1500.75 miles
120:37:57
| We finally got a nice weekend day to sneak out for another ride. This one was important, since in this ride we could break 1,500 miles (more on that later). Plus, given that it's the middle of November, this could easily be our last chance to get out for a ride. The forecast for the day was for chances of showers in the morning, and rain in the afternoon. When we got up it was dry, and already about 51° - just right for a fall ride! But being the careful planners we are, rain jackets were packed up (well, Rebecca's was packed - I wore mine for warmth, but ended up taking it off after about 3 miles). Our ride up to Subway was nice, with a little wind but nothing mammoth. Of course, Subway was freezing. I was actually looking forward to going back outside to warm up! But while we were eating, the rain moved in! I guess I should say the sprinkles moved in. It wasn't really rain at all. Enough to make Rebecca don her rain jacket, though. We made our way back home without incident. At about 2:00 the wind picked up, but we picked up against it. Before we knew it, we were making the turn back to our house. But woe of woes! We were about a mile short for besting 1,500 miles! So we rode around the neighborhood a little bit. We had to bike fast, though, because our average was suffering. We usually don't care too much, but this is the first ride we've done where we've averaged 14 MPH or better. This was the first time we did this route without getting a little lost somewhere, but because of our makeup distance, we still don't have a logged distance that's correct. But it'll end up being about 40 miles I think. We'll see next year. So now if all we get is cold and snow, our bikes will be happy that they reached a milestone. Based on the weather forecasts I've been hearing, we may not get out of the 30's again for a number of months! |
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| These days, any nice weekend might be our last chance to go on a ride. So when we hit a Saturday where it's 68°, you know we were gonna go for a decent sized ride. What we didn't count on was the crazy wind! We're talking 13 MPH, gusting to 21 MPH (based on the local weather conditions right now). This ride was a little weird in that almost the entire time we had wind. Cross winds, head winds, but not as much tail wind. We must have had some on the way out, 'cause our average was around 14.2 at Subway. But as usual, we took a hit on the way home. Still, for how much wind their was, especially the giant headwind for the last 4 miles of the ride, we think 13.2 is an acceptable average. And today I full appreciated the fact that I got leg-warmer things, not full long tights. By the time we got to Subway, I was ready to lose the jacket (Subway being about 18 miles into the ride), and by the time we go to the dam (another 9 miles) I took off the leg warmers. The wind made it feel like it wasn't as warm as it is, but it still felt like a nice day. Now, will we get enough time to get those 42 miles we need for 1,500? |
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| We woke up early and checked the weather to see if we should go for a longer bike ride. It was sunny, but it was also only 40° at 9:00. The bed was much warmer than that. So we opted not to go quite then. Later one would suffice. And it did. We went for a little ride in the afternoon, all bundled up. Well, not bundled, but we were wearing our jackets. Sure, they don't breath real well, since they're mostly made for repelling rain, but they're probably warm enough. Now we just have to do something about Rebecca's cough. Is it the temperature/dry air, or is it allergies? I'm betting on temp and humidity, but we'll see. Less than 100 miles 'til 1,500. :O |
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| Rebecca took the day off today, after getting back from a business trip, and I took the day off to play with her. It's a nice sunny day, so we thought we'd go for a short ride. Good thing it was short - pretty gusty out there! The best thing about this ride was the bald eagle we saw gliding by the river, about 5-ish miles into the ride. We've seen lots of hawks, but never a bald eagle before. Other than that, just a normal ride. Not as fast as usual, but not too bad. |
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| The day started out at about 48°, but we were ready! Long fingered gloves, tights (or leggings for me), long sleeve jerseys, and jackets! We went on this ride hoping to see some pretty leaves, too, but the trees haven't quite changed around here. There were some hints, but that's about it. Today we tried our modified starting, one which avoids construction-ridden Lexington Avenue. This time, we went up Old Highway 8 and jogged over to Long Lake Road. That took us up to County Road I, which is where we'd be from the original route. In short, it worked out great. Very few stop signs/lights along that way, fairly light traffic, decent roads and shoulders, and no real hills. I think even after Lexington is fixed, we'll continue using that way. We also stopped for lunch this time, at the Subway in White Bear Lake. We breezed right past it, because they've evidentially moved it and Subway hasn't updated their web page yet. We finally found it about a block away from where it should have been. Quite busy, too. This ride will have to be a non-Sunday ride, as I think they get a lot of post-church traffic in there. The ride back was good too, although they lock the bathrooms in the Sucker Lake park this time of year, much to our chagrin. Other than that, a great ride. This is becoming one of our favorite rides. The distance is on-par with Crapids, but the ride might even be nicer. We only got a little lost this time, added about a mile and a half to the trip. But I think we have it down pretty well now. |
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| We set out on this ride with one goal in mind - to see the destruction wrought by the storms of the previous week. We'd heard there was a lot of damage just north of us, in Fridley, Crapids, New Brighton, so we were pretty sure we'd see something good. Boy did we! As soon as we crossed over 694 (going north), all the streets were lined with piles of tree limbs and branches. Like, entire blocks where every house had tree debris out by the street. By this time it was all nicely stacked up, but still. Lots of trees upended with giant masses of roots and dirt poking into the air. Quite a sight to see. Of course, we got to Subway with a giant average, well over 14 MPH. Good ol' beginning-of-the-ride tailwind. We lost a lot of that on the way home, as usual. We even saw a "Rincon" bike by the visitor center at the Crapids dam. I wonder if it came from Bonaire. :) |
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| Today we knew we'd have an uphill battle - literally. Since we got to go down a big hill to get into Watkins Glen, we had to go up a big one to get out. But in reality, it wasn't that bad. Sure, it was steep, but we have lots of gears to use, and it was at our strongest time (first part of the ride). We didn't even have to walk up! The first 15 miles or so of the way home was relatively flat, and we started to think the west side of the lake wouldn't be too bad. Oops. The hills ended up coming after a while. Although we went down some big ones ... but we didn't go up as many as we went down, so I think we came out ahead. Plus, this side of the lake is full of fun town names: Himrod, Milo, the Hamlet of Bellona. And best of all, in the town of Reading there's a Cemetery Road ... that's a dead end! :) We met more road dogs, although they made more trouble for us this time. We stopped for lunch at a local baseball diamond, and about halfway through our Subways, two dirty country dogs loped up and took a keen interest in what we were eating. They didn't bark or growl ... but they didn't leave either. In their doggy way, they were saying, "We want to rub our dirty asses on your sammiches!" So we quickly packed up and biked about a half a mile away to finish lunch. Towards the end of this ride, the wind became more of a factor. We had to bike uphill and against the wind a number of times. That's never fun. Rebecca also lost her O'Sell's bike shop water bottle from her bottom cage somewhere along the way. It's an offering to the hill gods, I guess. All in all, it was a very pretty ride, but pretty tiring. Minnesotans thinking of biking in the Finger Lakes region should be ready for more hills than you may be used to. But at least we didn't get lost. If we were to do it again, I'd probably opt to take the trailer, rather than split stuff up into our 4 panniers. I can probably handle the extra load easier than Rebecca. You can tell it was a hard ride because we have an average of 10.92 MPH. Just a few weeks ago, we were doing almost 14 MPH for 60 miles here in MN. Egah! But hey, we got to see nice stuff like this:  As a reward, we picked up jerseys at Geneva Bicycles, which is across the street from Gary's bar. If you're in Geneva, NY, stop in and say hi. They're friendly people. Look for a picture of us in the jerseys some time later. |
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| Let me start this out with this: Biking around Seneca Lake in New York is quite scenic. But any native New York biker who tells you it has "rolling hills" is lying! :) Anyway, we assembled our bikes at the bar, and once again left "at the crack of dawn." We were following this route, made possible by the Finger Lakes Cycling Club. Cudos to them for their well-marked route. Never once did we get lost! We ended up dorking around trying to avoid getting on 5-20 by cutting through the Seneca Lake State Park. But it doesn't go through to 96A directly. :( But we did manage to avoid the section of 5-20 that doesn't really have a shoulder. We made our way to Sampson State Park where we had lunch. We also looked at giant guns at their war museum.  We continued on, and enjoyed the scenery. We did not enjoy the hills. Rebecca much less than me, but we didn't have to stop and walk up any of them. We also ran into some road dogs along the way (not physically), and we saw a leprechaun! Or perhaps an Amish or Mennonite man riding in the back of a pickup with red hair and a decidedly sly look on his face. We're not sure. We finally came into Watkins Glen and started descending the giant hill into the glen. Really, it was big! I hit 35.6 MPH near the end, when I finally stopped breaking. And even then, I started slowing down before the bottom. No need to be going 45 MPH down a hill with semi trucks zipping by you. We snuck over on the back roads to our B&B, and parked our bikes in the garage. After a quick shower, it was time to explore Watkins Glen! |
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| Our first ride on our Bike Fridays during a vacation! They'd made it all the way to Niagara Falls with us, and the only "damage" was the fact that Rebecca's suitcase strap was destroyed in transit. But the bikes were fine. We assembled them the night before, and were set to go bright and early. We grabbed continental breakfast, and were out the door before 10:00. Unfortunately, we spent about a half an hour just figuring out how to get to the Canadian side. First we tried the pedestrian walkway, which was very hard to find. The giant turnstiles and signs saying, "No bikes" deterred us from that. It turns out we should have gone with my first impression - go through like cars. 50¢ per bike (as opposed to $2.50 per car) got us across. We were pretty well interrogated on the way over by a crossing guard, but soon we were on our way. We jumped onto the Niagara Parkway, and after a short stint going north on the road, we hooked up with the multipurpose trail that runs the length of the parkway. There were very few people out, and it was a nice flat trail. Our trip north to Fort George at Niagara on the Lake went quickly, although we weren't looking forward to going up the large hill we went down (it turned out to not be too bad). The worst part of the trip was when we stopped at a pop machine for cool refreshment. The refreshment that came out almost burned my mouth! Now I know that when the display was flashing "99F" that was the internal temperature - the cooling unit must have been broken on that machine. Luckily, Fort George wasn't too far away, and they had working pop machines. Our trip back was quick, and we found our way back across the border quickly. We must not have looked very threatening, because on the US side we were let in without even showing our drivers licenses! A successful first international trip with our Bike Fridays! |
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| Today we took the longer side of the trail, up to Moose Lake. Once again, we bumped our way to the trail after breakfast, and joined up with the smooooth Munger. Little did we know we should have heeded Fran's side comment of, "Oooo, it looks kind of like rain out there!" Our ride out was cool but nice. Rebecca was colder than me, of course, but it's not like it was really cold out. We stopped in Willow River to use the bathrooms and greet the wood carvings (picture coming soon), and continued out to Moose Lake. Moose Lake brought us to the Blue Bear Cafe for lunch. The food was average, but the deserts were great! And lucky for us, while we were having lunch, the wind switched and died down, so we'd have a tailwind for the ride home too! When we left the cafe, that's when the rain started. Not driving rain, just sprinkles. But it made for a cooler ride. We decided to visit Moose Lake State Park, to see what was there. They have a very nice office and gift shop, with a cool rock "museum" too. I bought Rebecca a Moose Lake sweatshirt to keep her warm on the ride home, which made her quite happy. We'll have to camp there some time, if for no other reason than they have a cool pin for my hat. ;) We departed for home in the slight rain, and once again stopped at Willow River to use the bathrooms. This time, when we were getting ready to leave, it was Tom and Fran's tandem that had a staple in the rear wheel! It was a weekend of staples! We left to get dinner started while Tom fixed the tire, and Fran (we hear) fell asleep at a picnic table. When we got back to the campsite, it was evident they'd gotten a lot more rain than we had. Unfortunately, we hadn't put up the canopy, or taken in our towels/clothes on the line, or put our chairs away. So we had to spend some time drying things out before dinner. But we learned our lesson, and put the canopy up that night. We had to bike around the campsite loop one extra time to push us up past 60 miles. So close, we couldn't pass it up! |
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| Today we took a short ride (about 16 miles one way) into Hinkley for lunch. We bounced along the highway until we got to the Munger Trail, and were very glad to find it! While the roads in these parts have wide biking shoulders, they're very poorly maintained shoulders. The trail itself was very nice. Flat, well maintained, and fairly deserted. It was Hinkley that was the pain in the ass. We pulled in right at an exit from 35W, and it was full of impatient, aggressive motorists. We got to where we were going in one piece, but we didn't feel very welcome. Our ride home was fine as well, until Rebecca's bike starting dinging at us. At first I thought her bell was counting down to explosion, but we decided that wasn't what it was. We couldn't figure it out by the time we got to the campsite, so we parked the bikes and ran off to the bathroom. When we got back, the bikes were laying on the ground! I assumed Rebecca's kickstand just sank in, so I righted them, and it was a bit later that I realized what was going on. Her rear tire was flat! There was a large staple sticking out of it, which was dinging on the frame when we were riding. It wasn't until we stopped that it actually deflated. *Phew*  I put a new tube on, and Tom patched the other one at the same time. So we were all set for the ride the next day! |
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| Dang, the sun's setting too early these days, and I work to dang far away from home. Stoopid Chanhassen. If I'm lucky, I get home by 5:45, but the sun sets before 8:00 by now. This may be our last run after dinner this season. :( So we'll just have to take this ride on a weekend, in addition to a 40-some mile ride on the other weekend day! Yeah, that's it! All that was notable tonight was more proving that bike paths can be dangerous. We take the paths along St. Anthony Blvd because there's no shoulder on that road on either side, so it sucks to bike on. But people making turns onto the road don't always see bikes coming down the path, 'cause they're focused on the road. A woman almost made a right turn in front of Rebecca - it looked like she stopped and was going to wait, but then she started to pull out. But since Rebecca and I assume that people driving cars are stupid, she was ready to stop. It wasn't really even that close; even if the lady had made her turn, Rebecca would have been plenty stopped. But the lady did stop (and made a "Oops!" motion by putting her hand over her mouth). The rest of the trip was as usual. Home by 8:30, and it's all dark out! :( |
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| Today we tried a route called the "Forbidden City Circle", from that Minneapolis biking book with the goofily-drawn chick on a bicycle on the cover (I'll check the name later, maybe). :) We may have changed it a little bit, especially because the roads have changed a little since it was published in 1996, but we basically followed it. It ends up being a mostly new route, with the last part being a backwards St. Paul Lakes route. About the only things we'll probably change is the first part, which involves going up Lexington to CR I. But Lexington's undergoing a lot of construction right now up north of 694, so we'll find a different way. And once CR C gets done with its construction, we can come home that way and make it a true loop! We wore our new jerseys, and stopped to tromp around Tamarack Nature Center. That's where we got this picture:  This route, while being shorter than say, going to Crapids, is more work because of the rolling hills in parts. But it's a pretty nice route that I'm sure we'll do again. |
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| Yes, that's right. This is the trip that we broke 1,000 mile for the year on! To be technical, we were coming up to the apartments in Fridley that we don't know the name of. :) So we're now free to wear our new jerseys. Of course, they need to be washed first. But we'll wear them on the trip we're taking this weekend (a new route even!) - look for pictures from that one. The ride itself was pretty usual, except for the wind. I'm amazed that even when it's windy and we're both kinda tired, we still pull in at less than an hour and a half. (For posterity, our total milage at the end of this ride: 1012.27 miles). |
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| It seems it was Official Walk Your Dog Night tonight. We passed a boatload of people out with their dogs. Including the dog we've named Drunk Dog. He's an old dog that this guy takes out for a walk around the time bike. The dog kind of wanders around (it wandered in front of us this time), but at least he's getting out for a little walkies. We also saw two kitties tonight! Lots of animals. The only dumb animal was the woman who decided to push the pedestrian-walk button so she could cross in front of the direction we were going as we raced up to the green light. The problem is, she pushed the button then proceeded to just jaywalk across 'cause there were no cars. I just made it through, but Rebecca didn't. So we had to stop and wait, and the chick didn't even need to inconvenience us. She practically didn't stop as I biked past her, as though I should stop for her when she's crossing against the light. All in all, we kicked on speed this time, besting our fastest average by .4 MPH. This when Rebecca was saying (in her sleepy voice), "You're not going to make me go too fast tonight, are you?" before we left. I had to keep up with her a bunch of times. That's how she gets me! :) P.S. We're now only 7 miles away from 1,000 miles! |
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| We've decided that we could never live up in Coon Rapids/Champlain. So many kids/early teens riding bikes around on the wrong side of the road. And don't even get me started about the kid driving one of those motorized scooters, tooling down the left side of the road right at us. He swerved out and continued down the middle of the road on the wrong side. Must be something in the water up there. Given that we passed a woman (a grown woman even!) who was wearing a bike helmet - backwards! Other than the gaggle of people who don't know good road/path etiquette, it was a nice ride. We actually had a headwind going out this time, so our return ride was much easier than usual. That was nice, especially for Rebecca. She made her first ride with toe-clips today! And what we found was ... biking with on the balls of your feet uses different muscles than biking with the middle of your food in the middle of the pedal. The muscles just above her knees aren't as strong, so she had to work a little harder now that her feet were in a more optimal position for energy transfer. But she reaped the benefits of clips on some of the hills, using her pull-up power! Anyway, now we're only 26.25 miles from our goal. A Rice Creek Recess Route trip, and we'll only be about 7 miles short! |
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| Another late start for our nighttime biking. We didn't get out until about 7:50 or something. That meant it got dark before we even got to old highway 8. But the most remarkable thing about this ride was all the dogs out tonight! Dogs out by themselves ... dogs trotting a large distance behind their owners ... dogs on leashes "greeting" each other. And of course, dogs in the dog park who want to race with us. But those dogs aren't so rare ... just the ones out on the trails. Despite it being dark, and the fact that 29th was resurfaced today, we managed to make a pretty quick ride. We pushed it a little faster up old highway 8 that usual, and took advantage of slightly lit straight-aways since we knew we'd lose time going through the windy wooded areas. Just 70 miles 'til 1,000! We should easily hit that before New York. Come to think of it, we may even hit it before our anniversary! |
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| What a difference a month or so makes. Today was low wind, 72°, low humidity, a perfect day for a bike ride. And after cross-referencing between about 3 maps, I finally figured out where we were supposed to go on this route. We started out by stopping by Subway again to pick up some tasties for lunch. We started a little later than we'd hoped, and didn't leave Subway until almost 11:00. We were off to Hidden Falls! This time, we didn't encounter any flooded pathways like we did last time. This probably shaved at least half an hour off of our ride, what with all the dorking around of taking of shoes, portaging the bikes, drying feet, putting shoes back on, and whatnot. We got to the Official Lunch Area at about 12:15, almost exactly 20 miles out. The perfect distance to stop for lunch. After enjoying our meals, we crossed the river on 494, and made our way past the Fort Snelling Cemetery. But this time, I knew that Post Road was known as 70th Street at this point. We took our right turn, and before we knew it, we were flying down the road into Fort Snelling. We stopped at the fancy-pants visitor center for a bathroom break, and to check out their water quality. It's good to know where we can refill if we're out for a hot day. After that, we continued on, and exited the park. We hooked up with the bike paths by the river, and stopped by my mom's house to feed the animals and water the plants. Convenient that it's only 4 blocks off the bike paths! Finally, we were on our final stretch home. Of course, the Eustis hills weren't any fun to go up, but are they ever? At least this time we weren't out of water. In fact, neither of us even emptied our Camelbacks this time through. To round out the ride, we stopped at a garage sale that was going on down the block. That ensured that we'd break 40 miles on the ride. It looks like we spent about 3 miles on the last ride just trying to figure out where we were when we were lost. :O The best part: We broke 900 miles for the year on this ride. We're within reach of our goal for the year. The jersey's have been ordered - we may even be able to wear them before the NY trip next month! |
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| We got a late start tonight (and it's been cloudy all day), plus the sun sets earlier and earlier. The end result: we had to use our front lights just to get through some of the wooded areas of this ride. But nothing else really exciting. Our average is a little lower because of the darkness, and we ended up sweating a lot more than you'd think for it only being like 72° outside. Crazy humidity and all. Ever closer to 1,000 miles, and our Bike Friday Jerseys! |
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We decided to get up early today and hit some garage sales. This time, I brought along the trailer, just in case we found something big that we wanted, like the last time out (we didn't). But we did find this little dandy: A Super Mario figure we don't already have! And a mere 25¢ brought him home with us. Hooray! :) |
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| Well, people driving are at least. Tonight we saw 3 people drive through red lights, displaying varying amounts of idiocy. None of them directly affected us, but it still makes me wonder how people get their licenses. Especially the idiot in the tow-truck who not only thought that he could make a left turn into a red light from an adjacent street, but also had the audacity to honk at a jogger in the crosswalk who actually had the right of way with a green light. I mean, come on! No matter what, pedestrians in a crosswalk walking with the signal always have the right of way! Other than that, a pretty regular run. Amazingly, we both started out saying we probably wouldn't go very fast, and that we were tired (it has been almost a week since we got any real exercise), and yet we came in at less than an hour and a half tonight. We may have to start pushing on the non-stoplighty areas and work on our speed and overall time, 'cause this is getting too easy almost! :O |
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| Today we rode an expanded Gateway Trail run. Perhaps it even warrants its own route in BikeBlog - we'll see. We started out from Melissa and Matt's house, of course, and took the Gateway Trail out east to Pine Point. Along the way, we saw a couple of Bike Fridays being unpacked from a car. To our surprise, we met up with them at Pine Point, and found our bikes looking at their dopplegangers!  What are the chances that we'd run into two other New World Tourist BF's that were the same colors as ours! Their happy owners obliged us for a picture, and we continued on. We took to the roads, and made our way to Scandia. In Scandia, we had a tasty lunch at the Scandia Cafe. All was going as planned for us to pay for lunch, when we found out that the cafe doesn't take plastic! All we had was $10 in cash, so we had to hit Tom and Fran up for funds. By this time, we'd caught on to the big lie of the day - this wasn't going to be a "50 mile trip" as promised - we were at 30 miles when we got to the cafe! But we're troopers. Despite the headwind for the majority of the ride home, we persevered. Another stop at Pine Point to refuel and use the bathroom, and we were on the home stretch back down the Gateway Trail. We had to go a little further past our usual exit point, because we were going to be about 2.5 miles short of 60 for the day. All in all, we pulled in just past 60 miles, for a grand total over the past 8 days of 160 miles. That's a lot for us. We're pretty impressed that on this day we managed to keep above 13 MPH for our average - we were at about 14.5 on the ride out, and of course the dreaded 3 miles up Hadley chopped us down from about 13.4 to 13 at the end of the ride. Now it's time to give our hinders a rest! |
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| Sure, we did 80 miles this weekend ... but then we had 3 days where we were too busy to get any exercise (Rebecca's birthday festivities). And I guess it took its toll on us - just look at this average! But it was a nice night out tonight. We got a little bit of a late start, but we have lights to deal with that. We also found out that the weird rattle on Rebecca's bike was her kickstand coming loose, and that one shouldn't assume that stuff that looks like hardened melted plastic is actually hard. Not quite sure what it is we rode through, but at least it doesn't stink! |
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| Today was Rebecca's birthday! To celebrate, we biked the rest of the trail, into Faribault to have Subway for lunch. This ride was shorter, more like 14 miles one way. We had to search around a little bit to actually find the Subway, but on the return trip we realized there was a much better way to get to the trail. Even though Subway was arcticly cold, we managed to leave our sweaty hinder prints on the seats. Then we made a quick stop at a gas station to get some bread, and departed for camp. We came onto the main campground road about 0.2 miles short of 30, so we went up to the campground entry to take a picture (the one that I used for this route, in fact). At the end of this ride, we have the exciting mileage of 30.03. Our total for the weekend: just over 80 miles! We were past Faribault on the drive home before we had driven that far during the weekend. :) |
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| During our camping trip to Sakatah Lake State Park (see pictures on the Photo Album page), we decided to ride the entire Sakatah Singing Hills Trail. But since we had a head index of about 120° during this weekend, we split it up. Today's ride was out to Mankato, about 25 miles one way. We departed at around 11 AM (a bit later than intended), and enjoyed the shaded trail. Until we got to the unshaded part! On the plus side, the trail was extremely flat, having not so much hills as slight inclines. Just outside of Mankato, we stopped for lunch at a picnic table under the shade of a tree. Rebecca was glad that I made her bring a sammich for lunch, because by the time we stopped, she was hungry! Then we continued on to the outskirts of Mankato, where the trail ends. Our ride home was similar to the ride out, only going the other way. And much hotter! We had to stop for cold pop (and for me to step in dog crap - thank you, dog owner!), and then 8 miles later, we stopped for more pop and ice cream! By that time we were about 7 or 8 miles away from camp, so we managed to not have to stop again. We pulled into the campsite just past 50 miles, and were glad to be at a campsite with showers! |
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| After 9 days of temperatures above 90° days (with dew points up in the 70° range), the weather finally broke. We were in the 70's most of the day, maybe up to the low 80's tops. And that means biking for the first time in 16 days! It was like the first time we'd biked since winter. A great night, slightly windy but mostly crosswinds (from the west, instead of the usual southerly winds), and not many people on the trails. This is the fastest we've done this route. Keeping in mind that this is a route that's full of stop signs and lights, there's a lot of dorking around to do in the middle of it. Rebecca noted that we lose about half a mile per hour off of our average just going through the middle part. But we managed to shave a few minutes off our time, and beat the 13 MPH average for the first time. We also got to try out our new flashy lights that we got. Little lights that don't really illuminate, but definitely make you noticeable. We also gave Rebecca's new 11-tooth cog a workout, and thankfully that's completely fixed the skipping on her Bike Friday. So we're back in business again. |
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| It's a beautiful day, and the dentist is only half a mile away. So I gotta bike it! And the word is: 31 years, and not a single cavity! And now my teeth are sparkly. I also found out that if I go the "short" way, I can save 0.04 miles - score! :) At least it just breaks 1 mile, so I can include it in the BikeBlog. ;) Look for the next ride on this route to be next year, since I probably won't bike in January. Oh wait, even if I did, it would still be next year. |
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| In a grand excuse to see Melissa and Matt's new puppy, we decided to hit the Gateway Trail today. Paul went out with us this time, so we could slow him down a bit - he hasn't been biking as much because of a hamstring issue. But since our trunks probably weigh as much as his bike, we weren't much match for him. :) The ride in general was good - better than the last time. We didn't hit any MS-150 riders this time, so we were able to take the long downward sloping section coming up to Pine Park a little faster. Still, our average is lower than it should be. And why? Loathsome Hadley going back to the house. We were sitting at 13.7 or 13.6 when we got off the trail, and you can see what we ended up with. A crazy headwind (well, not too crazy, but still a bit annoying) and going uphill slowed us down a bit. Rebecca did a better job making sure to eat and drink enough, so she didn't get sicky-feeling until about a mile from the end. We'll get it nailed down sooner or later. It's almost like she's diabetic, too! But without the fun of shots and testing. ;) P.S. For posterity, our total milage was an almost-neat 636.63. If only we'd biked 0.27 miles less! |
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| This time I rode my Bike Friday to the chiro, and parked it inside. She was impressed that it folded up and fit inside a suitcase. And then I came home. | ||||
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| We decided to hit the Coon Rapids dam today before Rebecca leaves for her business trip tomorrow. It was a nice enough morning, although a little humid. And believe you me, it wouldn't become less humid as the day went on! The first part, up to Subway, was easy - as usual. 13.5 MPH average up to that point. It's always the wind on the last part, I tells ya. But this time we didn't slow down as much. 'Cause we're biking maniacs! :) But by 2:00 or so, it was getting pretty hot. We'd be biking along, and come out of the cover of shade, into a section of trail where there was no wind, and it suddenly got about 10° hotter. On the wildlife side of things, we saw 2 foxes today! One of them was "napping" by the side of the road. But the other one trotted across the road and scampered into the woods. Never seen foxes out when we've been biking before. It's a two-wheeled first! |
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| I biked to my chiro appointment this morning - a whole .9 miles one way. But I suppose since the whole thing is more than 1 mile, I'll add it to the BikeBlog. :) I biked ... got adjusted ... then biked back. It barely takes longer to bike over there than it does to drive. |
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| After a scorching 98° day yesterday, we finally cooled down today. It was actually below 80° this night, at 7:30-ish. So we jumped on the bikes and made for the Recess Route. What do we take away from this ride tonight?
We made pretty good speed tonight, too. Not quite as fast as on the 17th, but we still clocked in at an hour and a half (only 18 seconds past it). The maximum speed listed was on a straightaway tonight - 29th Avenue between Silver Lake Road and Wilson. I was trying to get home in under 1:30:00, but didn't quite make it. Maybe next time. |
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| The day started with grand plans to turn the St. Paul Bike-About route into something that would take us over to Fort Snelling, and then back home along the river. But at every turn, the fates conspired against us! Well, not at the beginning. We hit Subway to get some vittels for our lunch later on, and struck out towards 280. We successfully made our way down to the River Road on the St. Paul side, and got over to Hidden Falls park. We weren't too far into the park when we were greeted with this:  That's right - the trail had flooded! At first, we thought we could just make our way off to the right, since it appeared that many people had tromped through the tall grass. But that proved futile, as the water had flooded in through that way. There was only one way across this raging puddle, and that was to remove our shoes and go through it adventurer-style!  Rebecca graciously agreed to take photos while I hauled the bikes across. We got to the other side, put our shoes back on, and continued along. Shortly, we came to another flooded area, but this was much more shallow, and we could just ride through it. We thought our troubles were behind us, until we entered a different part of the park. More flooding! This one forced us to detour up onto a sandy hill, and then remove our shoes to cross a little "stream" that the water was flooding in through. Finally out of the park area and away from the river, we were on fully dry land again. We continued along, stopping at our pre-determined rest point just shy of 494 to have some lunch. After a half hour rest, we made our way off to try and find Fort Snelling. Getting across the river on 494 was easy because of the biking/pedestrian bridge. But getting from there to the Fort Snelling park proved more challenging. We went up 34th Avenue, the way we though we were supposed to, but ran into the airport. It turns out if we had pushed on a little more, we would have found the road through it that would spit us out at the park. Instead, we turned back, and ended up going up 24th. This brought us to Highway 77 (AKA Cedar Avenue). After some floundering around, we finally made it over to the Minnehaha Trails, which brought us up to Minnehaha Park as we had originally intended. We never got through Fort Snelling, but we did finally get home. All that was left was a few miles back home. This is when we realized it was about 3:30, and getting very hot! Traveling up Eustace to Larpenteur has lots of big hills, and big hills aren't fun when you're really hot, and you've run out of water! Luckily by that time we were about 3 miles from home, so our condition wasn't too dire. All in all, we made it back in once piece, and realized that we logged about 80 miles for this whole weekend (considering Friday night to be the weekend, that is). We also broke 500 for the year on this ride! Who knows where we're go next - my guess is: to bed. ;) |
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| Another Saturday morning, another day of garage sale adventures. Today we went north on Silver Lake Road, stopping at all the garage sales we saw signs for. We got up past 694 before it was time to turn back. This day's adventure was a bit more successful that last week's - we found an old Game Boy carrying case for $1.00, an unopened card game for $1.50, and Rebecca found a sweater for $8.00. We actually had to pass up a couple of things we might have bought because we didn't have room for them. We may have to start toting the trailer with us! At one of the garage sales, the guy was so enamored with our bikes I think he would have liked to ride one of them around. We actually gave out one of our little Bike Friday information postcards. Who knows - maybe he'll buy one and we'll get $50! Coincidentally, he had the Variety section from the Star Tribune, so we got to point out how Rebecca's parent's were in the biking story in there. Talk about timing! :) |
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| As in: we ate dinner, and went for a bike ride. A nice quick one along the Rice Creek Recess route. Once again, we had almost no wind, and it can be seen in our average and our time. We've never been anywhere near 13 MPH for an average on this route, mostly because a lot of the trails are bumpy, and there's lots of stoplights along the way. And we've never gotten through it in less than an hour and a half. But we did this time! Of course, there were some setbacks. My light kept on refusing to stay on! It wasn't a real big deal because we were home by 9-ish, and it was just getting darky then. But hopefully I've fixed that. And Rebecca was having issues being in her smallest gear on the rear cassette. A bit of inspection by the G+R Bike Repair Man showed a bunch of oil and dirt, and a nice little piece of wood jammed in between a couple of the teeth. Just big enough to make the chain jump when it was on it. Now all is good. The light has had a good talking to, and the rear cassette's been brushed out a bit. Onward! |
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| Believe it or not, we haven't ridden our Bike Fridays on the Gateway Trail yet. Until now! It was a nice warm day, so we folded them up, threw 'em in the back of the car, and drove our to Rebecca's sister's house. Since that's just 3-some miles from the Gateway Trail, it makes a good base camp, with the added bonus of a cookout by the time we got back! The Gateway Trail was as it always is - smooth and good. The only real issue we had was the MS 150 coming at us as we went out to Pine Point. The oncoming riders were all pretty well behaved, but it probably slowed us down a little bit. It was a toasty day, and Rebecca lost lots of salty goodness. It was this ride that convinced us that we should have some of that fancy-pants water that replaces electrolytes for when it's hotter like it is now. So from this point on, every warm ride we take that's over 15 miles or so will probably have some la-te-da water along for the ride. |
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| This morning we arose early* and were out by the crack of dawn* to go garage sale-ing. We knew we wouldn't be hitting any land-speed records on this route, but since we did do about 10 miles, it counts as a "ride," and thus deserves to be in BikeBlog (it also puts us past 400 miles! Wahoo)! The main thing we came away from this little outing with was: biking to garage sales is easier than driving a car. Getting in and out of the car gets to be tiring (we know from last year). But biking is easy - just drive right up to the action, get off, look, and leave! We ended up talking to a number of people since we were out and about on our Bike Fridays - didn't hand out any postcards, though. No chances at rewards money for us. :( We only bought one thing - some kitschy red reindeer that are covered in that almost-painful velvet stuff. They'll be out next Christmas time, be sure to look if you visit us. We also timed this ride well ... not 10 minutes after we got home, it started raining. But we were safe and dry. *Time descriptions are approximate and may be exaggerated. Real times may be closer to 11:00 AM |
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| The weather was nice, the wind was calm, and we seized the opportunity to get a quick ride in after dinner. With the exception of Rebecca's upset tummy, there was very little going on with this ride. Wish I could say more. Oh wait! My light got stuck on for the last part, instead of flashing. How exciting is that. :) And the grocery-bag panniers actually stayed on Rebecca's bike, through all the bumps and railroad tracks. So my modifications worked. There, that livens this entry up a bit. ;) |
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| Today we joined Tom and Fran for a ride around St. Paul. They showed us some paths and areas we weren't familiar with, and we all learned a little bit about some paths that were previously under construction. We left our house after dinner and made the arduous 5 mile ride to Tom and Fran's house. After that, we all departed for our journey. We rode down a bit along the route that we take when going to Fort Snelling, around Highway 280 and University Avenue. This brought us down to the River Road, where we went north towards the Ford plant. We stopped along the way, and snapped a quick picture:  We continued along, stopped for a pee break at the Ford plant (they were having an old-car picnic or something, complete with port-a-potties!), and then continued on. We eventually made our way to Hidden Falls, a place neither of us had ever fully explored. Pushing through that, we ended up at 35E and Shepherd Road. We explored some new paths around that area, and found out we could continue across by 494 and end up over by Fort Snelling. Perhaps we'll make a new route based on this. Amazingly enough, our ride brought us to CandyLand in downtown St. Paul! After a quick stop for a little treat, we took Como back to Tom and Fran's house. This is when the cold front moved in. We got some wind goin', and some rain, and more wind, and a little more rain. Luckily we were only about 3 miles away from their house when the rain hit us. Dinner was tasty at Chin's Kitchen - this place may replace Kim's for chicken fried rice. Mmmmm good! By the time we were done, the clouds had somewhat cleared, and we were able to ride home. There was about 4 blocks of light rain that got us, along with a headwind. But it was only 5 miles, so it wasn't so bad. And now we're a few scant miles from 400 for the year! Wahoo! |
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| Seemed like a good day for a ride - sunny, no wind, Memorial Day. Of course, holidays bring out the idiots "biking". Hmm ... we're a group of 3, where shall we stop our bikes to chat and look around aimlessly? How about right in the middle of the path, right in front of a curb going across a parking lot entrance, so nobody can get past us?. We made it to the end of Fort Snelling, and got a little confused on how to find the path across the river. We'll see if we go to the zoo this summer - Fort Snelling rides have a bad track record. But we did get a picture of us and our bikes. See?  You can't really see the bikes that well, but hey ... it's a start. |
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| With a clear day for us, and rain and cold in the forecast for the rest of the week, we fired up the bikes for a quick after-dinner ride. The nice weather would happily surprise is in more than one way. The trip itself wasn't too eventful, although we did stop at the halfway point to use the bathrooms (first time since we've been riding this route). It's a good thing we had our own water, because there was a big sign in the bathroom that said not to drink the water in there, it had bacteria! I also learned that one must not stand too still while peeing, as the lights are motion-activated. A bit of flailing gets them back on, but ... well, the janitor just has to do more work then. :O When we came up to Old Highway 8 was when we got our best present. This is usually the leg of the route that has the strongest headwind. But no wind today! Rebecca was feeling tired, so we'd been going a little slower. But even she was over 15 MPH on an uphill grade on this part. It felt like we weren't even pushing the bikes along. It's been a long time since we had an easy last couple of miles on this route. And we're now less than 2 miles from breaking 300 for the season! |
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| The day started out cloudy and rainy. Our 10:00 departure time slipped back to more like 11:15. But finally, the skies opened and we saw a close approximation of sun. So out came the bikes, and off we went. The ride itself was nice and uneventful, for the most part. Getting to the bridge in Camden gave us pause, because it was closed for construction! Luckily for us, the sidewalks weren't closed, so we gave in and used a pedestrian walkway for our bikes. After that, it was clear sailing. Coon Rapids Damn was strangely devoid of visitors this day. Maybe the clouds drove the casual visitors away. Or maybe it was because we were running about an hour an a half later than usual. At any rate, it was emptier than usual. Of course, our average speed took a hit on the ride home. Before we left Subway we had 13.7 MPH average. Then the headwinds hit. That's how they getcha, as the saying goes. But 12.1 isn't too bad, all things considered. After our ride, the obligatory 2-hour-recovery-time was observed. For me, it was more like the obligatory rest-of-the-night-recovery-time, but that's beside the point. ;) |
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| Today was work at mom's day, doing mostly outside work (cutting up branches, mowing the lawn and putting down weed-n-feed, springy stuff like that) and a little inside work. It seemed like the perfect time to get a ride in and try out the Bike Friday suitcase trailer. I needed to bring my branch cutters, and the trailer was the only thing big enough to transport it in. The day started out cool, and didn't get much warmer. It was about 48 when we left, and about 55 on return. But at least it got sunny. Unfortunately, the cold weather got the best of Rebecca - after about 2.5 miles, she decided to turn back. Since I'm significantly warmer in general (being her Warm Boy 7000), I didn't notice the cool air as much. I decided to continue on, so we parted ways and I kept going. Not too long after that, I was wishing my Girl was with me. See, I may be warmer, but she's better with directions (without a map). There's a sneaky part of the route that I'm still not quite kosher with. Luckily I had a Google Map of the area, so I was able to recover. But getting lost there (and a left turn when I should have taken a right near University and 280) added a little over a mile to the trip (and about 15 minutes). On the plus side, using the trailer was quite nice. Most of the time, I forgot it was there. Except when I had to start from a dead stop, usually at a stoplight that I was going uphill on (and against the wind, chased by wolves). I'll probably look into attaching some kind of flag to it, just to be a little more visible to cars. Although I didn't have any problems on this ride. People behaved quite well, and nobody was anywhere near bashing into me. The trip home was faster (because I didn't get lost), but more headwindy. It's a good thing it's just under 9 miles one way - if it was a longer trip, I'd probably be more tired. For the record, Rebecca's trip information was: Distance: 4.71 miles, Time: 0:24:36, Average Speed: 11.5 MPH, Max Speed: 20.5 But we always go with my computer's numbers, so she gets about 14 free miles. :) |
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| While our last ride had us outrunning the rain, this ride had us riding through it - the entire time! Our riding plans tonight seemed to be dashed by a shower, but it let up by the time we were going to go. Thinking all would be well, we departed for our little ride. Nature had other plans. It rained the entire ride. Of course, it didn't really start raining until we were far enough out that we didn't want to turn back. Nature also taunted us continually, showing us clear skies just out of our reach. For the bulk of the ride, we seemed to be going towards a clearing, but it always eluded us. One time I thought we were about to reach it, but it turned out to be floodlights by a building. We got to try out all our new lights, and our helmets got a good washing. The backlighting on the Cateye Micro Wireless bike computers we got came in handy ... a nice little feature. Now the bikes can dry out, and get their first chain cleaning later this week. Oh yeah - we broke 200 miles for this year on this ride! And from this point on, rides we take on our Bike Fridays will be marked with (BF), for those of you playing along at home. |
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| We finally got weather nice enough to ride on our Bike Fridays! Unfortunately, we haven't gotten our hands on the computers for them. So stats for this ride are based on watch-time, and the fact that we know how far the route is. It was a pretty windy today, but not as bad as it has been. The Fridays ride pretty much like a full-size bike. Gotta get used to the fit a little bit, and how you need to lean back when you go down a steep hill - biking on 20" wheels makes you feel like you're gonna tip it over front-wards as you zip down a hill. The ride was more or less uneventful, except for the man in a van who thinks its a good idea to come up to bikers at stopsign and make a right turn in front of them. Maybe he doesn't realize his front blinker doesn't work ... which doesn't explain why he'd think it's a good idea anyway. We also managed to outrun Nature! Upon arriving at Highway 8, we started to feel raindrops hitting us. I urged Rebecca to ride quickly, so that we could outrun the rain - and we did! We didn't get wet for the rest of the ride. Look for more Bike Friday adventures - we'll probably ride them a lot this summer to break 'em in! |
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| It rained yesterday, so we had to put off our Crapids ride until today. But we made it! By the time we got to the Subway for lunch, we were thinking we were in amazing shape! Barely tired, and an average of about 14 MPH. It was then that we realized that we'd had a tailwind for the entire first part of the trip. The remaining ride home slowed our average a bit, but it wasn't too bad. The oddest thing we saw on this trip was probably the shirtless man in his boxers wandering around the railroad tracks by the goldfish pond. They may have just been shorts, but my theory is that he bathes in the pond, then scours the railroad tracks for pennies left by children. Who knows! Looks like our plan to use the bell as a sore-hinder scale may not work. It doesn't always ding for bumps ... must have something to do with how the clapper is sitting inside the bell part. So we'll have to come up with something else. Perhaps it'll have to be a *gasp* subjective score! In summary ... a nice April day (low 70's), good ride, now we're tired. Zzzzzzzz .... |
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| Not counting our time in Bonaire, of course. Today we did a short little ride with Tom and Fran. We'd originally planned to go to Coon Rapids, but it was pretty windy outside, so we opted for a shorter route. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened on this ride, although we did figure out how we're going to rate biking routes. Rebecca has a new bell on her bike, and if she rides over a particularly bumpy section of trail, it'll ding itself. That'll be the basis for how rough on the hinder a bike route is. Stay tuned for more! |
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| This is the last day we'll be relying on bikes for transportation - tomorrow we get a truck to do more advanced traveling, like exploring Washington Slagbaai National Park. After today's lunch, it was off to Oil Slick Leap (which was about 7 or 8 miles north of the apartment). There's lots of nice coral there, and lots of nice fish to go along with it. After our water adventures, we biked back into Kralendijk to have dinner at The Lost Penguin. There was much, "mmmmmmmmmm"-ing as we enjoyed our meals. The night brought another night dive, this time at the Divi Flamingo. We saw little squids that like to congregate below an inflatable raft that's anchored off shore, and the night brought our lobsters, shrimp, and even a green moray in the rocks by the shore. We also saw a larger (1.5 feet or so) squid swimming around. Alas, a night-dive didn't seem like a picture-taking opportunity, so I didn't have my camera. But we have our memories. We biked back home, and thought about how it would be to traverse the island without pedaling. A truly odd thought. Soon the bikes would be disassembled and packed up, and we would join the world of the automotives. |
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| Somehow, in a moment of insanity, we agreed to get up at 6 AM (that's 4 AM if we were on Central time) to ride up to the town of Rincon. It actually made a lot of sense, given that we're on a desert island that hits the 90's by the afternoon. So for a 2-ish hour bike ride, being up before the sun got going was a good thing. The ride was very nice, except for the giant hill you have to go up just outside of Rincon. The good thing about that hill is you get to go down the other side in order to get to Rincon. A hill so steep, I hit 32.5 MPH without ever pedaling! Rincon itself isn't very interesting. We breezed through, then came back down to Kralendijk. On the way home, Tom and Fran broke a rear spoke on their tandem. We took their panniers and stopped at Subway for lunch for all of us. When we all got back to the apartment, Tom rode my bike into town again to get their tire fixed (their industrial-strength breaks made replacing the spoke more difficult that one would think). Luckily the guy at the Freewheeler was very nice, waiting for Tom and getting everything fixed (for free even!). Before we knew it, it was time for our cave dive! We biked over to that, and luckily were carted around in a truck to get to the actual caves for snorkeling. After that it was a "quick" ride home, where we all collapsed after our giant day of biking and caving. |
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| The 2nd was a busy day for us. Our plan was to bike over to La Playa and register for their cave-diving expedition, and then snorkel at the Divi Flamingo. In reality, we only got half of that done. We got ourselves registered, but ended up dorking around too much to have any time to do any snorkeling of note at the Flamingo. So we split up, Rebecca and I going back home for lunch, and Tom and Fran staying to snorkel a bit at the Flamingo. After lunch, Rebecca and I went into Kralendijk for some shopping. It turns out we'd already seen most of what was there to see, although we did buy some shirts and gifts, and got our postcards in the mail. We had some spare time, so we walked along the ocean-side of the city for a bit, and then went to meet Tom and Fran. We had intended to eat dinner at the La Flamer (it was actually called the La Flambe or something that I don't remember right), but they weren't serving dinner until 6:00. This was at 5:00, and we were hungry already! So we left town and biked over to the Lion's Den for our fancy sunset dinner. During the day, Rebecca and I had bought a small plush Spotted Eagle Ray to give to Fran as her travel buddy. We picked this dinner to present it to her. The ray's name is Penny, and pictures can be seen on the Bonaire photo album. After our dinner, we did our first night dive. Since the Lion's Den is part of a resort (one with lots of lights and nice steps into the water), we just got changed and jumped in. It was a pretty safe night dive, we saw some sleepy looking fish, and a giant Tarpon that was about 5 feet long. Fairly uneventful, except for when the Tarpon charged me as I shined my light at it. He evidentially thought I was a tasty fish! |
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| This was a back-and-forth day. We biked down to The Lake (which was one of our first sites - only about a mile from the apartment) for some pre-lunch snorkeling. Unfortunately, Rebecca's mask was misbehaving, and she kept getting saltwater in her eyes. This made for a short outing, but at least we didn't go too far. After lunch, we went south again to The Invisibles. This site is so named because it's a two-reef system, but the second reef is somewhat hidden. This is also the site that is supposed to be the home to a Spotted Eagle Ray who hangs around the marker buoy. We swam round and round, but never saw him. We did see a large porcupine fish, though. But it's not quite the same. |
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| Today was our first time to eat at Tom and Fran's favorite Bonaire restaurant, The Lost Penguin. When they were there before, it was all about the pancakes with chocolate sauce on them. This year would be different. What The Lost Penguin should be known for is their mahi-mahi sandwiches. Big sammiches, piled with pieces of tasty fish. They also evidentially have good curried vegetables (at least according to Tom). I think we ended up eating there 3 times over the course of our vacation. While we were in town, we also bought new fins for Rebecca. I had replaced mine a day or so earlier, because the crappy Dolphino ones we brought were ... well ... crappy. Snorkeling in Bonaire involves more swimming against current usually, and sub-par snorkeling equipment quickly becomes a major hinderance. Then it was off to Captain Don's for our daily snorkel adventures. This day we saw our first Caribbean Reef squid - actually 3 of them. They were swimming together, going somewhere only they knew about. The largest was probably 10-12 inches from tip to tentacle. They let us follow them around a bit, although unfortunately our camera was out of film by this time. |
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| This day found us going to Eden Beach, which is part of a resort. The nice thing about Bonaire is that the main draw is snorkeling and SCUBA diving, and there's an understanding that the water is fully public access. Resorts don't put up fences, or stop people from using their waterfronts for diving. So after another quick run through town, we biked over to Eden Beach. Our snorkeling here introduced us to our first barracuda of the trip. Contrary to popular thinking, these fish aren't aggressive at all. In fact, they tend to stare at you with a blank stare that seems to indicate their limited intelligence and interest in people. Swim towards them, and they'll usually run (not that we spent a lot of time taunting the fish with big, pointy teeth). We also saw a big juicy crab wandering around, and on the way out of the resort, spotted an iguana sunning itself on a rock next to the road. |
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| Finally, 3 days after arriving in Bonaire, our bikes showed up. The people in San Juan must have either been lazy or gotten scared by the giant boxes. And just our luck, American only flies to Bonaire once every 3 days or so. So on the night of the 25th, Tom and I assembled bikes. Then today, we get to ride. We set off to Kralendijk (the main city on Bonaire), which was about 3.5 miles from our apartment. This was the first time we'd seen Kralendijk, after hearing about it (we'd made Tom and Fran go into town to get Subways while we didn't have bikes). After seeing the town, we biked to Salt City, which is a dive site a little bit south of where we were staying. We'd already snorkeled near this site, because it was near sites that were within walking distance (a mile or so). Our underwater adventures included most of the usual fish, and we also saw our first porcupine fish. Little did we know it would be far from our last. We also saw a very odd fish - the Tatanga fish. He was sitting in the ocean waiting for people to play 500! We then biked home (this time with more of a tailwind), and had dinner. A successful first day of biking in Bonaire! |
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