Hastings Ride - x2

These aren't in order, but that's ok.  You can wander around freely in my bike rides.  Ironically, I was talking earlier about so many things going on I can't entirely keep up, and then I decided to post this instead of the music in a yard gig I was at last night.  Guess that'll have to be a tomorrow thing, although I'm going to Mae West tomorrow, so I'm already adding more to my queue.  I ponder frequently how I had time to post so many things 20 years ago.  Just a more consistent habit, I guess.

Larry, Ming, and I took the trail system from Inver Grove Heights down to Hastings for lunch two weekends ago.  About 45 miles.  I repeated the ride this last weekend, although I headed to the trail connection over by the trash mountains and processing plant via Eagan, which wasn't quite as nice.  But, I did it early in the morning so a. it was cooler and b. there was breakfast.  Turns out Ze's isn't too far off the trail - just a few miles and one really steep hill.  Although you don't get too much scenic going to Ze's.  It stays away from the waterfront and takes you past the court building.

Still....worth it, despite bonking my head on the sign I locked my bicycle to hard enough that the cut on my head bled for a few days and still hurts over four days later.

And a bonus of going in the morning....bison. We didn't get to see them the first time.  As I was headed to Hastings they were in the back pen and just coming out, but by the time I came back they were lounging in the sunshine.

This gal was also hanging out near them.  I also saw snakes [two kinds - one baby, one very large], turkeys including one trying to coast airborne, deer, bald eagle, and more.  Nice trail for some nature.

The turn to go to Ze's or go into downtown/riverfront Hastings is right after this sculpture garden.  I've got a few more below.  It's not in the foreground, but that Wright Flyer in the back left is pretty cool.

There is one sizeable hill on the way to Hastings [and back, but not as much] and you can get a nice scenic view.  I was disappointed the second time I wasn't there to get the sunrise bouncing off the water.

If you go into the riverfront area of Hastings you can go to the far end of the artsy part of town and catch another trail that takes you to Vermillion Falls.  There's a bridge over the water and it has become an area for folks to put love locks on. I know it looks like Ming and Larry might be up to putting a love lock in the collection, but they did not.

Here's the outflow of the falls from the locks bridge.

And here are the falls up close.  It's cool the mechanisms for the water power machinery are still attached to that building, even if they're not in use.

Headed back, the sculpture garden...

The sculpture likes his animals...

On a stop on the way back, we ran into the Society for Creative Anachronism.  Ming talked to them for a while about axe throwing.  That looked fine, but that woman in the background is throwing knives and that looked damn near impossible.  I'm not sure if Ming is going to join and try to get elected royalty.  His kid is out of the house, so anything's possible.

Hastings

Last weekend I rode out to Hastings on an Ingress hunt.  There was a portal at Spring Lake Park Reserve that was holding up big fields.  The ride there...not so bad.  Sort of downhill into the river valley for about 30 miles.  The ride back...different story.  I don't think it helped that I didn't eat because the breakfast joint I was targeting in Hastings opened an hour later than Google said.

Ride back: mostly uphill, 25 miles, slight wind, and a lot of road construction.  At one point I had to go under an under-construction under/overpass on Highway 52.  Going to Hastings it wasn't so bad because it was early and traffic was light.  On the way back it was around noon and the traffic was buzzing.  I was pinned against cement separators making sure I caught the eye of every motorist buzzing down the detour on/off ramp at 65 mph.  Nasty.

Those Hastings Ingressers are nuts.  The whole thing was back up within a few hours and I think they even scored some high rankings in the fielding standings thanks to rethrows.



On the way back I was running out of water, so I was excited when I found a pump.  After a huge chug of water, I realized it was slightly off tasting well water.  I thought about it for a few moments, and realized this bottle of water comes from directly between the enormous covered mountains of trash deposited by the refuse company and the cracking/processing plant on the other side.  I can't imagine, despite all their precautions, that this isn't one of the most fucked up bottles of water I could have chosen to drink, at least in my area.  I'm going to choose to believe that somehow nothing leaked into the water table.