Hours of Daylight – 15:24

Another good part about living here that i’ll miss is the network of bicycle trails set up all around The Cities and extending out into the countryside via former rail road right-of-ways.

Yesterday, Sunday, started with a massive downpour, but by 10am the sky had cleared and decent high pressure had replaced the swampy stillness. I had dropped the motorcycle off at the dealer on Saturday to have them examine play in the “steering head” and hopefully tighten it up so i was without the big black beast. By about 1 i decided to take out my other two-wheeled vehicle and do some miles.

I told Annette i’d only be out for an hour or so, but once i got the tires pumped up (i’d not had the bicycle on the road in some time) and got cranking i began to feel pretty good. After making my way around lake Calhoun i decided to stay out and do the whole “Grand Rounds.”

The grand rounds is a series of bike trails, parkways, and official “bike routes” that begin at the lakes, follow a remarkably well developed park system north, and continue to make a near-complete circuit of Minneapolis. The recently upgraded maps at the also recently upgraded kiosks give the total distance at about 50 miles. I made it home, moving quite a bit more slowly than i’d began, at about 4.

Another thing i’m going to miss is walking out the stage door of Ordway Center and looking up at the massive Cathedral of Saint Paul. If i had a camera with a decent telephoto lense i’d mark a place on the sidewalk, or maybe just out into 5th Street, and i’d take at least one picture of the cathedral everyday. Had i done this from my first day working at Ordway Center i’d have amassed quite a pile of images. I’d then be able to build collage images sort of like Monet’s haystacks. Cathedral in snow, in rain, in dense humid days, in bright sunny crisp days. One thing is certain, there’d be no duplicates as the quality of light on the cathedral is always different.