Variety is the Spice of Life.

The title translates into, I took a slightly different route to work today.  That's right, even those of us who really love the commute get bored with it after a while.  I'm lucky in that I have a couple routes that get me to work and keep life interesting.....but even those get boring.

Now if you think that interesting means you have to create an entirely new route that detours around town and takes twice as long....you may be disappointed with this post.  If you're slightly more practical, read on, because all you have to do is move over a few blocks on a cross town commute and the dynamics can completely change.

So here are a few of my options:

Mill St.  This route is technically the shortest option at just over 5 miles but has multiple stop lights, so it's not always the fastest.  And yes, I do stop and wait at all the lights.

The River Path.  At 6.3 miles it's a bit longer, but has a super low "risk" rating since I don't have to deal with traffic for more than 4 miles.  And the homeless guys don't really count as a "risk".  It's the same one's every day and they really don't even interact with you unless you say hi...and then they respond in kind.

Today's route.  Basically, down 1st St. and then jogging over to E. 2nd St. all the way out to Sparks.  A little jog on 21st St. to avoid a tight section on Rock Blvd. and then around the remainder of Rock Blvd. to work.

Today's route ended up just under 6 miles, so it's kind of in between the other options.  2nd St. isn't a cycling paradise.  It doesn't have bike lanes and it's 4 lanes wide, but it does have adequate shoulders in most places and traffic is slow (due to numerous traffic lights) and fairly light volume (for a 4 lane road).  It probably didn't hurt that it's Veteren's Day and many people are on holiday, so traffic was light everywhere.

Here's a few pics along the route:

With this route you get to right past the baseball field.  Even if you don't care about baseball, it's a pretty cool building / space.

The corner of E. 2nd St. and Well Ave.  As you can see not much traffic today.  Pretty wide lanes, so there's plenty of room to ride with traffic when it's there.

Corner of e. 2nd St. and Kietzke Lane.  This intersection is a bit narrow but then widens out to a full extra "lane" to ride in all the way to Rock Blvd.

So mix it up if you're bored with the commute.  It might just show you a part of town you don't normally see.