I decided to take it around the lake (~10 miles). Here we go.
Yes, this is a snowblowed hockey rink on the lake:
My favorite house. The walkways are very Peter Pansian to me:
Going into Venetian Village:
This is an area of the lake that hosts a bunch of man-made canals. Houses are built on the canals, boats go in the canals, and you get waterfront property without the price. The mosquitos here are incredible.
Getting into the country, we see one of my buddies. He's rather pensive today...
This is the kind of road we get here - slushy and ill plowed.
Snow golf anyone? Not today, apparently
This illustrates the closeness of the country to "civilization" - the Culver Marina on the left, horse buddy on the right. Stopped and had a chat with him - he certainly took a liking to me, sneezing on my sweat shirt...
Ready to go, loaded for bear with horse-snot, I continued on until I saw this...
That's right. A Manatee mailbox. Just goes to prove that money does NOT equal class...
In front of the old Culver homestead:
I love this place.
A shot of the side of the house, followed by the front. Behind it you can see the original 1890's farmhouse that HH Culver originally built when he bought the land for the school:
Back in the day, there was no SR117, and the only access to this side of the lake was a horse path that ran in front of the two houses - this is what we'll be taking through the woods:
Three of the dozen or so piers that the Academy puts out yearly - the crew dock, Woodcraft swimming pier, and access pier where they tie up the barge:
Nishiki, Ledbetter, and barge. The Ledbetter is a 3 masted square rigger that is identically the same size as the Mayflower. Compare it to the bike, and it looks big, but imagine taking that bad boy across the Atlantic with 100 people on board. Not fun. A few years ago for the Naval School centennial, they shipped it out to the East coast and motored (BOOOO) down the seaboard.
The campus is always very weird during breaks...NOBODY is there...
Behind the library. The lake being frozen is always a very desolate view to me.
Back in front of Dad's. The poor thing really needs to thaw out.
And back home into the basement where it can make puddles:
Overall, I really like this bike. It's very predictable and slow-handling, but not in a bad way. I have race horses, I have clydesdales...this thing is very much like a pack mule. I shall name him Eddie.
