Tuesday Bike Blogging

While I was in Chicago last week, Mame told me that she misses Tuesday Bike Blogging. It's been a very irregular feature, and I'm going to try to make it more regular. Sorry about that.

Our market adventure was too exciting for me to get any bicycle-oriented photos, so today's installment will deal primarily with bike-related news in New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reported yesterday that the city's first bicycle lane has been completed. Yes, it's a bit depressing that the city is only now putting in bike lanes, but it's a start. As the article describes, this bike lane services St Claude Ave, which connect the Lower 9th and Bywater to the Marigny and the French Quarter. As such, it's not much use to the two of us; on the few occasions we are able to get out to that part of the city, we're usually in the car. It is a good place to start with the bike lanes, though; Faubourg Marigny is becoming the place to live for much of the younger, artist-type crowd in the city. And as far as I can tell, it seems to be the center of mass of bicycle culture in New Orleans.

Our morning bicycle adventure came about because Tuesday is also the day of the Uptown Crescent City Farmers Market. The market is right next to campus, so it's really convienient for us. We rode our bikes together along the river levee, and purchased way too much food. So rather than coming straight to campus from the market, I needed to help Nora get all the stuff home. What really put us over the top was the flat of strawberries. We couldn't fit it into my basket as it was, so we had to pour all the strawberries out into our cloth bag. The strawberries suffered a bit of damage on the way home, but not too much; we're going to try making jam with them anyway. The bag will need a thorough washing, though. Nora plans to pick up jelly jars today, so hopefully there will be a cooking adventure to report on soon.