Saturday

I spent Saturday in more or less complete denial of all the work I have to finish up before the end of the week. It was pretty fun, though. I went to the American Visionary Art Museum's intentionally wacky Kinetic Sculpture Race for a while. Basically, human-powered floats take a 15-mile course around the city, including a water entry and obstacle course. I caught up with them for their dip in the harbor in Canton, which was amusing, and I followed them up to Patterson Park for the obstacle course. (Since I'm faster on my bike than they are, I made the possibly unwise decision to stop and eat three glazed doughnuts from this excellent bakery near the park. For the record, the third was supposed to be for later, but it got eaten in some sort of mishap.)

I took some crappy pictures with my cell phone.

An enormous pink poodle:


Another of the kinetic sculptures, fresh out of the mud hazard in Patterson Park:


Also, the park's Pagoda (a tall Victorian structure) was open for the occasion, so I went up. It's pretty cool.


You can see downtown to the west pretty well from the top of the Pagoda:


On my way home, I rode through Mount Vernon and found that the Flower Mart (some Southern spring tradition) was in full swing at the Washington Monument. It also happened that the monument was open for this occasion, so I climbed my second set of spiral stairs for the day. The view to the northeast, away from downtown:


Anyway, I'm now working like crazy to make up for all this indulgent wandering around. Everything will be done soon enough, though...then off to see Davin graduate next Friday, and to San Francisco to visit Reed the next week. I start at GAO on the 30th.