Lost and found at Lake Vadnais

It appears to me that I have lost my way on the whole concept of riding towards the south.  We have had a very persistent pattern of northerly winds, some northwest and some northeast but really all from the north.

This time of year that is OK because in mid-summer, which is where we are, even north winds are mostly warmish.  The issue is velocity at this time of year and unpleasant velocity is possible from any point of the compass.

The big redo at Lake Vadnais a couple of years ago included removal of several majestic old cottonwoods to make room for that bicycle path there and an alignment of flat stones to separate the path from the street.  I mostly ride on the road although there are several places out there where particularly on week days I find it completely acceptable to ride the MUT.  When there are only a few other people about it is possible to get around out there on some really scenic paths.

But today I noticed a little lost and found action of one of the flat stones.

I stopped and examined them, they appear to be drug store readers, cheap frame mounted magnifiers of the sort usually referred to by persons of my vintage as "cheaters".

I noticed some wildlife.  The wildlife he be very shy.  I tried the old sneak behind the tree and wait to see if they come out the other side trick.

This wildlife, he be much too smart to fall for that trick.

Mallards, a nice family grouping.

It is pretty out there.  Today was mostly cloudy and only about 70, a bit on the cool side, but when the sun came out as I traversed the Grass Lake MUT I went ahead and stopped for a photo.

Incidentally, the Grass Lake MUT has received the GRider's Seal of Approval.

It is always a little guilty bit of pleasure to find something like that right here in the big, big city.

Most miles in June since 2011.

MUT musings

The GRider and I headed out shortly past noonish to try to get in a ride.  The GRider's preferred weather website predicted 0 percent chance of precipitation on each and every hour of the afternoon.

I use two sites mainly, one showed an iffy radar profile and the other proclaimed 41 percent chance of precipitation on each and every hour of the afternoon.

Today my websites had better accuracy than GRider's.

We got to Acorn Park on the reverse Vadnais route.  The route through the park is on a multiple use trail and we ride that trail with full awareness that there might be other users.  For instance the very first time I rode through there I was confronted with frisbee golfers flinging their discs in my general direction.

Even so we were not prepared for this other user.

There were some workmen doing what appeared to me to be additional disc golf course prep down in the wetland to the right.  They certainly were authorized to drive into the park on the MUT but there does seem to be parking available to them, like immediately to their right, that would have allowed for multiple uses of that particular piece of tarmac.

The GRider confronted one of the workers and I must say her approach was less bombastic than some might have used.  She just suggested to him that if they moved over even a foot that the rest of us could continue to use the trail.  Myself?  I just rode out onto the grass there and kept on going.

Less than a mile later the GRider reported raindrops.  Within a dozen or so pedalstrokes of hearing her report I felt them as well.  By that time we had already adopted the absolute must protocol for feeling rain drops when more than 7 miles from home.  We had turned and were on our way back to being closer to home, rather than farther, if actual heavy rain occurred.

When we rode through the park, only 10 or so minutes after GRider had rebuked the construction crew, we discovered that the truck had been moved to a 20 or so yard more distant from their work site parking available position.

Sometimes honey does work better than whatever that other alternative is.

On the way home we got pretty close to home, it wasn't actually raining, I tried to divert the route towards Lake Como.  We got about half a mile along the diversion and sprinkles returned, this time bigger drops.  Once again we turned toward home.

By now we were JRA but we got enough miles to satisfy each of our exercise goals.

As I have noted numerous times, rain is a powerful motivator.  We spent most of the ride trying to ride fast instead of just riding.  We done good, we got our collective highest average speed for any of her rides yet this season.

Nine days out from the start of le Tour

And Froomey reveals that he has missed a drug test.

Well, tickle my ass with a feather I never ever would have expected this.

I had a GRider the other day and we made it all the way out to Highway 96.  This means that pretty early in her season she has now worked herself all the way up to where she is going to be taking the full ride.

In addition she seems pretty chipper about the whole thing while actually riding.  Here she is earlier this week out at the last lake before the Highway 96 turn back.

In defense of my own personal fitness level I wish to note that she does act a bit knackered after arriving at home.

But then, so do I.

Today's actual bicycle news is 1,020 miles this bicycle this year.

1,000 miles

The GRider proclaimed it a perfect day for a bicycle ride.  There is still some controversy about whether and to whom she has proclamation power.  Indisputably, she was correct, OOTNDITHOD.

I keep editing the northern reverse route.  Today we got the correct route through Acorn Park and arrived at Lake Vadnais at approximately 9 miles.  This meant that the usual stop at Vadnais had to be delayed until we got past the 10 mile mark.

Today's stop was at Sucker Lake, the top of the 10 lake ride, adjacent to Highway 96.

It was her longest ride of the year and also probably her fastest.  I have reached 1,000 miles earlier in the season this year than when I reached it last year.

By three days.

But I am ahead of last year and at long last starting to feel a little bit strong.

Jacket weather?

I waited and waited but by 1:15 it was still only 68 and still heavily overcast.  Forecasts for tomorrow say 80 percent chance of rain, finally the goal of salvaging a ride today became paramount and I just had to get on my bicycle and go.

I made it twice around the cul-de-sac before heading back into the driveway to retrieve my most light weight jacket.  68 and heavy overcast in April would be one of the last days of jacket weather.  Jacket weather in June seems wrong but today it seemed too cool for my summer costume.  I went with jacket, deciding that I could always take it off and stuff it into my jersey pocket.

So I rode out to Vadnais yet again.  The GRider and I rode out there yesterday on another heavily overcast day which produced zero photo opportunities.

We did have a quite extraordinary non-photo opportunity moment though.  We were riding the reverse route which means we were riding up the lake instead of the much more common down the lake.  Shortly after rounding the curve just after the parking area we startled a great blue heron from its lakeside resting/hiding spot.  The great blue, he be very, very shy.

The very largish by Minnesota standards bird got up from its roost and started to fly north along the shore of the lake.  We happened to be riding north along the bike path on the shore of the lake.  The bird was traveling at about the same speed that we were so we rode almost all of the rest of the way to the top of the lake parallel to and exactly in line with a great blue heron.

Pretty dang spectacular view, I kid you not.

It was clearly not a photo opportunity, who could have prepared for that?  But what it means that for the rest of the summer any time I am heading up lake I am likely to pre-prepare by putting my pocket camera on video mode.  If it ever happens again I could try to grope the camera out of my pocket and just point it in the direction of the wildlife.

Wouldn't that be spectacular?

Of course, what is likely to happen is that there will be several inadvertent videos this season, as I forget to adjust the settings on the camera before attempting a photograph.

*sigh*

Here is a photograph from today.  This is the exact same ground that produces the spectacular tulip display pictured here previously.  The tulips are gone, obviously, but the proprietor over there has overseeded the tulip bed with a variety of later blooming plants.  The tulips are gone but today it looked pretty nice.

And then there is this.  The sign isn't the "no parking" that I grew up with but it is the internationally recognized "no parking".  So why is that car parked there?  And for what reason is that a "no parking" area?

Here's a view from the other side.

Cars can park wherever they want because cars are way more important than bicycles.

I made it all the way home with my jacket still on.

Flag Day

Here's a couple that I know:

The one on the right is the Minnesota State Flag.  The wind wasn't strong enough to open it up completely to show the details.  I waited a bit but after a while decided that I was on a bicycle ride, not a photograph the state flag mission.  That's our library in the background.

I do not know this one.

But artfully photographed, don't you think?

Two red quarters, two blue, white cross and some sort of emblem in the center.

Bueller?

But these are the most important flags I saw today.

Because, as noted above it was a bicycle ride.

I heeded the advice of my favorite weather website and headed out towards the south.  Mikey J's weather site said wind from the southeast.

Well, here's the deal, I love that weather site but his weather station is set up on Grey Cloud Island.  Which is completely the other side of this largish metropolitan area from where I live.  The wind was fairly light so I didn't really notice until I rode past this at about the 5 mile mark.  I am facing towards the east for this photo.

Beautiful day.

But the flags are pointing to the right, indicating wind from the left.

If you are facing east and the wind is coming from your left?

So I swung around and found my way back over towards a northern route.  Half of a southern ride already gone under the tires means that I didn't really get very far along on the northern ride.  But it was a gorgeous day with only very light winds.  It is pretty much full summer, sunrise is about 5:30am, sunset about 9pm.

If you don't like this you don't like anything.

Ferrell

We had rain most of the day yesterday which was fine with me, I need rest days more often than I used to and yesterday was a fine rest day.  TOPWLH had other plans anyway, plans that involved her packing up the car and driving to Wisconsin.  I was left alone with nothing to do so I rested.

Today on the other hand was a fine, fine day.  TOPWLH had not returned so I worked off my solitude sadness (I just made that up, nice one, eh?) by riding my bicycle.  I explored an alternate route through Acorn Park but discovered that I prefer the direct route through the frisbee golf thing despite the occasional flying saucers.

I got home to discover that my package had arrived.

Today I am wearing my France 2010 FIFA World Cup t-shirt.  It is one of my favorites, it was a gift from the TCWUTH shortly before that futbol event began 5 years ago, probably a Fathers Day gift is my guess.  Or maybe she just thought I needed a new t-shirt.  One day recently I realized that it is one of my newer t-shirts despite the fact that as the date indicates it is at least five years old.  World Cup 2010 was the one held in South Africa.  Brasil hosted 2014.  I must add that I have several nice poly shirts, at least one purchased as recently as our trip to Flo-Rida earlier this annum, but in cotton my France FIFA shirt is among the newer.

My ancient cotton t-shirt reminded me of the comment made by Mike Ferrell of Mike's Pro Shop about shirts with dates on them.  Ferrell by the way is not the Mike of Mike's Pro Shop.  That would be Mike (Schmidt).  Ferrell is Ferrell.  Ferrell said he would see someone with a shirt with a date on it from a few years ago and want to ask that person, "Don't you ever shop?"

I considered that and I was chastened.  Apparently I never shop.  People who know me well already knew that.  But I have internet access and a credit card so I shopped.

As you can see, that's all better now. If I should happen to bump into Ferrell tomorrow there will be no worries about covering part of my t-shirt with my hands to avoid embarrassment.

TOPWLH arrived home later this afternoon.  I resumed my role as chief procurer and preparer of edibles.  I am chief but I am not sole, she does lots of the parts and one of the parts she does is mushrooms.  Mushrooms were required for this evening's repast so she was busy indoors when I noticed these in our backyard.

It probably goes without saying that there is lots and lots of shade in our back yard.  Anyone know if those are edible.  Because I am not going to find out any other way than someone else showing up and hauling them away to be eaten by those unknown third parties.

We will NOT be experimenting with backyard mushrooms.

How about these?

It sure looks like two different species to me.

Here in Minnesota these are what I refer to as Japanese lilacs.

I believe there is some exotic blooming schedule, like not every year.

There is a whole two block long row of those things over on County Road C, a block or so on each side of Snelling.

People as old as me will remember that County Road C and Snelling was the location of the Rose Drive-In Theatre.  My bank is currently located quite near to where the screen was in 1967 or so.

*sigh*