With my helmet on and earned a free ice cream cone. I took my bike maintenance class out for a short ride. We stopped to do some mechanical work on a bike and a Park Police Officer stopped and gave the kids “tickets”. This is an excellent partnership between the Park Police and Dairy Queen. It provides a positive interaction between the badge and kids, encourages safe and smart behavior, and who doesn’t like a free cone?  Sadly, I didn’t get one 🙁

Yesterday's storms cleared out and made way for a perfect day to finish our camping trip and relax at the beach. 

We went to Father Hennepin State Park to go camping and were welcomed with a pretty nasty summer storm.  We drove around for awhile and ended up in Brainerd to ride it out, by eating and watching Toy Story 3.  After the movie things had cleared up quite a bit and we stopped to take some pictures with Paul Bunyan.  The Brainerd Water Tower is listed in the National Register. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainerd_Water_Tower 

On a hot 90 degree day we took the program to the Como Zoo. The animals seemed as miserable as we did. It was a sweatfest and we wondered how something like the polar bears could handle the cold. I enjoyed my group of 6 kids. So I can’t complain!

Tonight was the kickoff for the Minneapolis Bike Film Festival and the Minneapolis Institute of Art put on a great event to kick it off.  The diversity of the Twin Cities bike community was represented.  It was a good time of chatting with some newish peeps and seeing lots of bike art!