Then I thought, "Can I mimic Marlin Perkins' voice or tone?" "Like an exploratory ant returning to the hill, Maggie wove her way home on her bike." Mhm. No. So, I'll just tell it like it was.
Friday was my Dad's birthday - our first without him - which resulted in my taking the day off work and spending a lot of time outside with a damp face. When I thought about going out in the morning, I channeled the way he used to growl/snarl at us when we were annoying teenagers and command us to go on nature hikes, "You're gonna go, and you're gonna have fun!"
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| Fort Snelling State Park is still largely covered in mud from the recent floods. In a comic way, I slipped on what was seemingly dry sand but was very squishy mud as I tried to look down the Minnesota River. |
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| The confluence of the Minnesota River (R) and the Mississippi River (L). Since Friday, leaves have come out on the trees. |
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| All of Pike Island looked like a lunar landscape, but with the addition of barren trees. |
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| I was really worried about this super skinny deer, who was not at all scared of people. |
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| The Mississippi side of the island apparently is popular with beavers, I thought. And then I saw one swimming... (below). |
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When looking for a makeshift bathroom spot, in a park with no foliage, I saw that there are green little shoots finding their way out of the mud. And I found a snail shell, recently deposited, about 75 yards over from the riverbank and at least 10 feet above the water. |
On Sunday, like last week's mid-week ride, I wove around the city, avoiding people but trying to ride on decent roads without too many stops. I went west this time, and rode to the Bloomington Ferry Bridge, which was closed for much of the past two+ years due to flooding. It wasn't closed on Sunday, but there were a lot of people walking and riding in the park/on the trail. So, I nodded hello to the river, turned around, and found a new way back home through Bloomington.
By the B in West Bloomington, I rode around an office park looking for a spot for a quick pit stop. The options were limited since bushes still are lacking leaves, but then I found this spot with three clustered evergreens that had a nice opening right in the middle of them. I walked in and thought how it was the perfect, sheltered bathroom spot and then realized that I narrowly missed stepping on a big pile of coyote scat. It appears he found some tasty rabbits to eat. I then figured maybe I should take better stock of my surroundings before blindly walking into a spot and dropping my drawers, but I was the only animal in there at the time.
I understand why bathrooms are closed to the public right now, but I think instead of closing restrooms, they should just put tons of soap and hand sanitizer (that people can't steal) in them and make the doors push out so that you don't have to touch a knob after washing your hands, so that people who are trying to stay active and socially distant can actually get away from the super crowded areas near their houses and get cleaned up. I guess they'd need to add automatic faucets for sinks in bathrooms. Okay, I don't know the answers to these problems. I just know that it is going to require some creativity and determination to recreate the three BikeMS rides I plan to do in May, June, and July.
Today, I skipped going for a ride and watched the rabbits in my yard decide who they wanted to have as their partners for repopulating my neighborhood. They were so focused on the task at hand that they were really emboldened and/or stupid. A hawk or an owl would have had an easy dinner, if it had cruised down my street. Watching deer, beavers, and rabbits, inspecting scat under random evergreens, and slip-sliding through mud isn't going to get me ready for doing those bike rides, but it made me think of my Dad and ultimately was good for my mental state, which can't be discounted, I guess.
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