Not many more of these

I got a few miles in on Thursday but never even hesitated for a moment thinking I might get a photo. With no photo I had nothing to blog.

The weather was quite threatening, and cold, but I have the gear and it was only a 40 percent chance of rain. And my call is that I didn't actually get rained on. However as I rode along a mist appeared, the mist kept getting heavier and eventually the streets were unmistakably wet. It could just as well have rained.

I made it to home with a disappointing mileage total but miles I bet I will be glad to have come December. More on that in December.

Then Friday featured most of the day rain including a couple of episodes of heavy downpour. Yesterday was totally rideable but we had early (1pm) hockey. Just a hockey note here: The team has now played 8 games and has scored 55 goals, opponents have scored 3. Another note: We have hat trick hats, hats which we do not wear, in fact the hats still have tags attached. We only bought them because last year a player scored a hat trick and no hats were thrown. In post game comments she remarked that no hats was "a little disappointing". At the next game we attended the same player had two goals by the end of the second period causing us to hustle over to the souvenir stand in the corner of the arena to buy hats. We bring them to every game. Yesterday we got to throw them onto the ice for the third time this season. It is starting to catch on a little bit, there were about a dozen or so hats on the ice yesterday.

The on ice officials retrieve the trash on the ice and deliver it to the penalty box official who hands it off to rink staff. TO hockey fan WLH retrieves the hats from the mostly students who comprise rink staff. Most of them are wearing the colors of the hats we have chucked onto the ice so they are quite good natured about giving her our hats back.

I digress.

Today was a return to bicycle season. The sun was out and the temperature was threatening to push above the average for the day when I headed out after a possession for each team in the really important football game on TV.

The whole leaf thing is pretty much kaput here. This is a picture that you cannot get during the growing season but with the foliage mostly now bare I was able to stand on the retaining wall and get a nice shot down into the gorge at the Ford dam and the locks over there under the bluff.

The dam overlook is about 10 miles into my ride down into the big city towards the confluence route. The reason why I had stopped at the 10 mile mark was because a rapidly warming day forced a substantial reconfiguration of the costume.

I had to pull one thing out of my pocket to replace the bit I had under my helmet (something considerably lighter) but the rest of the reconfiguration involved entirely removal of bits, followed by the smooshing of the bits into a size and shape allowing the extra gear to be stowed in my jersey pockets.

And that children, is one of the reasons why you wear a bicycle jersey, those pockets turn out to be of considerable utility.

I swung into the Fairgrounds on the return trip. There is a giant tent, a couple of only really large tents and rest room trailers set up in a corner of the grounds, something I haven't seen before.

I was past there on the heavy mist day. Health Partners had some sort of giant meeting out there, the place that day was crawling with working folks. My only conclusion has to be that there is some sort of shortage of hotel ballrooms in the city, a situation that my personal experience back when I was a working folk would completely deny.

I rode past the Cattle Barn: 63 at 2:22, oh, and a beef expo.

The newspaper guy had another bit about the Fairgrounds street car arch today. I went by again thinking that probably the further diminishment of the foliage would make the whole thing more visible. I was correct. This is a view now available from the street, no entering of parking lots required.

I am going to agree with the newspaper guy here for just a bit, I am somewhat at risk of becoming an unofficial blog for the discovery of big metal signs in the woods.

It was a fabulous day out there, I got home in time to see the onside kick and the final four plays from scrimmage of the really important football game. I have absolutely no question that my time was better spent on my bicycle than sweating out the 21-14 final.

FC Nantes home to Dijon FCO on Monday night football, if either of the two can secure the full three points that team will advance quite securely into the top three, the promotion zone. AS Monaco stands first at this point, FC Nantes will visit the principality next Saturday.