Tonight

I rode up to the track tonight and on my way home, crossing the Mississippi on the Franklin Avenue bridge, caught this sunset, shown here in all its glory, in case you missed it:



My question to you: is there any city along the Mississippi more beautiful than ours, and if so, where?

Thank you for holding

I'm back. I spent the last ten weeks holed up trying to write and finish my dissertation. 18 June was last week's Monday and I successfully defended my thesis as planned, even if the dissertation is not quite finished. Normally, I would now have my Ph.D., but as it happens, I still need to write some more over the next two weeks.

After that, however, it's time to slow down. With gainful employment looming large for October, I plan to make the most of my last pre-two-weeks-of-vacation-per-year summer. Since I will remain in the Twin Cities for the foreseeable future, I thought it would be fun to follow the Great River that separates Minneapolis and St. Paul from Headwaters to Gulf.

As I have mentioned before, I have always enjoyed bicycle touring, even if I have not done it for almost five years now. My last tour was with my brother in the summer of 2002, from Sacramento, CA, to Yorktown, VA. Here are some pictures:

This reminds me of a great presentation by James Howard Kunstler, who argues that America is a nation of places not worth caring about. He is speaking of the rotten mess that is Suburbia, of course, but I would still mention that the opposite is true of the American countryside. I think the pictures above are sufficient proof, and I intend to gather more in July.

I will continue to update this blog as a travel report en route; the fun starts Sunday, 8 July. In the meantime, you can look forward to some posts about my preparations and equipment, as I get ready to leave.

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