My ears will stay toasty all winter with my new Helmuffs from Heidi’s Hand Knits. If you want to see her selection in person, check out the free Urban Craft Uprising Winter Show at the Seattle Center this weekend. See, no need to be sad that you’re not down in Portland for BikeCraft.

You may recognize the pillar behind us from the I-5 Colonnade. I love this place, but haven’t yet made it back with my mountain bike.

Our ride home from Capitol Hill was via the colonnade, but we took a new route on the way there, using Lakeview Boulevard East to cross over the freeway.

I almost didn’t follow the suggested route because Lakeview looked like a freeway onramp from down on Eastlake. I knew it wasn’t an onramp, but I wasn’t keen to ride on something that looked like an onramp, either. I stopped to consider things for a couple minutes and saw several bikers come down the ramp. I was loathe to lose any of the elevation I’d already gained so I crossed to the opposite sidewalk and braved the ramp. Once over there I could see the bike lane so I popped down the curb (possible with just the front kid) and rode up and over the freeway comfortably. I think the ramp would have been doable with the weight of both kids on the bike, but a block on either side were killer.

In more not-locking-the-bike news, fresh off our unlocked bike in the train station stint yesterday, I considered leaving the bike loose by the U-District Super Supplements door, but considering the state of the bike at the nearby bike rack, I came to my senses. Like train stations, university-adjacent neighborhoods are probably high on the list of places to secure one’s bike.