Can't stop errand-ing, and a few other rides.

Errandonnee seems to keep living on even after the challenge has been completed.

 

Susan gave me one errand to do -- return her book to the library

 

I did this one myself ;'-)

I can seldom (well maybe never) pass up something free, and DQ was giving free ice cream cones today. Who in the heck can pass that up? Especially when there is a DQ so close to us. At least I went there by bike so I can feel I "earned" it.

As usual, once on my bike, I wanted more miles, so I meandered around the neighborhood a bit and rode a lot of my usual route, but in the opposite direction.

 

Trees are gorgeous right now and even the windstorm did not destroy them.

Now I may be done with logging my errands!

 

A couple of weeks ago, I joined Astrid who led a "History of Lynnwood" ride for Cascade Bike Club. I don't often join club rides, and I especially don't join many of Cascade's rides. The rides I have joined in the past have never kept to their posted pace, and I end up not being able to keep up and not enjoying my ride. But Astrid is a great leader in that she does keep the correct pace, she herself is not out to beat any time trials, and she has lots of local routes that she knows a lot about. And, she is nice.

Astrid told us all about the history of this park that was once a working airport.

Ride start was at this Park...

 

This is a "replica" of a runway which is a walkway -- or bike way -- for a short distance.

Along the runway are metal sculptures of "paper" airplanes.

 

 

Behind those paper airplanes is a tree that was blown down in our November windstorm.

 

Pretty big tree to go down

We left the airport to begin our history hunt.

 

Astrid tells us about Scriber Lake

 

Enlarge to see some history of Scriber

Moving on, we visited Heritage Park and the trolley. Our most local trail (in this county) is called the Interurban Trail. Named for this trolley line.

 

 

 

The Trolley ran from Everett north to Mount Vernon and on up to Bellingham near the Canada border.

 

The emblem on the side of the trolley car is what was chosen to be the Interurban Trail markers. Seemed like such a good idea. But in reality these markers are difficult to see when riding your bike, and the direction of the arrow is even more difficult to see until you are on top of it. Some but not all of these trail markers have been replaced with much better directional signs.

Heritage Park has its own history, and part of that is that it was once a farm that raised chickens and taught people how to raise and care for them.

 

Raising chickens

This history ride taught me a lot more about Lynnwood than I had known, and took me on a few roads I had not ridden on before.

This past week a few of our SWS (Secret Women's Society) riders met up for a ride. It was a cloudy day that ended up being a rainy afternoon. This added to our eventful riding day.

 

We stop for a snack break on the bridge

Our first event was to be warned that "there's a bike down ahead around the corner". As we approached around the corner there were Aid cars, a fire truck, sheriffs, medical staff, one of whom was wheeling a bike toward the fire truck -- the whole deal. We're not sure what the accident or incident was, but there was talk by a bystander that it may have been a heart attack. Whatever it was, there was a lot of help there.

We continued on into the headwind (adding some event flavor of its own) and someone passed us saying something about a cat. None of us heard all of her words, and we each had our own idea of what was ahead. I thought about maybe a bobcat or some other ferocious animal ahead. Others thought we needed to be on the look out for a lost cat, or for a cat crossing our lane presenting an obstacle.

 

Turns out our cat was Mimi in her own pink carriage

 

Very friendly and sweet, Mimi has a little covered room to go to if the sun or rain become too much for her.

We soon stopped for lunch but took no photos as we could see some weather coming in across the lake and felt the need to eat and run. And so we did. Thus our final event of rain, and of course the headwind we had battled on the way there was not a tailwind on the way back. We forged through the rain and all felt better for it. Thanks to our ride leader Cindy for this outing.

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