Biking to work

Once or twice each week I bike from home to work and back. It's a little over seven miles each way, and I usually require about 45 minutes between office and home. It's an easy ride, but the prairie winds can slow you down. Last night as I rode home around 6:00 p.m the sun was coming out to shine on the land just before it set. We hadn't seen the sun around here for a few days.

There is a bike trail (really just an extra wide shoulder along a road) from campus to a point about 300 meters from busy 6th street, and for most of the last 300 meters I can ride on a sidewalk. After crossing 6th, there is a little over a mile of riding on a frontage outer road on the south side of an interstate freeway. There is no shoulder at all on this outer road, so cars tend to hesitate to pass. In the morning coming to school there are large trucks going to and from the construction of the new overpass and MacArthur road extension, and these trucks drive slowly past.

Once I get to the construction site I can turn north (going home) and take a recreational bike trail for about a mile up to Jerome, a small town on the south side of Springfield. There in Jerome I get to cross Wabash, a road that is even busier than 6th street. From there on home I ride through the quiet residential streets of Jerome, taking a horribly bumpy bike path across Sebastian's middle school's athletic field and parking lot before getting into my neighborhood on the south side of Springfield.

As I said, the sun was looking nice peaking out from low above the horizon last night, and I had my camera with me, so I took these photos I thought I'd share here. I didn't take photos before I got to the recreational bike trail. Up to that point I tend to be intent on avoiding traffic and taking photographs wouldn't occur to me.