Keith -
You really know how to do road trips and take great photos from crazy signs to beautiful landscapes. The short conversation with a lady asking what you did was a nice touch. It's the ordinary that makes a day sparkle, whether chatter with a stranger or dragon flys flittering about. Your roadtrips are reminders to open our eyes and inhale life around us!
Thanks for sharing!
Gretchen

I really enjoyed my experience on the Minnesota trails along the Northern Tier route. Maybe some day I'll return and make a loop ride utilizing the trails.

Nice looking bike. I also ride with front panniers only when the weight and volume of the load isn't too big, just to help with the weight distribution since more is usually carried by the rear wheel anyway.

:)

Fits photos of banded mystery snail... Strange name!

https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/1371717-Callinina-georgiana

Try again in the morning. :-)

They're just there to carry light stuff: windbreaker, rainy gear, tights, and the like. I think of this set as front panniers because that's where they go when I have both front and rear sets mounted, so I suppose it's force of habit that caused me to put them there.

If they had more weight in them I'd probably shift them to the rear rack but as it is I think the handlebar bag has more effect on handling than the panniers so what the heck.

You have panniers in the front only. Is that an experiment, or something you typically do? I have no opinion, I’m just asking the question, as the placement isn’t real typical.

Thank you for the photo.

Sorry you hit some rain! Are you referencing the Coen Brothers? They are actually from St. Louis Park, MN just south of Maple Grove. They were in Torah School with Al Franken and Thomas Friedman. Can't you just imagine being the Rabbi with those 4 minds in the same room? I have a friend from their synagogue who used to tell stories about them. Enjoy the Northwoods, that is the pretty part of our state (along with the driftless area down by the Root River trail in SE MN.) Happy trails.

That, I can do.

Clarification - parked is fine - but I (and others?) would like to admire Serendipity's fine style while she is on tour.

Interesting.

Not been a horse race fan, even when I was in KY back when Secretariat won everything, so that's new to me. Learn something every day... if only I could remember it.

I've never liked riding in the rain, or being in it for any reason in fact. I do it only when there's no alternative.

If someone takes a side shot of me riding and shares it, I can grant your wish but otherwise the action shots will be of the others.

That's why I think of The Preakness. It's dubbed "The Run For the Black-Eyed Susans", just as Kenucky's leg of rhe Triple Crown is The Run For the Roses.

Black eyed Susans

https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/black-eyed-susan