Saturday, dawned cold (39°), windy and cloudy.  I drove to the optometrist and picked up my new spectacles.  I had not exercised the company vision plan for so long I had two pairs of glasses coming to me.  I bought two pairs, one for biking and one for the rest of life.  I had toyed with the idea of buying the glasses over the Internet, but chickened out in the end.  I finished my morning errands with grocery shopping and returned home.

I launched on my bike ride after showing off my new glasses and putting away the groceries.  On the way to the Park, while stopped at the Big Bend light, I was passed by a large contingent of the Big Shark bicycle racing team.  They had timed the light perfectly and rolled through the intersection at 20+ MPH.  Panting, a mile later I caught them stopped at the Skinker light.  Apparently, they are not as intimately knowledgeable about the Skinker traffic light system as I am.  A block later, I zipped through the Forsyth light and jumped on the Forest Park bike trail.  Big Shark was trapped at Forsyth, behind a car waiting for the right turn arrow into the Park.

There was a walkathon going on in the Park, in November yet?  So I bailed from the Park and headed downtown.  I had read in the Post’s things to do column that the Veteran’s Day Parade was today.  I also read that the Bowling Museum would be closing its doors after today.  I recorded for posterity, the departure of the Bowling Museum.  See the first picture of this post.  It is moving to Texas.  I cruised around downtown until I got bored.  I then headed over to the marshaling grounds before the parade.

There were a lot of military groups there.  There was a large contingent of regular Army.  There were a lot of youth groups, college ROTC organizations and high school cadet groups.  One of the cadet groups was dressed in only shorts and short sleeve shirts.  There were many more veteran groups, after all it is their parade.  There were also quite a few reenacting groups.

My favorite groups in the parade were the following:  The conglomeration of different motorcycle groups, that I will call Rolling Thunder; The Scottish contingent, complete with bag pipes; The Banana Bicycle Brigade, basiclly a bunch of art students; And the U.S. Army.  There is nothing more pleasing to watch then a no nonsense, no frills, no s—, military formation perform for the public.

I lended assistance to the Banana Bicycle Brigade in the form of a bike pump.  I got 25 miles in today.  I think you can expect another Marquee production from this outing.