Old Tree, New Buds

My commute this morning was a bit unusual. It was a wee bit chilly, but really not too bad. That wasn't the unusual part--I had a class scheduled to tour The Gazette in downtown Cedar Rapids.

I stopped at my office first, and then headed downtown. I left about 45 minutes to get to The Gazette, and it turned out, via the Cedar Valley Trail, to be a 25 minute trip from MMU. So I had a bit of time to kill and took these photos in Greene Square Park, which lies sort of between The Gazette and the Trail.

One photo is an aluminum art "thing" that was installed in 1999. Next is some very young buds on a very old tree--what looks like some sort of pink infection is just redbud buds on a gnarly old trunk of a redbud tree that has far exceeded that tree's normal lifespan in this climate.

One the way back to MMU for my next class, I had to pass through quite a bit of construction and detour. I came back through the Evil Empire (Coe College), and ended up parked for my next class at Busse Library.

To get back to my office, I biked down to The Pit and back up the hill near Warde Hall. So this morning, I biked up Mount Mount Mercy three times.

That counts as something for RAGBRAI training.