You'll notice on the left a sidewalk. Princeton Township calls this a bike path. But I stay on the road since I consider the path to be way more dangerous. Driveways cross it and people charge out of their driveways without looking. Also, sometimes you'll see a young mother walking twins in a double wide (taking up the whole path) baby stroller. And there are a number of other reasons why you wouldn't want to ride it.

All the dead branches may be due to 17 year cicada damage. When cicadas lay their eggs in the trees, the branches used generally die. A typical tree seems to lose a reasonably small fraction of its branches. The cicadas that used this tree were put in the ground 17 years ago when there was a huge tree here, so there were probably so many that they overwhelmed this small tree!

Between the two tall trees to the left, you can see the the weathervane atop Fuld Hall, the main building of the Institute for Advanced Study. This is where Einstein worked after immigrating to the US. It's also the locale of the movie "IQ." (The academic indoor scenes were shot in Palmer Lab, the old physics building.) Although there are close collaborations between members of the University and the Institute, they are separate entities. Einstein was not a member of the University, but members of the IAS had their offices at the University until Fuld Hall was completed. A lot of people think Einstein was a Princeton University Professor; we don't mind the confusion!

I'm going to turn right where the car is and go about 50 yards on Springdale Road. If I kept going instead, after a quarter of a mile or so, I would pass Einstein's former house on the right, 112 Mercer Street. Continuing another half mile or so, I would reach Nassau Street, the main street of Princeton. The University occupies one side of Nassau Street for about a mile with downtown Princeton on the other side.

If you've seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind," you know that John Nash was a mathematics graduate student at Princeton. So he lived here. But the movie used a different building.

The theater was originally built for performances of Princeton's Triangle Club, an acting group. This was way back when Princeton was all male. Triangle shows developed a tradition of an all male kick line in drag, a tradition that continues to this day even though the club now has about as many women as men members. My wife and I went to a Triangle show (still held in McCarter) several years ago and now my wife insists on going every year. I'm pretty sure it's the kick line - go figure!

I'm going to jog right on Elm Drive and then continue going the same direction.

Once the crowd clears, I'll continue down the walk.

My next shot was going to be a picture of the physics building which is to the right. However, a big truck (associated with the science library construction?) pulled up just across the street and parked, completely blocking the view. So instead, I rode into the courtyard to take the picture.

A few years ago, the University decided it needed a campus center and Palmer Hall was the logical choice since it was pretty much in the center of campus! But before Palmer could be converted to the Frist Campus Center, something had to be done about the teaching space that would be lost. So McDonnell Hall, the building on the right, was constructed. It contains two big lecture halls, a lecture preparation area, ten classrooms, five lab rooms and a lab preparation area. It's used mostly for introductory math and physics courses.

The Calder sculpture in the center has some history. First, two construction workers were killed during setup when a crane collapsed on them. There's a memorial plaque in the courtyard. Second, it's called "Three Orange Discs." The three discs (one of which can be seen in the picture) were originally painted orange. When Calder came to see the finished sculpture, he changed his mind and had them painted black.

This is the last of the pictures from the morning. Usually it takes me about 35-40 minutes to cycle the 7.5 miles. Today, with all the picture taking it was considerably longer. I left home at 11:30 (it's summer!) and didn't get here until 12:45.

Here's the official front of Jadwin Hall, facing the stadium. Visitor parking is along the front.

Rumor has it than an underground parking garage and a new chemistry building are going to be constructed on the site of the armory. Those rumors have been around for awhile, so I'll believe it when I see it.

Sometimes it freezes solid enough in winter that ice skating is safe.

Even though it's no longer used for transport, it provides Delaware River water to central Jersey water companies. Someone will be drinking some of this water soon! The water is taken out of the Delaware at Bulls Island and transported south to Trenton via the Delaware and Raritan feeder canal that runs along the Delaware. (This is far enough up stream that there is enough head that it's downhill from Trenton to New Brunswick! So only one source of water is needed to keep the canal full.)

I'll get home about 8:30 pm, after an hour and 10 minutes. Usually, it takes 35-40 minutes. Tonight's ride is a little longer, starting from the ball field and taking the tow path and it's a little slower taking these pictures.

Total round trip today is 18.6 miles. Usually, taking the Pike out and back, it's 15 miles. There's an extra 1.3 from the beer errand, an extra mile from using the tow path and another extra 1.3 out to the softball field and back from the tow path.

That's probably way more than you wanted to know about my commute! Despite my somewhat pessimistic view of the road and path conditions, I generally enjoy riding and try to do it several days each week in the summer time.