Biking the Grand Rounds

Today was probably the last nice, warm weekend day in Minneapolis (at least for both of us, as I'll be out of town the next two). We decided to spend the day taking advantage of one the great positives of the Twin Cities -- an expansive network of bike trails, bike lanes, and commuter trails -- which are just what they sound like: trails designed for the purpose of bike commuting. There's even a "bike freeway", which is a spit path. This one, the Cedar Lake Trail, has three lanes, one for pedestrians, and one for each direction of bike traffic. We started with a plan to explore the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway (or at least, a lot of it) on our bikes. The Grand Rounds is basically a large loop of pathways that goes around Minneapolis.

We started downtown, biked up along the river, mostly in St. Paul on the East Bank, up to the old Ford Plant. We had lunch at a -- big surprise -- Chipotle there.

After that, we continued across the bridge to the Minnehaha Falls. That park was packed. We apparently weren't the only people out to enjoy the weather. From there we drove down Minnehaha Parkway, past Lake Hiawatha, Lake Nokomis, and Lake Harriet (yes, there's a ton of lakes in "The City of Lakes". After reaching Lake Calhoun, we went into Uptown, and then took the Midtown Greenway to the Cedar Lake Trail back downtown past the construction site of the new Twins Ballpark.

All in all, it was quite the long ride, but a good day.