My Ride to Campus

To get to class I ride my bike. On the first day of class I knew how to get to the stadium, but I did not know where the classrooms inside the stadium were. I followed the directions from the email to enter the east side of the stadium between gates 24 and 23. From there I just followed the signs leading to classroom 116B. To get to the stadium for class I start off by riding my bike out of the back alley of my house to east 19th. This path is made of asphalt and dirt and full of potholes. My bike kicks up dust as I ride. The dust makes my eyes water and I feel like I am going to sneeze. Once on 19^th I ride on the street. The trash cans that line the street are often knocked over and trash litters the street. If I am lucky I will be able to coast through the intersection of Indianola and 19^th. Once crossing this intersection, there is a big hill as 19^th becomes Woodruff. The ride is mostly downhill from here until reaching high street. I do not normally ride on the sidewalk but lately there has been construction on the end of Woodruff before High street, making it necessary to ride on the sidewalk until crossing High. After crossing high I continue on Woodruff until College, taking a left at the intersection of College and Woodruff. On College there is always a lot of traffic and I end up passing stopped cars until I turn right onto 18^th.  The smell of exhaust is so strong that I begin to taste it as I breath it in. I usually bike as fast as I can past all of this traffic. On 18^th there are a lot of pedestrians, an even greater obstacle than the cars. I must weave in and out and watch for people crossing the street. I take 18^th all the way to Neil and then cross Neil and lock my bike up at Baker Systems. I then walk the rest of the way down 17^th to the stadium. On the way down 17^th there is always construction and the sound of drilling is present, leaving a ringing in my ears. Most mornings it is very brisk out and my fingers are freezing by the time I get to the stadium.

When creating my map, I started off by using mapmyrun.com. This site allows you to select a path for a workout, unlike google maps which only gives you the most direct or fastest route. I selected a bike ride and mapped out my ride to the stadium. After doing this I took a screenshot of the image and saved it so that I could use it as my background in photoshop. I then added some of the pictures I took of my ride to class and added each of those as a layer to my document. I took a picture of a trash can on 19th to represent the trash I always pass and then I added a picture of the hill on woodruff. I also added a picture of pedestrians on 18th to show the obstacles I must pass. The last picture is my view of the stadium as I reach my destination. These four images show what has the most impact on me on my ride to class.