Spring in February.

Today I had big plans. I had intended to get up early and get out of the city. I did, however end up staying very much in town and sleeping in. Everything turned out for the best, really. Driving every day to work turns me into a crazy person. I've even started talking to (scolding)
other cars. I instead thought it best to stay out of a vehicle today.

I've sort of been on a bit of a work-out kick. I've been informed that I cannot say that I'm 'going for a run' when I run on a treadmill. This makes sense to me. 'Going on a run' implies that you are, in fact, going somewhere, putting distance between yourself and your point of origin. When on a treadmill, one is essentially running in place. So now I use the common nomenclature, 'working out'.

The neighborhood community center has a gym that I actually feel comfortable working out in. It's not a meat market, there's no contract, it's usually not crowded and the clientèle isn't intimidating. Oh, and it's 5 blocks from my house. Anyway. It's been about 2 years since I've been running because of Roller Derby and my PCL. That's probably a story for another day. So. I've really been enjoying running. And wailing on my pecks. But that's besides the point.

My point IS that I was jonesin' for some activity today. Turns out it was the perfect day for a bike ride. After tossing around destinations like Sauvie Island or Smith and Bybee Lakes. Nic said that he didn't really feel like riding on hwy 30, and I didn't want to get in my car today. thus, we settled on what we called 'The Willamette Loop."
A cormorant? on a pylon? On the west side of the Willamette. As you can see by the lack of greenery on the trees in the background, it is wintertime. However, it is also absurdly sunny. I was in short sleeves at one point in this bike ride! In February!
This self portrait also illustrates just how sunny it was today. We took a detour on Power's Marine Park, which is a car-free park that runs parallel to Macadam Avenue and a railroad. We did some off-roading. It was fun. I didn't fall over.

After lunch in Sellwood, we continued on to OMSI, where strangers gave us tickets and we learned about Leonardo DaVinci. He was 6'6" tall! He invented ball bearings!

Overall, it was only about a 14 mile day. Decent, but not my best. Especially since it took about 5 hours to cover that distance (includes stops for lunch, wrong turns, OMSI and photographs).
Any day that I encouter pro-bike and robot graffiti is a good day in my book.