Saturday was a busy day.  We finally got the last of Christmas put away, except for a few miscreant ornaments to be found later.  The weatherman called for falling temperatures through the day, so Anne and I launched upon our bike ride in the AM.  We bicycled 10 miles.  The temperature was 34 °F, but it felt like 24 °F with the wind chill.  It was cold.  I noticed that in yesterday’s Wordle word cloud graphic there was absolutely no mention of, biking, bicycling or bicycles.  I hope that this paragraph corrects that oversight and bicyclists, cyclists and other bike related terms appear in future blog related word clouds.  😉

I lured Anne out onto her bike partly with the promise of lunch, but it soon became apparent that this would be a survival ride.  We did see more than the requisite six other riders out there, sufficient to ensure our own smug sense of sanity, but I suspect that we were still on the fringe of lunacy.  We returned home and then launched again, this time by car.  I made good my promise and we went to La Pizza, at the intersection of Delmar and Old Bonhomme.  La Pizza is another gem of a restaurant.  My good friend Barbara had told me about it.  So, in the space of a week, we’ve been introduced to 2 new Italian pizzerias, La Pizza on Saturday and Pizza-A-Go-Go on Ivanhoe, a week ago Friday.

Anne and I each had the luncheon special, a slice of pizza, salad and a soda.  I had my salad with the house Italian dressing and managed to slop some of the oil onto the face of my iPhone, to which, Anne punned, “I’ve got a nap for that.” and then handed me a napkin.  Later, when I was being rude and playing with the iPhone at lunch, she punned again and covered my screen with her napkin and said, “I’ve got a nap for that too.”

After lunch, we drove up to Eagle Days at the Chain of Rocks Bridge.  The only eagles that we saw there were little black specks.  We then drove north on Route 3 and across from the National Great Rivers Museum (NGRM), the same museum that we saw the quilter’s Rambling River Project, we saw a pair of Bald Eagles that are the dream come true for this bird paparazzi.  They’ve nested there for years and are back again this year.  Bald Eagles eat fish, primarily shad, so this nesting location is just so-so el primo.  Adjacent to the NGRM is the Mel Price Lock and Dam, the largest and most southern lock and dam on the Mississippi.  Mel Price ensures two things, ice-free water and stunned shad.  The water shooting through the dam sprayed waves that would have stunned any fish.  As the raven realtor told these eagles, “location, location, location.”  On to Riverlands we drove and got the rest of the bird photos with this post.  By the end of the day, Anne was on the couch, but she had a nap for that too.

Happy Birthday Cousin Anne!