Wind Dry Cool:Ah Spring

It was not as wonderfully warm as yesterday, and the wind was so gusty that at stops I actually was a bit afraid of being blown over. I went out around 10 AM and it was 43 degrees. I didn't think I wanted to ride all the way to Valley Forge partly because of the wind and partly so that I might accomplish something other than riding my bike today. But I was enjoying the ride. I thought I might take the trail out past Conshohocken and instead of taking the fork toward Norristown and beyond I'd finally check out the left fork toward Plymouth meeting. That would give me a fairly long ride and something new to look at. I also decided to take the tow path through Manayunk rather than fight the Umbria Street hill in the fierce wind. It was a pleasant enough of a ride until, near the end of the tow path, I came to this:

A tree had fallen during the storms of the last few days and was completely blocking the trail. I debated whether to lift the bike over the tree or sneak the bike and me under. We went under on the right side there where it is a bit higher off the ground. No real problem.

After following the Plymouth Meeting sign I arrived at the ostensible destination: Ikea, pictured below.

The trail, by the way, is called the Cross County Trail and I wanted to see how much further it went so I kept riding.It goes about another mile or two past other interesting stores: Barnes&Noble, BJ's, etc. It then ends rather ingloriously:

You can see where the pavement stops, I think, and in the distance there is some sort of bridge behind red caution fencing. I don't know whether a longer trail is in the making or not, but I didn't get any closer to explore. I turned around and came home with a total of 36.4 miles on the day, very much satisfied.