Write your own story. FINAL EDIT

Here's mine.   The bicycling season is over.  The eating season has begun.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday's lake effect rain turned into lake effect snow overnight, and I woke up to this, this morning.

I heard on the morning news that Allendale had a couple of inches of snow, but there is nothing visible but a little dusting on the campus webcams at GVSU.

Early Morning Lake Effect

Really cold air over relatively warm water produces some lovely morning images.  The water vapor will rise high enough to cool off and condense as lake effect rain later today.  We used to see this same effect over Pine Creek Bay, and I've missed it.

October Still Looks Good Here

If the forecasters are correct, the stretch of beautiful fall weather we've been enjoying here lately is going to come to a wet and windy end. Soon.  But not quite yet.  Today started off chilly, but as the saying goes, I have the gear. And I had decided that today was a biking day, weather permitting.  It was a good choice.

Blue skies, a fair amount of color in the leaves and plenty of sunshine made for nearly perfect conditions for a ride up to the PSPS.

The tourists left around labor day and the seasonal residents have mostly closed up their cottages and headed inland, or wherever they came from.  That leaves the country roads mostly empty.  Just the way I like them.

Upper 60's, light and variable winds

The title is a recognition that most of my bike related posts have one thing in common -- a weather report.  Today I rode at my "normal" time, but found myself with tired legs.  Still, I had nowhere to go and all day to get there, so I did a version of JRA.  Just riding around.  I noticed that Bowerman's is selling honey crisp apples and pumpkins this month.  I don't remember them being open this late in previous years.

This time of year most of my rides include at least a little bit of the beech woods.  There aren't a lot of leaves down yet, but the process has started.  By the end of October it can be hard to find pavement back in there, the leaves get so deep.

It would have been a good day to check out progress of sand removal at the State Park, but it didn't occur  me until after I got home.   Maybe later this week.  By the time I was done I had put in roughly an hour and a half of wheel turning time on a nearly perfect fall day.

More on the Old Apple Tree

Today I took a couple of better photos of that old apple tree. It is clearer in these just how diseased the tree is.  It has more damage than the large hole through it's trunk.

I had to break a couple of my own personal rules about biking today. The wind started howling last night shortly after sunset, and the sky spit rain until very close to noon today.  By about 2 pm the weather improved a bit, but the roads were still damp, bordering on wet.  (Rule #1)  I haven't ridden that late in the afternoon since I quit working for a living. (Rule #2)  Afternoon rides just don't fit in with my internal clock.  

This was my first ride in four days, so I'm glad I bent my own rules.  I have taken a few long walks in the last few days, mostly with the Recently Retired Professor  -- though I also count the two hour walk around campus with the granddaughter last Friday.

The Idlewood deer herd seems to have returned, and most evening walks now feature at least one sighting of a few deer.  Last night we actually left the mountain on our walk, doing a loop around the Tanglewood neighborhood east of Lakeshore.  My walking partner is doing the team Walktober event again this year, but I opted out this time.  I'm happy to walk with her fairly regularly, but an hour a day was a bigger commitment that I want to make.

Here and There

I almost missed the blurb in the local paper about a little project that the Army Corps of Engineers was about to begin at the State Park.  They've determined that the sand hills that have formed along the channel are putting too much pressure on the sea wall on the north side of the channel, and are a threat to navigation.  They have to go.  First the trees were removed and ground into chips, then all the dune grass was removed.  By day two of the project, (yesterday) this is how it looked from the parking lot.

Over the course of the next two weeks the sand will be moved across the sidewalk to the beach and bulldozed into flatness.  Take that Mother Nature.  It made me sad, though I am certain that once again, Mother Nature will bat last.

Today was the beginning of Family Weekend at Grand Valley State University.  Due to stories that didn't make the blog, I figured that the college girl had probably seen enough of me this week, and a third trip to the campus in 6 days might be too much.  She assured me that I was welcome, however.  So I took another drive through the farmlands this afternoon.  Fall is more advanced inland, by the way.

This piece of artwork graces the traffic circle outside of her dorm.  Since she's an art major, it seemed like an appropriate photo to take and to post.  The building below is where she spends most of her time this semester.  It's a pretty campus, built along a ravine that eventually leads to the Grand River.

Mostly we just wandered around.  I wanted to see the buildings where she has her classes, visit the bookstore, and just generally get an overview of the campus.  I have a degree from there, but it was a much smaller campus 25 or so years ago, and the current Grand Valley State University bears little resemblance to the old Grand Valley State Colleges (which is what it says on that piece of paper that they gave me when I finished up my MBA.)  We had some iced coffee and a snack in a coffee shop on campus, where we talked a bit about the North Country Woman, and together we sent some strong, healing thoughts her way.

An Old Apple Tree

October days when the sun shines and the winds are light are a real gift from Mother Nature.  Today was one of those.  For a real change of pace, the breezes were mostly out of the north today, opening the door to a ride along the country roads off in that direction.  There's an old apple tree sitting next to the bike path just this side of the Ventura Cemetery on 168th.  I don't know why the deer are still eating my garden plants with this kind of bounty available to them.

 I am pretty sure that the three leafed plants in the upper left hand corner of the photo (above) are poison ivy.

If you look at the trunk of this tree, it may be that this will be the last year that this tree will bear fruit.

I don't think I've ever seen any tree that looks quite like this, especially since the foliage was green and dense and it seems to have produced a lot of apples.

My ride eventually took me to this point, approximately my turn around spot.  (This is 8 miles into a 17 mile ride.)  Several days of rain are in the forecast.  This time of year I always assume that every ride up there is my last one of the season.  I'm usually wrong.  Until I'm not.