Bike Ride and Starlink

Saturday morning Wendy and I went on our first trail ride of the season.

It was sunny and warm, with highs in the 80s. Great bike riding weather. Instead of getting on the trail close to McHenry and riding north, we drove north, got on the trail, and rode south. The advantage to this is that we get the hard part -- a long, gradual uphill climb -- out of the way first. Then we have a much easier and more enjoyable ride when we turn around and head back.

Distance: 6.03 miles

One of the nice things about working from home is being able to go on a bike ride around the neighborhood during lunch. Thanks to those rides, my season total is at 43 miles (last year my total was 205 miles).

Saturday evening, a little after 10pm, I made some tea (mango ginger, delicious!). While it was steeping, I stepped out on the deck to look at the stars. After a couple of minutes, I noticed what I thought was a plane flying overhead. But then I saw another one behind it, and then another, and another... and I quickly realized it was a chain of Starlink satellites that just happened to be flying overhead right then! I yelled to Wendy to come look. We stood and watched as dozens of them slowly flew by. They were easily visible, as bright as any of the stars. Three or four would be evenly spaced, followed by a slightly larger gap, and then another three or four evenly spaced. I would guess we saw about 50 of them total; we lost count around 30 or so. It was kind of a crazy sight, but cool.

We looked up more information about them afterwards. A new batch of Starlink satellites was launched on May 15; that's probably what we saw. They stay in a chain formation for a while, but over time they spread out to their own orbits. The satellites are owned by SpaceX (Elon Musk's company) and are used to provide Internet access.

And finally, as of today it has been 2 weeks since my second dose of the vaccine, so I am now fully vaccinated!