Biking adventures

I have re-fallen in love with the Twin Cities this spring. Over the past few weeks I have been able to treat myself to several lovely bikerides. There are so many rides to take right from my house, nearly all the miles on paths devoted to bikers, except for the first mile down to the river and the last few miles back up (UP!) to the house.
At the height of the crabapple-tree-blossom-time I biked down the path along Minnehaha creek and nearly got drunk on the sweet aroma of all the blooms. This route takes me on a 20+ mile route out to the lakes in Minneapolis and then back down the midtown greenway to the river. Today I went down to the Ford bridge, and then through an amazingly green wooded corridor to Fort Snelling State park. A lung-busting hill brings you back up from the river bottoms to the 55 bridge where you cross the Mississippi (or maybe the Minnesota, they're all a muddle right there) above the tops of the giant riverbank trees. A gentle slope takes you back down the south side of the river to the 35 bridge. It was coming off this bridge that I had an epic race with a robin that will be detailed above.
This past weekend I had my most adventurous ride while tooling along the river shore from Crosby Farm to Hidden Falls with Eli. We came around a corner and had to dodge to the right of the path to keep from running over a large snake. This thing was laying stretched out over at least half the path. It was thick and meaty- not like the lithe garter snakes that will flash their skinny racing stripes as they scoot out of sight into the grass. No, this guy owned the path and wasn't about to budge. So we stopped for a closer look. Eli picked up a stick and asked me to poke it. I did. The first poke prompted it to move a few lazy inches forward. Never had I seen a snake so lazy and bold, so of course I poked it again. And this time it did something that surprised us to no end: It lazily lifted it's tail and rattled at us!! Eli and I looked at each other with saucer eyes and then Eli took off at a mad sprint- on foot, without his bike. After about 50 yards I managed to catch up to him. Have you ever tried sprinting while straddling a bike and pushing another, much smaller bike by the handle bars? It is not easy and I think my bike drew some blood from my ankles. Either that or I was bit by that snake! Eli and I remounted our bikes and set off again, hooting over the fact that a snake had just rattled at us. Now, I am not 100% positive that this was indeed a rattler. But they do live by the riverbanks further south in Minnesota. And this was a big snake that raised it's tail and rattled. So whatever you are going to call it, we thought it was amazing. We were bubbling over, excited to tell Jon and Theo our tale. And then as we biked further away from the snake and began to feel safer and safer (although I must admit that every stick on the path gave me a start) we started to embroider our tale a bit. By the time we met up with the rest of the family in the parking lot, Eli had it going that we had to rip his bike out of the jaws of the giagantic rattler. Those few miles, peddling and embroidering with Eli, were my favorite few miles of biking thus far this spring. Although the robin race is a pretty close second.