Here's another sign

August 31 feel a lot like the end of summer.  My personal definition of summer, though, is that it ends on Labor Day.  Labor Day isn't until way like next Monday or something.

But with the Fair in town and the corn getting knocked down, here is yet another sign that fall is upon us.

Next week.  School starts.  If that isn't the end of summer?

We had a nice ride under favorable conditions out to Lake Vadnais.

We happened upon a couple of chatty fellow citizens out at Lake Vadnais.  They had some nice stories about Vadnais when they were younger and in an upset one of them totally knew about County Cycles and my personally preferred bicycle mechanic Scott.

It was a very nice day to be out riding our bicycles.

August returns

We had a couple of days of mid-September but today August was back.

Too hot, too humid.

I cannot ride anywhere near the Fair and this is making finding a way to the south more difficult than I expected.  Today I crossed the railroad track barrier at Lexington again.  This isn't very satisfactory but it does get me across and into the city.

Today I rode quite a long bit of the Charles Avenue bike boulevard.

This boulevard intersects the Griggs Street bikeway at, wait for it, the corner of Griggs Street and Charles Avenue.

I rode down towards the east end until I encountered the area where the big city down there recently applied oil and pebbles to its streets.

I hate those pebbles stuck to my tires by the oil.  I turned back and rode towards the west end of the boulevard until I encountered a fellow citizen exiting an apartment building parking lot by looking totally to her left and just driving right over the spot where I would have been had I not seen her coming.

I decided to head for home.

Here is today's corn report.

The harvest has begun.

And harvest doesn't seem terribly far off here either.

That particular plot of ground is the spot where the tulip bed provides such a spectacular show early in the season.  It looks like the proprietor over there has overplanted the tulip bulbs with pumpkins.

Today was too hot but I made it so I guess it was okay.

Day 2

OK, so obviously the series missed what some would consider to be THE most important day.  It was hot, I had ridden four days in a row, I was achy, frankly I just didn't feel like it.

Several of those things were also true today but today I did feel like it.

This Fair thing is really something.  The average attendance for the twelve days is something like 150,000 people per day.  150,000 is a fairly good sized city.  So you drop a fairly good sized city into what is already a fully urbanized area and you get something like this.  I live over a mile from the actual Fair but this is what my street looks like from shortly after they open the gates over there every day until after they close.

Most, but not all, of those people are legally parked.

I wanted to see if I could edge my way over towards the grounds but eventually gave up.  A fairly large city has come to my neighborhood and almost all of them only come here once a year.  They are unfamiliar with the area, all they really care about is finding a place to park, the level of distracted driving is right up there with Pokemon players.  I had a couple of not actually very close calls but close enough to make me find a new way to head south.

It starts by riding long and hard towards the east away from the Fair first.

So here's another street where I used to live. 

I keep fairly close tabs on the health of four ash trees.  Two in our yard, one in our neighbor's front yard and one that I planted.  The one that I planted is today by quite a bit the healthiest looking of the four.

I rode quite a bit on the Griggs Bikeway today.  It has a couple of nice roundabouts just north of University but once across University it pretty rapidly degenerates into a start and stop not very useful route.  As for the part where it is a useful bicycle route?  Almost 1.5 miles.

Last day before the Fair

I rode again today, four days in a row for the first time this year.

In years past I have ridden much longer streaks but in years past I was much closer to my best if used by date than I am now.

But it was a good ride.  I had a guest rider and we rode pretty hard.

Starting tomorrow it will be exceedingly unwise to take a bicycle anywhere near the Fairgrounds so today was our last bicycle excursion to that particular neighborhood.

Here is today's sign that the Fair is near.

Many will be aware that people who live near the Fairgrounds often will allow cars to park on their lawns (in exchange for a significant fee, of course).  This is the first time I have seen a homeowner paint stall lines onto his back yard.

That yard is only about a block from the Snelling gate.

This fellow has another interesting bit which is not probably totally Fair related.

For purposes of the Fair I bet he also means to include Fairgoers in his admonition.

Today's photo from the Falls.

GRider.

Closer to home I came upon yet another indicator that the Fair is near.  We live only a couple of blocks from one of the Fair Park and Ride locations.

So at the end of our street the Fair people have put out a trash container so that individuals leaving the Park and Ride will be able to dispose of their food and beverage trash without dropping it into the yard of one of my neighbors.

I usually forget this but I know that tomorrow morning I will be reminded that even two blocks from the Park and Ride the street in front of my house will be parked completely full.  Just to get us in the mood today we (actually GRider) had to pick up some trash that someone had thrown down in the street in front of our house.

Here's hoping that starting tomorrow all of that trash will go into the trash barrels.

We love the Fair.

Only two days until the Fair

Today's picture of the Falls.

Vertical rather than horizontal orientation.

Here's today's sign that the Fair is really close.

There in the distance is the Snelling gate.

In the foreground is a Fair provided trash container, well outside the grounds.

The Fair is hoping that Fairgoers will discard their food and beverage trash in those barrels instead of on the neighbors' lawns.

You would have to ask the neighbors how successful this program actually is but no matter it is an appropriate effort by the once every year 12 days ending on Labor Day festival.  Personally I hope people use the barrels.

Only three days until the Fair

The Fairgrounds are, of course, closed but a south wind still leads me over in that direction so I have been riding past on Como.

An unmistakable sign that the Fair is close is that they have summoned the crane and hoisted the temporary pedestrian bridge into place over Como.

It was pretty windy but not uncomfortably warm.

One out of two isn't bad.

My destination was the Falls.

There was a pretty significant group of fellow citizens there.  Who walks into the bike path without at least raising your head to see if a bicycle is coming?

But there were no actual collisions and no personal injuries.

What there WAS was a nice ride.

Vadnais

We had a couple of days of rain.  We both refuse to ride in that.

But today was plenty nice so we hightailed it out to Lake Vadnais.

We felt really strong on the way out there and made really remarkable time.

You can probably guess why.  Because the person responsible for judging the wind direction got it wrong.  The wind was mostly west so we were mostly OK on a mostly north-south route.  The problem was that the secondary direction was slightly south.  We rode home into mostly a slightly quartering head wind.

*sigh*

Weather related post

We had this on our deck last night.

Everyone gets one guess what that produces the next day.

Isn't one guess fun?

There are probably lots of correct answers but the one I was looking for is a seemingly endless parade of men with clipboards offering to do a free estimate of roof damage.

By the way, during the time when all of this was happening?

Elemental.  There is something about high winds with pounding on your roof to make a person want to take cover.

Today I did get out though.  It was a fun ride both leaving and returning to the neighborhood as doing so gave me a really good perspective on how many guys with clipboards there were roaming around near where I live.

Here's a view of bridges taken from the opposite direction as the one published last week.

There is a large impact bridge replacement going on in town.

That bridge is the first of two replacing a really old one.  That's Highway 36, a pretty major commuter route.  I used to drive on that every day to get to the plant.

Now I have to ride my bicycle over there to find out what is going on.

Too . . . thick . . . to . . . breathe

All signs pointed to hot and humid for today.  I got started a bit earlier than I usually do, hoping to avoid what promised to be intolerable conditions by late afternoon.

It was definitely 80s, not quite 90, but definitely 80s and humid indeed.  It was the kind of day when some who is, as I am, somewhat past their best if used by date and who now experiences loss of tissue flexibility in my respiratory system which has led to reduced efficiency in processing what I breath into the oxygen I need.  There should have been a health advisory, perhaps there was.  The air was without doubt too . . thick . . to . . breathe.

I eventually got too far from home.

The ride home was hot and hard but as usual, making it home was rewarding.  Once again there was no need to call for a ride.

No ride tomorrow, the baby need sitting.

I voted

I like voting and I never miss.  I even show up for a meaningless primary on a hot and steamy day in August.  I don't think it was my most insignificant vote ever, that would be the time I showed up to vote and was offered only one ballot option, selecting two out of three candidates to advance to the general election for a school board seat (I bullet balloted, voting for only one).  Today I had select one out of two for the U.S. House with a well known heavily favored incumbent and select one out of three for one of the positions on the state Supreme Court.  I actually had an opinion on the court seat.

Before that I rode my bicycle.

Hot.  Steamy.

But light winds, gradually winds are becoming my very, very least favorite.  It was hot but the miracle of evaporative cooling kept me comfortable as long as I maintained a reasonable pace.  Drink lots of water, though.  As soon as I stopped the sweat that I was producing which was evaporating while I moved no longer evaporated, as they say at the Games, I popped a sweat.

I can't ride in the Fairgrounds any more until after the Fair is over.  Wind conditions dictated a move in that direction so I headed off towards a place I don't go very often.  I crossed the pedestrian bridge on the campus just downstream from the 10th Avenue Bridge.

Through the arch of that bridge you can see the Stone Arch Bridge in the distance.

I had no guest rider but the person who fills that role happened to be out lunching and walking.  She reports that her party walked across the Stone Arch Bridge and that it was way too dang hot.

As I said, evaporative cooling was working for me and I was quite comfortable.

I got into the actual downtown area of the major metropolis off to our west.  Here is my first photograph of our new $1.1 billion (yup, billion with a "B") football edifice.

It is HUGE.  It is no doubt doing great things to make football great again.

Kelsey worked there for a while.

So here is today's mystery.  I noticed this thing blooming and realized I have no idea what it is.

Here is a closer up look at the foliage and flowers.

Both of the candidates I voted for were victorious.  With that and a successful ride I am proclaiming a productive day.  It looks like it will be hot again tomorrow but with no election scheduled productivity may be harder to come by.

Probably won't see this again for a while

With the Fair looming today was the next to last day and probably our last time over there.  The grounds are closed on Monday.

That's going to be a huge disappointment to the throng showing up there every day of late to play that phone video game.

We passed TWO cars today.  The second one we really startled the driver.  She was so surprised that she actually took her eyes off of her phone.

We checked on the slab that we suspect of being the new concession.  It does appear that it is going to be a non-permanent location this year.  The concrete slab is now under a tent.

Again, as the Fair draws nearer there are several of those springing up.

Here is my odometer when I got home from today's ride.

That's a fun number and nothing quite like that is going to be coming around again for a LONG time.