Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet

TOPWLH recently posted something about the relatively nearby and immensely historical Catholic cemetery.  She received a commented complaint that she left out one of the  most significant markers in the cemetery and was referred to me, of all people, for guidance on correcting this oversight.

Well.

So today I set out to try to be helpful.

During the time when I was out it was another gorgeous day.  The temperature topped 80 for the second time since the last 80 of the year was declared a couple of weeks ago.  But truthfully, the average high is now only 69 and 82 is a really nice day.  The colors are coming, getting a bit more noticeable every day.  There are now lots of yellows and some pretty striking examples of maple trees going orange.  I was taking my mid-ride sit down when I got this photo.

That is an oak tree and won't be changing for a bit yet.  The lighting and the shadows are really outstanding.

So I was sitting down.  That part of the monument behind my bicycle looks a lot like a bench to me and when you are standing next to it in the middle of a couple of hours of vigorous exercise it is definitely a bench.

I am pretty sure this one wins the award as largest monument in the cemetery.  It isn't the tallest, I don't think, but for pure bulk this one seems the largest to me.

According to the morning newspaper still 12 hours and 6 minutes between sunrise and sunset.

Change of season

Fundamentally there are two seasons, the season when there is more daylight than night and the other season.  Tomorrow is the solstice. (edit: at least the commenters were aware that tomorrow is actually the equinox)

But enough about that.

With today's ride I succeeded on a throw away line from the 1st of this month.  I have now ridden more miles in this month than in any previous month this year.  This is partly the early start this month but probably more importantly this is a product of slowly increasing fitness.  To illustrate, I do not this month have the largest number of rides for any month this year.  Fewer rides but more miles per ride.  I need two more rides this month to equal the largest number.  This still seems quite likely but I am not there yet.

All the weather sites said it was nice out today so I really only checked starting temperature and wind direction and headed out.  Oops.

I was less than a mile from home when a gigantic clap of thunder intruded.  Ordinarily that would be enough to get me right back into the house.  This time by the time I got turned around and headed towards home there was an emerging large expanse of blue so I stayed out.  And stayed close to home.

I didn't get rained on but interestingly I rode through lots of places where it had rained.  I tried to get a picture showing the contrast but I wasn't too sure how well wet pavement would photograph.  Given that, I was able to document 70 degrees at 3:28 at the Cattle Barn.

I had mostly been JRA so I was ready for a sit down.

I will be keeping an eye on the section of the newspaper that reports sunrise and sunset.  It was 12 hours and 5 minutes today.  The dark season is looming.

Nice Saturday in September

Every nice Saturday in September has an increased possibility of being the last nice Saturday of the year.

It was a plenty nice day for a bicycle ride and I took what is going down for this year as an epic ride.  That's good.  Approximately half the population of the metro area was also engaged in outdoor recreation.  That is also good but occasionally there were more people around than I am currently comfortable with.  More on that later.

A mostly southerly wind got me started off to the south.  My usual route takes me around the Fairgrounds on the east side but I have noticed that Como is torn up considerably beyond what I have previously reported, the project continues on west of Snelling all down the side of the Fairgrounds.  There appears to be pavement available but bicycles would have to share the lane with automobiles and the potential for that to end badly, especially on a weekend with the increased amount of traffic, so I didn't want to go that way.  I can get past the Fairgrounds on that route but with Como unavailable I can not get back to the west at that point.  All rides from that point head off to the east towards Como Park.  Today I adapted by cutting through the farm campus thereby staying on the west side of the Fair.

We have reached that point of the annual cycle when the natural lighting is magical.

This route gets me out of town and into the big city to the south much more rapidly than the normal route and I knew that I could penetrate much farther to the south than I had done previously.  For example:

Yes, indeed.  That's Minneapolis.  I was really close to the big attraction over there and I wanted to try to take a look.  It was a nice Saturday in September with far too many of my fellow citizens having that same idea but patience and a willingness to settle for the secondary viewing area means that I got this photo:

For once the autofocus worked for me.

I took my sitdown at 42nd and 42nd.

There is a school there, Longfellow, with lots of shade and a huge playground.

After that all I had to do was get home and I endeavored to persevere.  The long uphill on Pelham was daunting but as a family member explained earlier this year after arriving at our house on her bicycle, that hill is only long, it isn't really that steep.  You find a gear that you can turn and you turn it.

It ended up being a really nice Saturday in September.

Ambition

 It happened again here today.  After 82 unexpectedly appeared on Tuesday temperatures have plummeted to around 20 degrees cooler than average for this date.  As I neared home I rode past the insurance agency time and temperature display to find 57.  No one likes that big a variation between rides, it upsets your equilibrium.

But at this time of year once the cool weather gear comes out of storage it is standing by ready for use on every ride until the final ride of the season.  Looking at my bike log, last year the first time it snowed was October 12.  Snow came to stay on October 27.  Both of those dates are very early historically.  In any case we have reached a point where the end of the season is starting to come into view.  There should be at least six more weeks but probably not much beyond that.

I wanted to test my limits a bit today so I headed towards Island Lake and possibly points north.  This is an area where I used to go all the time but where I had not been this year.

Sometimes when you don't go somewhere for a while you discover that gremlins have been messing around in your absence.  There is a very ambitious park improvement project going on in Shoreview.

You turn off Lexington onto a path, ride through some woods with wetlands on either side of the path and then up a hill.  When last I was there all of this was just brush intermixed with some long grass, mostly brush.  The brush has been grubbed out and the county appears intent on planting one of those gardens of the types of grasses that were abundant here before widespread Euro settlement.

My opinion is that anything involving changing out what was there previously is likely to be an improvement and this particular project is quite likely to be a very significant upgrade.  I am going to have to ride out there again from time to time to check on the progress.

Here is where I took my sit down.

I sat on one of those landscape blocks.

That is a commercial orchard on Victoria Street.  Even when I ride that far north I don't make it to this orchard very often.  My usual route out there turns about a half mile before this and heads off to the east in search of Lake Vadnais.  That is starting to shape up as a goal for what remains of this season but not for today.

Visible on the ground next to NewLOOK is clear evidence of where we are in the season.  I wore full fingered (but very light weight) gloves over my biking gloves today.  It was plenty nice enough when the sun was out but at the half way point in my ride that had not happened yet.

Fake news

A few days ago I repeated the opinion of a local weather reporter that we had had the last day for this year of 80 degree temperatures.

Surprise.

Today was 82.  Pretty nice day for mid-September, I suppose, but too windy for a comfortable bike ride.  And humid.  But September humid.  There was a lot of water in the air but without summer time sun it just didn't quite cook up into that mixture that is so hard to breathe.  It felt muggy but a very breathable muggy.

And even without a cloud the sky was not blue.  There was a substantial and quite evident smear of smoke.  The cable news channels are reporting that multiple west coast states are on fire.

But I did ride and took my mid-ride sit down here.

I sat on the green rug simulating grass over there in front of the lawn mower picture.

From that spot I found myself looking at the hardware for one of the two sky rides.  There are two and they are NOT the same, they each have a name and the names differ in some insignificant detail which I do not at this moment recall.  I do know that the building back up the hill there which is underneath the track of this attraction is the spot where females have taken to discarding their undergarments while riding this thing during Fair week.  Note that there is no underwear visible today.  Which is as it should be, it is not Fair week.

There is quite a bit of road furniture as the grounds prepare for this weekend's drive through flu shot clinic.  I have already had mine so I will not be participating but I wonder if you could bicycle through and still participate.

 The sky looks blue but an indistinct sort of clear blue.  Smoke.

 This time probably was the last appearance of 80 for this year.  The average for tomorrow is 76 so 80 still seems possible but the forecast for tomorrow is cool again.  There feels like plenty of season left, we shall see.

Summer kit

We had visitors for lunch which delayed my start.  I ended up being out there in the warmest part of the day which today ranged from 68 at the Cattle Barn near the start to 72 at the insurance agency near home near the end of the ride.

68 is a really comfortable temperature for biking.  I spent a good amount of time trying to decide if 68 feels nicer the first time in the spring when temperatures are rising or in the fall when temperatures are falling.

No final decision was reached.

I was riding through the Fairgrounds noticing things like how different it looks over there in this year of no Fair compared to how it usually looks during September.  I came upon these two characters along the street in front of the Horse Barn, across the street from the Sheep Barn and just up the block from the Cattle Barn.

If you magnify the picture you might be able to see 68 at the Cattle Barn at 3:48.  But the picture of Paul and Babe is significant because they were also featured in my State Fair review post from the Fair of 2019.

I had stopped there for my mid-ride sit down.  I think that stone portal may have been placed there for the recent Fair food parade.  There is a mailbox just off frame left containing sales brochures.  That stuff could not have been there since last year's Fair, could it?

Our visitors reported on conditions in their neighborhood in the city across the river.  I bet they don't have anything on their street quite like this.

I see the remains of lots of broken car windows when I ride through the parking lots up at the Snail Lake Regional Park but usually all I see is the broken glass littering the pavement long after the car has been driven away.

These people better get on that, although they may have a bit of time.  Predictions of probability of rain remain quite low for most of next week or so.

It was a beautiful day and lots of people were out in it.  There was what appeared to be a youth lacrosse tournament playing out at McMurray fields.  Of further note, also visible is the warning track and outfield fence of the baseball field in the corner where an adult recreational baseball game had just concluded.

I know they are outside and that makes things safer but the sight of that jam packed parking lot makes me queasy.

It was a beautiful day, so nice that I went without all of that gear from a couple of days ago and rode in summer costume, OOTNDITHOD, a great day to be out riding.

Searching through a drawer full of gear.

It was 80 something the last time I rode.  We have had a couple of days when it rained and every day it has been chilly.  Today was nice enough to try to ride again.  At 3:20 at the Cattle Barn it was 57.

So two things there, yes, the Fairgrounds have reopened.  And 57 isn't really that big a problem.  I have the gear.

But gear the first time each fall involves searching through that drawer full of stuff.  I needed a long sleeved jersey, a base layer, gloves, bib tights, longer socks, a heavier under helmet head covering, and, of course, a fall jacket.

It takes a while.

But I got it all on and got out the door before dark.  TOPWLH took a commemorative photo and sent it along to our dafter.  Dafter's dafter viewed the photo and noted that I have cool bike shoes.  So life is good.

Today is a day full everywhere with moments and acts of remembrance.  Here is the fire department for the next town over dangling an oversized flag from a ladder truck over the major thoroughfare in town.

And here is the final rose, I have now published photos of all 20.

I saved this one for last because it is one of my favorites and because it is the only one of them that it would have been impossible for me to reach by bicycle.  It is located at the offices of a local construction company on the other side of one of the freeways.  The only public street from which this site can be accessed is that freeway.  I suspect that it might be possible to get there by riding through a parking lot and loading dock area of a warehouse adjoining the construction company but even that would involve a ride of several miles in often unpleasant traffic.

I visited this one in my car.

My favorite is the one published on July 19.  It has vibrant colors and the best location, on the hill above the lake in Central Park.

Last day of summer

It feels pretty bad to say that but the indications this year are pretty clear.  It was 82 when I got home from my ride, predicted high for tomorrow is upper 50s with no return to 80 likely until April or May.

Tomorrow is Labor Day, the last day of the State Fair and the first day of fall.  I am not ready, who is ever ready for the end of summer but . . .

I rode to Lake Johanna for the first time this year.  I remembered correctly that it is downhill to the lake.  Imagine that, water accumulating in a low spot.  What I didn't remember is such a robust crowd.  I thought the Lake Johanna crowd was usually pretty sparse.

Lots of boats and even a life guard on duty.  Well it is the last day of summer.

And the last day of the Fair.  This is one of the things we missed a lot.

Two of the things, actually.

Only a couple left to go.  This one is in a nondescript office strip mall/park on Rice Street.

So long summer, come back as soon as you can.

Grass Lake

I have been trying to ride every other day and that makes yesterday ride day.  For one of the first times ever I violated the Auckland Rule by declining to ride in windy conditions.  Rule or no rule gusts of up to 39 mph promised to suck any possible pleasure out of bicycling, I stayed inside.

But I got right back on, making it out the door this afternoon.  I remain theoretically on pace for most miles in a month.

I rode out to Grass Lake, my second time there this year.  I have ridden through this underpass many, many times but not today.

At that, the water appears to be down quite a bit from high water mark still visible on the concrete.  If that water goes down a bit more it will be an indication that the water level in the wetland over there on the other side has probably gone down enough to reopen the bike path.  That may be of interest to some but not necessarily to me as getting this far was pretty close to the end of my range.

This one is in a warehouse district on the far west edge of the city, way over on the other side of the freeway.

If you upload pictures in the new blogger interface they are automatically displayed at a large size.  If you have to do something else for a bit and save the photos included draft, when you come back the photos have resized to something smaller and there is a confusing new interface to try and get them back up to the upload size.

First

I entered today's miles in the bike log and when I did I noticed that this is the first time this year that I have ridden on the first of the month.  What this means is that I am on pace for my most miles in a month of any month this year.

Only time will tell.

I was headed south when I spotted this sign.

I almost passed it by but after half a block or so I decided that it might be a metaphor for something so I circled back for a photo.

So the street is closed but it is still suitable for bicycle traffic.  The message might be parallel to the treatment accorded to bicycling in general by the automobile culture.

While making that circle I noticed some unexpected traffic heading into the front entrance of the Fairgrounds.  There is no Fair but there are currently two events on the grounds.

You turn right just inside the gate (only if you have a ticket, there was a police car parked right there to keep bicyclists out) and proceed a couple of blocks to the Fine Arts Building.  The information so far available to me has not been clear on whether crop art is included this year but I doubt it.  Even the crop artists don't indulge themselves with the conceit that their art is "fine". 

I have been to the Fine Arts Building many times during the annual show and highly recommend it.  And I am glad that they have gone ahead with it even with the Fair cancelled.  But I lament a mindset that finds the Fine Art show necessary when the rest of the Fair is not.  Crop art is every bit as much art as anything in the Fine Arts Building on the 12 days of fun ending on Labor Day.

Here's where I took my sit down.

I sat on the grass and leaned my back up against that stone wall.

Here is today's rose, it is the placement at the local mall.

I expected to find it inside the mall in the main atrium.  Instead it is out on the sidewalk in front of the sea aquarium thing between Macy's and Penney's.  This one really lacks any effort at presentation.  The combination of colors lacks drama.