Urban Adventures and A Lesson Learned

After some boredom with the available, not-under-construction routes, I did some exploring over Memorial Weekend to plan a route for the following weekend that we ended up not using. I resurrected it today in a slightly tweaked form, when riding with Laura and Cheri. It was a ton of fun, even at the points when we were riding directly into a northern headwind, going up the Lafayette Bridge. (A guy walking south on the bridge simply said, "good luck!" and then Cheri hilariously said "At least we're going uphill.") We stopped at Malcolm Yards about 3/5 of the way in and had some chips and salsa and an adult beverage (mine was a Bloody Mary) to rehydrate. 

Laura and me on Thursday, with me showing
off my tattoo sleeves that Beth and Dad got me 
several years ago for Christmas. I don't
have a photo of the three of us from today.

Yesterday was a day of urban exploration with Matt, weaving our way SE through the city that we don't usually take, literally riding right in the middle of the Major Taylor club riders for a short stretch, and then discovering that the road and trail along the Minnesota River in Bloomington were most definitely closed due to flooding. We then headed pretty much due east, through St. Paul, up a big hill, down a big hill, and up a hill. 

The Minnesota River, upstream from where it
meets the Mississippi.

The bike trail was even more under water than
this road that Xcel Energy says you can't ever ride
on. I would have ridden on it if it hadn't been under
water, though. The lady walking has clothing very
similar to the zebra print wallpaper and bright pink wall that
were in the main bedroom of the house at the end of the
street that took FOREVER to sell because it had
things like zebra print wallpaper. 

View of St. Paul from the top of Ohio Street,
by the High Bridge. This was just a bit more than 3/5
of the way into our ride.

After yesterday's decent ride, Dan, Kristin, Steve, and I went to a MN Aurora women's soccer game in Eagan at the Viking practice facility. It was a lot of fun.

Minnesota won!

Back to Memorial Day weekend: I was looking for a route that several of us could take for a ride Steve wanted to do for his birthday. I was riding by myself through Swede Hollow, which I love, because it is this green, dark, lush ravine in the middle of the city, in the shadow of the old Hamm's brewery. After passing an encampment of unhoused people, at the entry point to the ravine, I saw a guy who seemed normal and nice walking an old-style dirt bike. English was not his first language, and after two tries, I realized he was calling out to me to see if I had a pump to help him pump up his tire. I said no, because I was alone in this secluded part of this ravine, and there weren't other people walking or riding through. If I had been with other people, I would have stopped. If it weren't in a secluded area, I would have stopped. But I didn't. I dwelled on this for the rest of the day. I should have stopped. The chances of anything bad happening from this guy who didn't give off any creepy vibes were really low. I was talking through this with Matt on our ride yesterday and I have decided that I'd rather be a nice human than a paranoid one and, if I am in a similar situation and I'm not getting a creepy vibe, I will stop.

Other than getting in some good bike rides, I've been catching up on yard work and enjoying the amazing weather we've had lately.

These huge bees are loving the 
wisteria I planted.

This one loves to try to catch bees,
so we are working on that.

I've used the number 3/5 a bit today. It is because I realized that I'm at about 3/5 of my fundraising goal for the BikeMS ride next month and have that number on my mind. I should probably step up some efforts there. The MS Society recently worked with partners to educate members of Congress, who by very wide margins (remarkable for this Congress!), passed a bill that reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration law and adds many new provisions to make air travel more accessible for people who have disabilities. President Biden signed the bill into law. Your support matters! 

https://events.nationalmssociety.org/participant/Go-Maggie-Go