164th ride of 2020 - Thursday, 12/10/2020

2020 mileage: 4052.1

Today is the 27th wedding anniversary for Michelle and me. The picture is from our December 10, 1993 wedding in East Lansing.



For such a special day, I was blessed with spectacular riding conditions. When I began, at 1:30, it was 43° and mostly/partly sunny with very little wind, climbing to 45° over the course of the ride. Given this weather, and mindful of the fact that such days will be extremely rare in upcoming months, I almost felt guilty of sloth for not taking on my 30-plus mile round trip to Matthei Botanical Gardens. But instead, I settled for riding the Packard/Platt Square, augmented by loops on Interfirst Dr., the Bicentennial subdivision, and in Stonebridge on the way home, for a total ride of 19.8 miles in 2:23, and consoled myself that it was still a good, substantive ride.

As an extra bonus, I was blessed with double sightings of two of my friends. My fellow triker Jim Alvey, I ran across both during the first half of the ride and then also during the "home stretch"; and my good friend Doug Franklin (from my former church), on his daily lengthy walk from his house in Saline. I first came up behind Doug on the Lohr/Textile Greenway, and then, later, after I did my loop in Stonebridge, I met him again, headed back south towards his home.

Link to (Relive) video of today's ride

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