Six in a row is almost a week!

A parade of thunder boomers rolled through overnight accompanied by waves of rain.  I have heard reports of power outages and sleep interruption but MY actual first reaction upon being awakened was rest day.  I went right back to sleep.

It was wet when I got up.  The heavy overcast was forecast to burn off creating hot and humid conditions leading to another round of storms for tonight.  It was too wet for a morning ride and it figured to be too hot for a mid-day ride.

Rest day.

But the pesky overcast refused to burn off.  At noon it was 68 and although the humidity was high and rising, humidity is not in and of itself a disqualifying factor, especially at 68.

Six in a row.

September 22 through October 3, 12 in a row.  I don't think that one is in much jeopardy at this point.

It seems that a few of yesterday's topics are still open, at least it seems so to me. Here is another example of change wrought by the bridge falling down.

I don't ride down there very much as to do so requires venturing into some traffic a wee bit more extreme than is good for me and it's only worth a couple of miles anyway.  A ride down to the end and touring every single piece of pavement down in that neighborhood on the way back out never gets me even to four miles.  It really isn't worth the bother.

But down at the end of County Road B there used to be an intersection with Highway 280 and a traffic control device (stop light for we traffic amateurs). When they had an additional couple hundred thousand cars a day on that road the intersection was closed. When the bridge reopened people liked the fact that the neighborhood was way more peaceful without cars turning off the highway and racing past their homes at freeway speeds. The intersection has remained closed.  The change is SO dramatic down there that even part of the right of way has been abandoned and what was part of a county road is now a private drive.

And over in Lauderdale here is a place where you used to be able to merge onto the highway. Judging by the tire tracks through the weeds it looks as though an occasional person still does.

That was left open due to a need by city crews to access some facility out there in the right of way, a lift station if I recall correctly.

Here is a more complete look at the turn around here spot.

It is only a turn around, nothing else. The sign at the end of the car length incursion onto the lawn there warns that you shouldn't even think about it, you can't park there either.

The old cars are in town this weekend and eventually I filtered my way over towards Saint Paul to see if I could get a look. I never found a decent car viewing spot but I did ride past my favorite rain garden.

Looking mighty well advanced at mid-summer's night. As it should, there has been plenty of rain.

I discovered that in the big city they still call a dead end street a dead end street. No mere dead end, none of that new age no outlet for the capital city. Dead end street.

Although maybe I'm wrong.  What's the deal with dueling signs?  Dead end street on one side, merely dead end on the other.  Both sides of the street are Saint Paul.

I got home before it got hot. Good thing too, as a trip to the grocery store ended up with a teensy bit wobbly legged bicyclist milling across one of those giant asphalt parking lots with the heat rising in waves. It is muggy NOW and the predicted second round of thunder boomers seems like a good bet to me to actually occur.

Rest day?

Light changes

It looked a lot different to me out there today.

Today was the first time in forever that it was warm enough to ride in the morning.  It was already 74 by 9:30 so I went out then.  The real reason for going at that time is that if it is 74 at 9:30 it is going to be too hot by noon.

And it was.

It is muggy and hot meaning we are expecting stormy weather, all things considered I was glad to get in a ride.  That's five days in a row for the first time since October 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33.  Go ahead and convert October 32 and 33 to November 1 and 2 if you must.  The point is that's rides of the standard length on five days in a row for the first time this year.

The light is a lot different at mid-morning.  I may have looked at things a little differently.  I rode past things that I have ridden by lots and lots of times without thinking anything at all about them but today they looked like photo opportunities.

This one struck me as a "no kidding" moment.

One of the best ways to convince me that the road ends is to build a giant wall across the end of the street.

Before the 35W bridge fell down that was the entrance from Roselawn onto 280.  When 280 had to be used as part of the detour around the fallen bridge the massive increase in traffic volume meant that that entrance was temporarily closed for safety reasons.  While the entrance was closed people found out that they really didn't actually NEED an entrance there and when the new bridge opened this entrance didn't.

It is a DEAD end.

I like this one even though I didn't actually feel like turning around.

That's near the Fry Garden neighborhood.  They are trying to discourage state fair parking seekers from driving up into the neighborhood (where parking is not allowed anyway) by saying that THIS would be a good spot.

Storms are expected but they haven't actually arrived so I was a little perplexed when I came across this in a secluded neighborhood on the other side of Lake Como.

I don't even remember any particularly strong winds over the past several days.  A close look at the trunk of the tree convinces me that this particular tree had some issues unrelated to storm which may have led to a giant piece of the crown falling into the front yard.

I took a really close look and convinced myself that the tree is a yellow birch.  Birch trees in general don't do that well in an urban setting.  That one is pretty big but we should not be surprised that it's overall health is quite apparently not that good.  It doesn't like being THERE in the first place.

I liked the Outlaws quite a bit myself and find it impossible to argue about the Duane Eddy version.  I dismissed the Judy Collins version without actually listening to it but I DID listen to two versions by the Sons of the Pioneers (possibly featuring Leonard Slye aka Roy Rogers).  I was struck by the percussion, one version has brush drumming and the other has an apparent absence of percussion, it sounds like the guitar is the one keeping time.

OK, now I really am done for now with Ghost Riders.

Nothing to see here

While the GRider and I were out yesterday we passed a couple of city street crews patching pot holes in what might generally be called the Como Park neighborhood.

A.  This is problematic based on my past experience that the Saint Paul patching crews use a particularly oily patch mix.  You can get stuff on your tires.

But . . .

B.  Perhaps this means that the potholes at Deadman's Curve have been filled in.

I rode over to find out.

Oddly enough the southbound lane (the way out) has NOT been repaired but the northbound (the way back) has been.  This works fine for me as I don't have any problems with taking the lane southbound, the cars can see me for about four blocks and they will know what I am doing.  On the northbound side I have no such confident feeling.  Based on the behavior of all of the motor vehicles I have encountered over there on numerous passages of that underpass my practice is to hug the curb.  The potholes on the hug the curb lane have been filled in.

So I rode down into the big city.

Recent newspaper articles have detailed the beginning of the demolition of the now inactive Ford assembly plant in Saint Paul.  A columnist who I sometimes read stated that a green tarpaulin had been affixed to the fence around the site blocking all views of the site, the idea being nothing to see here, everyone should just move along.

I wanted to take a look and what I discovered varied quite a bit from everything the newspaper has reported.

No tarp on the fence, the gate was open, it was, in fact, by far the most open that site has ever been in all of the times I have ever been there.

Probably what the deal is is that demolition began with the paint building.  That's probably a good idea as there is certain to be lots of contamination at the paint building, clean up there may be the lengthiest and most expensive, good place to start.

Where I was was the main assembly building, the building out on the River Road which is the building that most of us think of when we think of the Ford plant.  Nothing much is going on over at that end of the complex and there appears to be no need for additional security precautions.

I rode across the lawn to this artwork on the wall near what was the main entrance.  I love the inscription and is that a bas relief?

LOOK at "Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor".

Here's a detail of the work, that looks to me like an old timey Ford truck being held by a figure representing I assume modern man and labor.  Serpents and everything.

I have no idea but I found myself wondering if there is any plan to preserve this particular piece and/or anything else from the old building.

From the Ford plant it is a short ride over to the Falls.  The Falls are looking quite a bit like a tourist attraction right now.

Just a further note about the choice of music for yesterday's post.  There are a bunch of different versions of that song available on YouTube, I browsed and considered several of them.  The Frankie Laine version is there.  The song seems more cowboy than country to me and Johnny Cash is more country than cowboy but I have a fondness for the man in black based partly on his spectacular 1969 duet with Bob Dylan on Girl from the North Country on Nashville Skyline.  My favorite cowboy version is Marty Robbins although apparently Marty himself didn't think it was worthy of release, this version only came out after Marty died.  There were two that surprised me with how much I liked them, both claiming to be the original recording of the song, a very cowboy version by Vaughn Monroe and a ballad by Burl Ives.

It was fun listening to them all and I probably will again but I think it is time to move on.

Guest Rider in the sky

Right click on the link and open in another tab.  And then imagine that every time Johnny Cash intones "Ghost Rider" what he is ACTUALLY singing is "Guest Rider".

Today was the season debut of the GRider.  Her bicycle fitness level can best be described as not yet adequate.  But she was out there and we had a nice ride.

I took her around the nearby areas where construction of various kinds has changed the landscape since the last time she was out.  That includes demolition of the burned out house in Lauderdale, about three major construction projects at the Fair (68 at the Cattle Barn) and the MAJOR new construction to a private charter school being backed by public bonds.  We made a turn back point at the top of the new bicycle/POF bridge over the railroad tracks on Lexington.

For me it was three days in a row with a ride for the first time since May 23, 24, 25, putting me on pace to match the longest stretch so far this year of four days in a row (May 5, 6, 7, 8).  We had a nice time even though after 800 miles of solo riding it seemed a little odd to have to be shouting responses to her questions back over my shoulder.  I can get used to that.

Yippee-yi-yoh, yippee-yi-yay, Guest Rider in the sky.

Didn't expect this

No, not that land of Goshen.  Apparently I should have said Land O Goshen which the website I am looking at describes as a phrase which is an expression of amazement or frustration.  Some call it southern in origin, suggesting that a person with a Southern Baptist background is the most likely to understand it.  Others suggest the expression is Midwestern in origin, another says Maine.

The best one though, is that the phrase was a favorite usage of the cartoon character Loweezy, wife of Snuffy Smith, in the comic strip Barney Google.

So, what I meant yesterday was land o Goshen, it poured hard mid-afternoon.

Today was a plenty nice enough day for a bicycle ride until I got about nine miles from home. At that point 30 percent possibility turned into a series of real ominous black clouds. I lost my nerve and headed back towards home. I was approximately at the Shoreview water tower where new construction is underway to replace the strip mall that formerly housed Anne Marie's Dog Grooming.

There aren't many clues yet but today they had the street closed indicating to me some serious plumbing work.

Often when the authorities say road closed they only actually mean road closed to automobile traffic.  I rode on down there and discovered that this time they meant it, road closed.  Lucky for me the work is going on next to a complex of several apartment buildings on the shore of Island Lake.  The buildings have an interconnecting series of parking lots.  I turned into the driveway of the first one and successfully rode along until I was past the construction and able to exit back out to the street.  It occurred to me that this constituted new pavement ridden on as I am quite sure I never rode through that parking lot before.

So new pavement always seems worth remarking upon.

Having cut off the ride I had to ride a loop near home but just as I reached the point where I intended to start the loop another series of really ominous black clouds rolled through.  I finally got the miles I wanted though even if the loop I eventually did ride ended with me facing head wind on the way home for more miles than I prefer to ride into a head wind at the end of a ride.

77 at the Cattle Barn, nice when it was nice, but occasionally pretty scary looking.

Bilin’ down me repoort

TCWUTH reports that she got in some bicycling yesterday morning, and good on her I say.  During the time of day when I like to ride we were doused again.  It was nice in the morning and nice again in the evening but land of Goshen it poured hard mid-afternoon.

Land of Goshen, good one, eh?

I am pretty sure this isn't good for the corn, a view of the corn field after the rain stopped.

Stupid ducky, I wanted him to hold his head up and pose.  I even walked over toward him thinking he might alert to my presence and take a look.  But, no, urban ducks aren't much impressed by humans.

I got this one before it rained, your yard could look like this too if you had a giant cottonwood tree next to the garage.

 TOPWLH and I were trying to remember how all of this stuff disappears and where it goes.  We couldn't come up with anything other than we know that the stuff that appeared last year isn't here anymore, that's all new stuff.

And this one I actually took today while riding my bicycle.

The UV index was extremely high so I was looking as much as possible for places to ride in the shade.  It's pretty in there. But the truth is that yesterday I was off again, today on again.  Tomorrow?  Gone again?

Technology note, once again today three different cameras were used to produce the images seen in this post.

Flag Day

I know at least one corn field that is not going to be sprouted by Flag Day as they were planting it today when I rode past.

After a beautiful morning a "system" moved through beginning at about noon.  It never actually rained but it was too windy for bicycling.  Bicycling isn't much fun in the wind.  I spent the first half of the ride battling upwind trying to find a place from which I could enjoy the second half of the ride.  I did all of this amid a gathering expectation of rain.

It came out OK, I felt strong, I felt fast, it didn't actually rain.

Off again, on again, gone again.

The passing of the "system" can be traced through the flag photos I compiled on Flag Day.

The first one is right at the end of the block where I live.

It is still sunny and the wind isn't blowing much.

I didn't want to get too far from home but eventually circled out through Falcon Heights.  This one is across Snelling but before you get to Larpenteur.

Still a little sun but the wind has picked up.

This is a house in Saint Paul near Como Park where I was expecting to find something different.  These people fly a flag every day but most often it is a Norwegian or a Finnish flag.  Today they knew it was Flag Day and put out the stars and stripes.

 Not any sun at all any more, the wind is still pretty strong.

I saw flags at all the places where there are always flags, on schools and on some commercial buildings but limited myself to flags on houses.  I saw probably a couple of dozen and all but one was a US flag.  The one exception was not of any country that I recognized, it was oddly and brightly colored, looking more like a freak flag than a national emblem.  It was probably the flag of Tralfamadore.

Every bicyclist expects to confront some road construction during road construction season.  I just seem to be running into more than my share this year.  This is an important part of the stay close to home loop.

It's not totally bad though, you can just make out the marked detour sign at the edge of the photo.  And being as this is in the part of the city that is exclusively gridded I can dodge around that construction without any difficulty.