The first day of spring was yesterday, but for me it was also a work day and except for few stolen moments yesterday’s spring like weather was lost on me.  Today’s original plan had me committing cycle-cide.  Tom, John and the Don-inator had cooked up a century ride for today.  In bike parlance, a century is a hundred mile bike ride.  Last night, I convinced myself to ride this century.  I even went through an elaborate pre-ride preparation, before bed. 

I got up at six this morning and it was raining.  I called the Don-inator in order to bail.  Standing barefoot out in the cold and the rain, while on the cell, I noticed a light on in the next door neighbor’s house and then I noticed movement in that lit room.  I guess a newborn baby is just another way to become sleep deprived.  I went back to bed and slept until nine.

Anne and I launched about eleven.  It was still in the low forties.  We passed through the Park, which wasn’t very crowded.  It was still cold and cloudy.  We continued onto the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  We locked our bikes at the bike rack and noticed two folding bikes.  What with our recent spate of travel, Anne and I have wondered whether we should get folding bikes too, but since the owners were not around that is a question that will have to wait for another day.

Saturday morning the gardens are free to all Saint Louis residents.  We are members so that really didn’t matter, but I like the fact that almost all of Saint Louis’ attractions are free.  Either they are free all the time or at least they are free one day of the week.  I don’t know if it was because of the free entry or maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed that there was a distinct international flavor to this morning’s garden cliental.

Anne and I spent between two and three hours walking around the gardens, in full bike regalia, taking pictures all the time.  Between the two of us we took almost four-hundred pictures and movies.  We were not alone in this endeavor; there were many other photographers at the gardens today.  Eventually hunger set in and we retired to the garden’s café.  There we saw a fellow Kaldi team member, Sam.  Sam was studying for her nurse practitioner certification exam and was channeling the garden’s ambience to help relieve her studies tedium.

After lunch we bike back towards home.  Passing through the Park, we noticed that it was considerably more crowded.  The warmer, sunnier afternoon weather probably had a lot to do about that.  We saw Bill A., another Team Kaldi’s member, a couple of times.  I showed Anne where the great horned owl’s nest is suppose to be, but this afternoon’s crush of humanity ensured that there would be no owl sightings today. 

We got fifteen miles, in four and a half hours, not exactly a century pace.  Both today’s header and the picture with today’s post show turtles from the Japanese gardens.  There are six turtles in today’s header, can you count them?  Amphibians sunning is just another sign of spring.