Bicycle Ride to Hopkins

After work yesterday, I completed a bicycle ride to Hopkins, MN and back. The ride took about 70 minutes, including time spent stopping to take pictures. I wore my bicycle jersey that I purchased at the Microsoft campus when I was in Seattle in March. Actually, Giul and I bought these together - twinsies! As you can see, it's not nerdy at all and obviously something that only very sexy, cool people wear while bicycling.

Anyway, this was the first time I had ridden to Hopkins and back by myself, and I was mildly nervous about getting lost. But with the help of my friend, Lee, I wrote down some detailed directions on a scrap of paper, stuck it in the nifty back pockets of my jersey and was off. I referred to the directions a couple times on the ride, but really they served as a safety blanket, because I was always going the right way and recognized the turns and trail changes from my previous rides.

As evidence of my dedication to this blog, I remembered to bring my camera along for the ride and capture one of my favorite parts. This is a beautiful tunnel on the North Cedar Lake Trail (obviously), and it's a lot of fun to ride a bike through. The temperature drops, you're momentarily sheltered from wind and outside sounds become muffled. It also separates two distinct worlds: the forest you can vaguely see at the other end of the tunnel and a series of baseball fields and starter homes on the other side out of view. The baseball fields were packed last night with kids in uniforms and parents perched on top of coolers. Summer in Minnesota really is one of my favorite times of the year. I mean it's not Christmas or my birthday, but it really is a close third.