Crooked number to the lake

Dew point.  Day after day of pretty hot and extremely humid.  Day after day of middays only fit for mad dogs.  Finally, today was nice again.

It had been several days since I had been out but not quite long enough to lose what little fitness and strength I have gradually been trying to build.  I took my longest ride of the year, posting for the first time a crooked number.

It takes a crooked number ride to get to the lake I saw today.  Here is a look at Lake Vadnais from the top of the hill on Rice Street.

Two new roundabouts, a couple of new multi-level apartment buildings, some new streets.

The top of the hill was as close as I got,  I was already a long way from home and I didn't fancy climbing back up that hill before riding what shaped up to be a couple of miles too far to get back to my garage.

Instead of an out and back I rode a true loop route, outwards over to a route parallel to Rice Street, then back to the west and home along Hamline.  The road past Lake Owasso is closed for construction so I followed the detour and was rewarded to discover all new pavement along a route that has always disappointed me with narrow shoulders of broken pavement strewn with road debris and trash.  Today was smooth pavement and a good three feet of shoulder outside the fog line.

I soon passed what had previously been my most northern point this year.  This is the playground of a church/private school.  It is private property, they are well within their rights to close what appears to be a pretty inviting place to play.

On the other hand they were holding a wedding in the church.  I, of course, have no clue what it looked like inside but the groups of people gathered outside need to try a little harder.

It was a gorgeous day, I made it home just fine, thank you.

Lots of the roses are outside of hotels, this one looks to me more like a mushroom than like a rose.

With today's ride I have now ridden more miles on this bicycle than I have ridden on FirstLOOK.  I am certain that this means that this is now my bike and that there still some more miles to be ridden before the snow flies.