flags at all the places where there are always flags, on schools and on some commercial buildings but limited myself to flags on houses.  I saw probably a couple of dozen and all but one was a US flag.  The one exception was not of any country that I recognized, it was oddly and brightly colored, looking more like a freak flag than a national emblem.  It was probably the flag of Tralfamadore.

Every bicyclist expects to confront some road construction during road construction season.  I just seem to be running into more than my share this year.  This is an important part of the stay close to home loop.

It's not totally bad though, you can just make out the marked detour sign at the edge of the photo.  And being as this is in the part of the city that is exclusively gridded I can dodge around that construction without any difficulty.

Off again on again

Some will know that the blog title is the first part of the message sent by railroad investigator Finnegan on his second investigation report after being harshly reviewed by his supervisor about his first report.  It is also my ride schedule.

Hard rain yesterday (although it did stop mid-afternoon making for a gorgeous evening).  Today felt like summer.

Free from the constant threat of precipitation that has been present for all of my most recent rides I rode a lot farther from home than I have recently.

This is near the turnaround point about a mile less than fourteen miles from home.  This pleasant country road leads down from Rice Street just west of Highway 96 into the Sucker Lake picnic area.

Note that even though I was that number not often used miles from home there was no danger of finishing the ride with that number and having to post it to the bike log.  I was a long ways from home.

And the ride from there went really well.  I finished the standard length ride in under two hours of actual riding.  That means my average speed for the ride reached a level which generally is only reached after I have attained a useful level of fitness.  The reason why the standard length is standard is that it is the first even number reached after I have ridden for two hours at my more or less standard average speed.  If I finish in under two hours I have just had a ride where I felt strong, I rode fast.

We'll have to see how I feel tomorrow, I suppose, but for today I was encouraged.

Here's an example of what I described recently, bike in fishing at Lake Vadnais.

And yes, that's a MAGNA.  That guy may have more invested in fishing gear than in that "bicycle".

With the road having been removed from the edge of the lake and a path having been put in a new trend has emerged.  People sit on the path.  Sometimes with folding chairs, sometimes just sitting on the path.

They never did that when cars came along every once in a while.

Bicycles and POF are not a good mix.

Meanwhile down at the south end of the lake the new parking lot has finally officially opened.

See, it's a trail, no motorized vehicles.

You can see some people at the old familiar fishing spots.  Those spots used to be in the shade of the several large cottonwood trees and the fishing people used to be down at water level instead of a couple of feet above it.

Note the flooding of the circle in the middle of the parking lot.

It rained a lot here yesterday.

I got home and was standing at the garage door with my bike punching in the combination to open the door when the aroma of lilacs somewhat unexpectedly flooded over me.

The mini-lilac that we planted next to the front door has emerged from the couple year funk of transplant shock and is declaring itself healthy and ready to go.  That is by far the greatest profusion of blossoms yet produced by that little flowering shrub.  And even though it may be late, everything is late this year.

Including the first ride when I felt really quite fit.

Lucky to have an exercise outlet

As the young people continue to demonstrate by their refusal to rely upon old school daily ink and paper presentations of information, instead preferring the "intertubes" to inform themselves about the daily world, newspaper information, particularly newspaper weather information, is just so, so old news.

The morning newspaper proclaimed 84 sunny and warm.  By noon the intertubes were predicting something in the 70s with 40 percent chance of rain.  As the young people know the intertubes weather forecast ended up being far more accurate.

I am by now overly familiar with the not to far from home loops.  I rode them again today. 71 at the Cattle Barn at 2:55, not exactly OOTND any time recently.

News?  Well the wind was mostly west today making the uphill from Lauderdale fun and easy (tail wind).  Other than that, it's pretty much the same stuff I am seeing every day of late.

But here's something.  Yesterday's corn picture seemed like corn way behind schedule.  On the other hand today over by the Falcon Heights City Hall they were just planting one of the fields.

On that field they may be lucky to have sprouting by Flag Day (the young people may not know when that is) and corn struggling for calf high by the Fourth of July.

That's the Gibbs Farm in the background.

I noticed something else today.  Here is what they do in Falcon Heights with a street that if you drive down it you are going to have to turn around and drive right back.

That's Lindig Street running north from Larpenteur.  When you get down to the far end of the block there is a gate blocking a dirt road that continues on into an area of community gardening.

It's actually kinda nice down there and it is a place that I walk early in spring after the snow is mostly gone but before you can ride your bike.  Like yesterday for most of us I guess.

Here is how we deal with the same situation in the suburb where I live.

So what's my point? That other suburb seems awfully déclassé, don't you think?

For further illumination of the point here is a similar situation being dealt with in an entirely different way over on the Fairgrounds.

I made it home dry at about 3:15.  At about 4pm it rained.

Not hard rain, not rain for a prolonged period.  But definitely not 84 and sunny.

Our carnivore index has been a little low lately.

That dang cottonwood tree throws down seeds everywhere at this time of year, even onto the hot grill and coals.  Given the amount of actual cooking involved in producing this main course it doesn't seem like an appropriate entry for the cooking blog.

Ahhhhhhhh

Today was advertised as being warmer but . . .

It was cloudy and felt like rain the whole time I was out riding.  But as I neared home a loop through the Fairgrounds surprised me with 70 at the Cattle Barn.  And as I compose this blog post it is positively pleasant outside.  The sun has appeared and that Cattle Barn temperature is not the high for the day.

Not OOTNDITHOD but OOTNDIALT.

I passed this sign on my loop through the Fairgrounds.  I was amused.

Unrestrained speed is usually not a good thing but, come on, 5mph?  That's a 12 minute mile.  It's a speed exceeded by a large percentage of those getting exercise by walking or jogging (or wogging).  It's a speed at which keeping a two wheeled vehicle upright requires considerable concentration and a bit of good fortune.  It is, I believe, approximately Elvecrog Speed.  Today on my bicycle I went ahead and exceeded the speed limit.

Shortly thereafter I was hit by several drops of water.  Long time followers will know that drops of water force me into sprint mode as I take the absolute shortest route home at the maximum speed that my fitness level allows.  Today not so much.

It seems to me that as wet as the spring has been that the sprinkler system at the cows may be a bit unnecessary.  Of further note for anyone who wants to take a close look, someone has draped a collar around the neck of one of the cows.

As further evidence that watering the grass is not yet necessary, here is the state of the corn.

The corn is obviously way behind where it has been in years past.  The reason is that it has been TOO WET.

The sun was breaking though at this point giving a nice shadow interplay across the field.  I like the different shades of green.

I was riding near Lake Owasso earlier in the ride when without any warning of any kind the street I was riding on, in the middle of a block, suddenly turned into a street that had been chip and sealed.  Just suddenly loose gravel.

Obviously I turned back immediately and once clear of the oil stopped to remove oil covered pebbles from my tires.

But apparently there is no escape, here is today's catastrophic road construction news.

If you go down to end of the block where we live that street does not continue directly across the street down there.  Due to the idiosyncracies of suburban development you have to go about half of a short block either north or south to find a continuation of the street.  Taking that half block to the south and you find this going on a tiny bit over a block from my house.

That pretty much guarantees that the cars who will soon be driving through that oil will be carrying the pebbles on their tires when they make the turn and come down our street.

I am trying to stay away from that stuff but it appears to be coming after me.

And a final bit of construction news, we are wondering when the men are going to come and clean up the mess left after last summer's storm water run off project.

We now have a gully next to our house which maybe won't be so bad once it revegetates.  They could go a long ways towards improving our reaction to the project by FINISHING it pretty soon.

By the way, TOPWLH does the summer yard work and she has been mowing a bunch of land out there which does not belong to us.  When they were actually doing the work last summer they ostentatiously posted survey sticks showing where the line is.  Almost nothing of what you see belongs to us despite the fact that only a small strip of FOOT TALL DANDELIONS has been left to fester on our side of the fabric fence.

No use complaining, it is too nice out.

Happy Birthday from D.A.D.

No bicycling today, a day dominated by rain, quite persistent rain.

But I did get out of the house later on for a little bit of band over at Como.

She had the flute solo on Scarborough Fair.

After the song the band director noted that she had played well and that it was her birthday.  The band and the audience then sang her the song, the birthday song.

After the concert we had a little birthday fun at a local establishment.

Happy Birthday from D.A.D.

I wonder if Barbie got home OK

I just kinda riding along over by the new Como swimming pool when this caught my eye.

One of the most well known responses to the riddle presented by the above evidence is to go house to house throughout the kingdom having all of the plastic dolls of the realm try on the boot to find the kitchen maid that it fits.

I didn't do that.

I just wondered if Barbie got home OK.

Today's update on road construction, this is Pascal Avenue south of Larpenteur in Falcon Heights.

This is catastrophic bad news, of course.  Pascal through Falcon Heights is absolutely essential to any attempted ride to the south.

On the other hand the continuing sketchy pavement at Dead Man's Curve means that there really haven't been many attempts to ride to the south.

I have recently discovered that there is a new pedestrian/bicycle bridge over the tracks and Pierce Butler at Lexington.  Use of the bridge requires quite a longish ride on the path though and the couple of times I went that way there were lots of POF (people on foot).  Notwithstanding the apparently widely held belief in urban and/or recreational planning circles, bicyclists and POF are not a good mix.  Still, that is at least A way that a person COULD get across those tracks to make an excursion to the south.  It drops me into the city far from where I usually ride but in the inevitable event of a day when the other directions are out of the question I could at least get in a few miles going south.

Where seldom is heard

I know it rains.  I ride a bicycle.  I know it rains.

But every time it rains this year the storm stalls out and it rains for THREE DAYS.  This is getting a little discouraging.

Today had some sun in the morning but at the time I wanted to gear up and ride some of the ugliest looking sky ever seen arrived and hunkered down as if to stay.  Did I mention cold?  60 at the cattle barn.

Decent weather apparently will never arrive but that doesn't mean that THIS season is going to be skipped.

That's a part of town where I don't ride all that much so maybe . . .

They always throw down way too much oil and extend it well out onto the adjacent street, an area referred to by bicyclists as the "bike lane".  Little pieces of oil coated crushed rock to stick to the bicycle tires.

I turned back.

See what it says on the truck there?

"Computerized rate control".

Which brings to mind the computer adage that I know:  "Garbage in, garbage out."

I had to eventually break one of the cardinal rules of grown up bicycling.  I got too far down the road there hoping to find a way around.  Eventually I had to just ride back.  If I rode on the grown up side of the road I would at each and every intersection be riding through that oil gravel mix.

I salmoned.

And it felt stupid.

But I found this.

Jim Janos was elected governor of Minnesota in what?  1998?  That rusted out pick up was probably already rusty by then.

I have not seen a Ventura for Governor sticker since then, in fact, I may not have seen one even then.  It was not a real campaign, it was a joke, no one was more surprised by the win than Mr. Janos himself.  Now he says he may well run for President.  Of the United States.

In other bike lane news, the bike lane sign has been put back up.

 

Nice looking sky though.  Seeing as the bike lane has ended it is way OK for that mail truck to be parked blocking the only safe place to ride on that street.  Technically way OK, in real life quite inconsiderate to not at least try to get all the way over to the curb.

As has been the case all year, bicycling season has resumed after yet another discouraging delay.

Bike lane ends

Sometimes you just need to really emphasize the point.  Sometimes a sign just doesn't really complete the message.

In a case like that you could always just call in a couple of tons of auto, arrange a trifling amount of erratic driving, and snap the sign off at the base.

There, that'll do it.

Bike lane ends.

Nice day for May

And, in fact, nice enough for June if a bit cool.  I wore a jacket.

But the rain schedule has been so intense that any day when a ride can be had is a pretty good day.

The south end of the new path at Lake Vadnais still isn't open.  The north end and the new parking lot up there ARE open and the lot was full.  It's a big change from last year when you see all of these people hiking in to fish.  And in what I consider a huge surprise there are people riding in on bicycles.

And today one motor scooter.

I think no motor vehicles includes that scooter but I just rode on.  That's a problem which will take care of itself.

Down at the south end I now know where the picnic table is going to be.

There is another concrete pad over there that could indicate that eventually there will be two tables.

No mergansers today but the geese family has welcomed several new offspring.

The sun was out, the wind was manageable, the lakes put on a good show.

The GRider is making noises about getting her season under way.  With the weather we have had this spring she isn't actually that far behind.