Lamont Cranston at the Fair

We love the Fair.  So despite my various physical uncertainties, we headed out mid-afternoon hoping to get dinner at the Fair and at least a couple of hours of entertainment.

Well.

We stayed 7 and a half hours and closed down Giggles Campfire Grill after the fireworks display at the conclusion of the grandstand show, the traditional ending of the day at the Fair.  We were still there because Lamont Cranston was still playing.

Some will know that this is a regionally famous group, a group with one national hit, making them the very stereotypical one hit wonder band.  It doesn't mean they were not/are not any good.  Because they are good.  It just means that they are not great.  The band noticed that the fireworks display had started and briefly considered a pause but instead decided to play their hit. The fireworks were superfluous at that point, the band was tearing it up, whatever crowd remained at the Campfire Grill had a rousing good time.

I am not even certain who played at the Grandstand tonight but I absolutely without question know that we were at the best show put on anywhere at the Fair tonight, August 31, Lamont Cranston at the Fair.

I am also pleased to report that we had fun.

Earlier in the day I was able to obtain photographs of what many Minnesotans for many years would have considered to be impossibilities.

That's me standing outside of a glass enclosure containing Floyd.

That's probably as close as I am ever going to get but I will definitely take it.  That's me with Floyd of Rosedale.  We want the pig.

And even more unlikely, this is me standing within a foot and a half or so of one of the most famous of all college football trophies, the Little Brown Jug.

This next one we really like, as we are long time season ticket holders.  But we are season ticket holders for a team which has success on a much more regular basis than the football team.  That's the FT with the most recent national championship trophy won by the women's hockey team.

Six times national champions including three of the past four.  We are probably in the photo poster next the the FT's knee but I haven't taken time to examine it yet.  We certainly were at the game.

A traditional shot, the state's largest pig.

Yeah, he is big alright but even among casual observers next the pig pen we all thought that we have seen bigger.  He seems big, he doesn't seem obscenely giant in the way the biggest pig usually does.

A Yorkshire at only a tiny bit above a half ton.

Just to prove that is smallish for the biggest pig, here is a photo of this year's largest pumpkin.

Yup, 1,473 pounds.

Or about 36 percent or more than a third larger by weight than the largest pig.  Very big pumpkin, disappointingly smallish pig.

That's why we go to the Fair.

Final lake photos

I have been mostly not doing very much as I try to recover from the usual travel weariness.  Travel is hard.

So it took me until today to review the final photos I took from the deck.

Soaring raptors, riding the updraft at the edge of the dune, putting on a pretty spectacular display.  There were five of them and at first we thought they might be immature eagles.

Eventually we got enough of a close up look to identify them as the unfortunately yclept turkey vulture.

The name may be ugly but in flight these birds were marvelous, simply marvelous.

Sunset, August 23

FT included just for fun.

Model disloyalty

We had a really nice ride today. Something happened though as the model displayed a shocking degree of disloyalty.

I have no reasonable explanation but I am assuming some sort of substantial inducement.

Just a tiny bit later she was back.

Cardinal flowers, road end, PSPS, a classic ride on a day when August returned to Western Michigan.

A day for the elements

The winds flirted all day with 30mph.  The big lake put on a show.

This first one is pretty early in the day pretty early in the show.

The FT took a video with her phone and was pretty happy with it.  This inspired me to try one myself (but not with my phone).

That went OK so I tried again.

I walked down the steps to dune level to get one of the sun with the dune grass interfering with the image.

Here is a sideways look at the same grass.

The tree at water's edge.

As is often the case, the post sundown show of the no longer visible sun illuminating the undersides of the clouds was probably the best show of all.

Going to lose some dune

We didn't ride yesterday due to inclement weather.

I say inclement because it was inclement and because there really weren't any specific reasons for not riding.  Except that generally speaking, the day was inclement.

Today was just too darn windy but we managed to get in a few miles anyway.  The wind is blowing up pretty big waves on the lake, waves that are reaching the base of the dune in front of the house.  When that happens some of the sand departs with each receding wave.

Gradually the bank is undercut and slumps.

I think the clumps of dune grass that have already slumped down to wet sand level are illustrative of what it going on.

This is all occurring on Lake Michigan.

A couple of local weather broadcasts are predicting waves nearing 10 feet in height for tomorrow forenoon.  If that happens the shoreline is going to lose some dune.

Post sunset addendum:

There was a clear gap along the horizon but it took some time for the sun to get down that far to emerge.  It made for some spectacular lighting effects.

 The light on the house was almost better than the sunset.

 This one is the neighbor's house and looking down the shore towards the state park.

Bicycling note:  With today's mileage I have reached 2,018 miles year to date.

Actually it was working

Today we set out to rent a bicycle to allow the GRider to join the fun.  Her enthusiastic participation was delayed slightly by my first flat tire ever in Michigan.

*sigh*

It was inevitable.

So the deal is that I just stuff my cheap camera into the back pocket of my jersey.  The settings for the camera are on a dial on the top of the camera.  Every once in a while the action of stuffing the camera into my back pocket causes the dial to be rotated off the "auto" or the "P" settings where I generally have the camera set.  Then when I attempt to take a photograph usually I do not notice the askew settings.

I try to take a photograph and am unable to determine why the camera is not functioning.  I usually assume "darn" and decide to look into the problem when I get home (where I will not have to be trying to read the LCD screen on the back of the camera in strong sunlight).

That's what happened today when I announced to the model that the camera was not working.

As I often discover in situations such as this, the video is some of my best work.

And we ended up actually documenting the appearance of the GRider at the side entrance to Bowerman's, something that the supposed malfunction had caused us to doubt had occurred.  If you don't have a photo it didn't happen.

Except when you have a video.

I kept my hands out of the cage

Because I have been there before I didn't even need the warning sign to know that it was best to keep a safe distance.

And, definitely, no feeding.

There was some sort of air advisory alert today.  The advisory was based on it being TOO HOT and TOO HUMID.  We went on a bicycle ride and it was OK as long as we stayed in the shade and near the lake.  It is pretty hard to get very many miles while staying entirely in the shade and near the lake.  We did stay near enough to avoid any physical difficulties but towards the end of the ride it was TOO HOT.

We had a beautiful sunset tonight.

And so the weekend draws to a close and the day visitors go back to their homes and offices.  We are looking forward to the contrast that comes with the dawn of another Monday.

Photo opportunities

I may not even have to carry my camera after today.  It was a spectacular day here, cool and dry near the lake.  There was some wind but not enough to ever make it feel unpleasant.

A nice day for a ride.

And I got photos of several of the iconic sites that I come here to see.

I had to ride farther north than I expected to find the cardinal flowers.

I was on the right street but the ditch near the intersection where I expected fo find the red flowers was devoid of color.  I had resigned myself to not getting what I wanted today when the ditch before the next intersection erupted in color.

I always like to get to Road's End.

It was busy out there today on a Saturday, a large number of kayaks, a few jet skis and one fellow with a fairly deep draft boat with an outboard motor.  I chatted some with him.  The water there isn't really deep enough for that craft but he had put it in and puttered around a little.  He was leaving the landing about the time I was.  I was looking for a route south, he was looking for deeper water.

 Fuels with an attitude.

The source of all the blueberries.

Perhaps there will be sunset photos as well.

Change in the weather

It is a subtle process, this changing air mass thing.  But the results will definitely be felt.

We have had a prevailing north wind (mostly west actually) for the past week or so.  Today the wind moved around to the south (still mostly west actually).  The difference is that winds from  the north bring us an air mass that yesterday was in Winnipeg.  Winds from the south bring us an air mass that yesterday was in Saint Louis.

Think about it.  In August would you rather be in Winnipeg or in Saint Louis.  August in Winnipeg is cool and dry,  August in Saint Louis is hot and humid.

I vote Winnipeg.

So today I was riding in Winnipeg air but just after the wind direction had changed to begin the introduction of Saint Louis air.  The air replacement is only just beginning but the wind was unmistakably from the south.  This means today's ride was NOT to the northern lakes.  Today I headed out towards the big city to our south.

This  allows for a continuation of the ongoing series.

That one didn't come out very well.  I was looking to avoid the harsh lighting of trying to photograph into the sun but probably went too far into the shade.  Cheap camera, auto focus and auto exposure?  You get what you get.

For some reason the crowd at the Falls today was the smallest I have observed in the last several visits.  The Falls pays no attention to the size of the crowd and today was putting on yet another great show.  The size of the crowd meant I was able to get up front easily for the photo.

When I announced that the southern routes were pretty much closed off I thought I heard a call for the farm campus route and a possible photo of the cows.

Today was really quite pleasant.  All indications are that tomorrow will be 90 and humid.  This means that today just may have been the last ride in Minnesota for a while.

Stay tuned.

Miles

The wind conditions lately have been more west than north and that has kept me from going to Lake Vadnais.  Vadnais is north to be sure but it also a couple of miles too far east for days when the wind would be a strong head wind on the way home.

But today it was more northeast than northwest so I rode out there.

It was pretty out there today, another very pleasant early August day.

Route update

I wanted to ride through the Fairgrounds one last time before it closed but a combination of events (mostly persistent rain) prevented me from getting there.

Today the Fairgrounds is closed.

If the wind is going to be from the north EVERY day it won't matter.  We rode north today AGAIN and discovered that churches paving programs operate on a much shorter schedule than government.  It would have taken at least two months for the county to get this road project done.  The church is already almost done.

GRider for scale.

We rode through the Snail Lake swamp again and found about a dozen of those big white birds all parked in one spot.  They were not in a spot where I could get a photo but that's OK.  Life is not always a photo opportunity and just seeing those big birds all together was enough for today.

Private construction

About 95 percent of my rides on the northern route pass through the parking lot of the Saint Odilia church and school.  During the school year the main parking lot is closed but I can detour around the back of the complex through the staff parking lot.  Summer and weekends I just ride right through on the front side of the building.

We were out there a couple of days ago to discover new curbing had been installed on the road down the hill on the side of the parking lot away from the main entrance.  The GRider suggested that it didn't look like they were through.  I was not sure, this is a church, paving and curbing are expensive.  The old road surface was in kind of rough shape but was still passable on a bicycle, not to mention an SUV.

I rode out there today and the GRider nailed it.

I have no idea what the timetable is but it seems apparent that I will be seeking an alternate route for those 95 percent of northern rides.

In a related note I discovered today that the Fairgrounds is closed beginning August 10.  It will not be available again for bicycling until the day after Labor Day, the day after the Fair ends.

September 8.

With a huge swath of Saint Paul temporarily closed by street oiling I have been riding through the Fairgrounds on all rides heading towards the south.  I am about to confront a 29 day stretch when THAT route is unavailable.

*sigh*

Not just another day

It was a special day for us and in celebration we set out on a commemorative bicycle ride.  Just a tiny bit over four miles in the GRider hailed me from behind.

Her rear tire had become flat although only on the bottom (bicycist joke).

We had to walk about half a block to find a shady spot but once we were out of the sun the by now fairly routine procedure for working through this problem proceeded without any further untoward moments.  As all bicyclists should, she carries a spare tube and tire levers in her seat bag.  And she has me.  I carry a mini-pump in my jersey pocket.

There was a sharp rock lodged in the sidewall of her tire about half way around from the valve stem so that is where I began the search of the tube to definitively locate the leak.  It turned out that the sharp rock was NOT the problem.  I pumped some air into the tube and listened for a leak all around that area half way around from the valve but couldn't identify anything.  I turned it over to the GRider while I proceeded with the other parts of the tire changing and she shortly reported a tiny piece of wire sticking out of the tube quite near to the valve.  Usually the tiny piece of wire will penetrate the tire and tube causing the tube to go flat while lodging in the tire.  That is what I was searching for.  This time the tiny piece of wire pulled all the way through the tire and was lodged in the tube.

We got the spare tube in and got enough air in the tire with my mini-pump to allow us to ride to the nearest floor pump.  Which this time was not at home (four miles away) but at County Cycles (only a bit over a mile away).

We had a nice interlude with our bike shop friends and then set out to try to complete our ride.

I sometimes call the trail ride through Grass Lake up to Highway 96 the two tunnel ride.  Here is the GRider passing through the more northern of the two.

Personally, I like the way that one came out.

Along the way we discovered a giant plethora, no dearth, of the big white birds out at the Snail Lake swamp.  We saw at least a dozen and a half, only occasionally as singles.  We saw a group of six and a group of seven although obviously in a small area some of those birds may have been repeats.  Only one agreed to pose.

Focus is a little iffy but that is my cheap pocket camera on full zoom as compromised by auto focus.  Note that the flowers in the foreground are in fairly good focus.

*sigh*

At least you can get the idea.

Even considering the flat tire we had an extremely nice ride.  A great ride on what was just not another day.

53x13

Bike nerd post.

On my three nicest bicycles I ride Chorus 10 speed.  This means Campagnolo Chorus components with a 10 speed gear cassette and 10 speed rear derailer.  I ride a double chain ring in front, a 53-39.  The cassette has cogs with the following number of teeth:  13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23 and26.  This gives me 20 gears to choose from.  I mostly ride in the middle cogs of the cassette.  For one thing, that is where shifting between the two front rings is the easiest and most efficient.  When I have a tailwind and/or am feeling strong I am most often in the 53x17.  When I have a headwind or when I am not feeling very strong or when I start up a hill I most often shift the front ring to the 39 and ride the 39x17.  I live in a location featuring glacial terrain, hilly to be sure, but people who live near mountains would scoff and call it flat.  I sort of agree, the hills around here are always short, I do most of my basic uphill in the 39x19 and occasionally if the uphill and the headwind are combined I use the 39x21.  Once this year all three of the factors which put me on the small ring conspired to occur simultaneously and I shifted down to the 39x23, the second lowest gear available to me.  I haven't been in 39x26 since either the last time I climbed the Myrtle Street Hill in Stillwater or the last time I climbed Ramsey Hill.  Just a comment here, the Myrtle Street Hill is extremely difficult to begin with but also the bottom of the hill is located approximately 25 miles from my garage, meaning that any climb of the Myrtle Street Hill is the beginning of the second half of a 50 mile ride.

I occasionally get a tailwind and a downhill which can find me moving up the the cassette even while in the big ring.  I can ride easily over 22 mph in the 53x15.

But the truth is my most common riding gear now is the 39x17.  In this combination I do still have to turn the pedals to make the bicycle move forward but I do so with a mechanical advantage of 39 divided by 17 or approximately 2.3.

I felt good today, good legs.  Shortly after starting out I turned onto the slightly downhill eastbound Larpenteur Avenue.  I had a decent tailwind and I was lucky enough to make the light at Fairview.  I started clicking up the cassette and eventually ended up for I believe the first time ever, certainly the first time in a very long time, in the highest gear the 53x13.  A mechanical advantage of approximately 4.1.

I wasn't even trying very hard as I obtained a maximum rate of speed of 27.2 mph.  That's slow for Cav but it is very fast for me.

Enough about gears.

The neighbor across the street has a tree which again this year has given the second harbinger of things to come.

They are both maples, the one on frame left is, I believe, a Schwedler maple (a cultivar of the Norway maple).

The one on frame right is a huge disappointment to us all, its leaves having begun to turn before August 3.  It comes soon enough anyway, the dang fauna could at least hold on until actual fall.

The first harbinger of things to come was, of course, the beginning of the shortening of the length of days.

If you go out in the woods today

You better not go alone.

As usual, right click and open in a new tab then come back here for today's post.

The GRider and I toured the MUT through Grass Lake and the Snail Lake wetland in Shoreview.  It is shady and cool in there so the slight increase in temperature today over yesterday bothered us not at all.

Exposure on this one isn't the greatest but you can see water behind the GRider down at the bottom of the slope.  Most years that wetland is just that, a wetland.  This year it is a shallow lake.

As a shallow lake it is perfect habitat for the big white birds.  The heron rookery seems to have moved in there for this season.  We saw at least half a dozen.

Big John and Sparky.