shod in shoes for shlumping through the shnow

So I "accidentally" didn't use all of my vacation time last year (I had reasons for saving a day but that's another story), and took a Saturday off to balance the time out.

Saturday Chester and I went to bike around Lake Harriet.  And I went to the wrong lake.  There wasn't too much confusion since we were car pooling, but we did lunch at Isles Buns and Coffee.  The wind was wicked on the south end of the lake.  And the snow drifts on the lake made it almost completely impassable.  We walked much of the way across.

The folks at Isles make wicked good espresso.  I place the Mocha between Brewberry's and Black Dog.  

Saturday night we went to Let the Right One In.  I don't remember the last movie we liked enough to see 4 times in the theatre.  This one was totally worth seeing four times.

Yesterday we biked to the Town Hall Brewery.

And today we went snowshoeing in Eagan.

Guy Woodhouse

Some folks are curious what Guy Woodhouse looks like.  I'd say: the ugliest bike in our stable, Shannon says the greater metro.

I think it's worth five dollars.

The handsome Cannondale in the background is Shannon's winter bike.

What I like about Guy is the simplicity of his parts.  There is very little that can go wrong mechanically.  With the cube prism reflective tape on the fork and rack it glows like a christmas tree.  And with the patches of dirt and rust and overall crappy appearance an otherwise sound bike will never ever be stolen.  I hope.

Blood on the Pavement

I did that I did that that's my fault...Too bad the table didn't break my fall.

Over by Caribou, they resurfaced the parking lot with oil and gravel. Which it needed.

Coming in I thought I would do a powerslide, but traction was too poor to get a controlled skid in.  After coffee, I forgot how much loose gravel there was and I leaned into the turn.

My knee took most of the landing, my elbow the rest and I stopped on my right shoulder.

For the first scrape of the season: not bad I say.  I still biked home after work. I think it really comes down a bit of holding myself responsible for the series of events.  And I feel that if I am going to commit to biking home from work two or three nights a week, then I should be prepared to do so regardless of how stupid I have been or how crappy the weather is.  That weather thing might need tweaking--I always feel exposed on the Mendota bridge.

I tried to just shrug it off, but a whole bunch of people from outside the coffeeshop jumped up to make sure I was okay.  Which was very nice of them.