When is a lane not a lane?

With my energy back a bit, I had planned to bike out a ways to pick up a new bike stem I had been notified had arrived at a not-so-local bike shop. It was my first time biking out towards Brookfield/Menomonee Falls, which are NW of Milwaukee, and significantly more suburban.

The ride was delightful, though I found myself dumbstruck when I'd hit stretches of road which were 1 lane in each direction, and barely a painted line on the right hand side if you were lucky. Evidently this particular stretch of lane was especially proud of itself, a sign declares the right lane for bikes and pedestrians only. This picture was taken across a small intersection, but just past the sign you can see just how wide this right "lane" is. It's barely a shoulder!

Fortunately everyone (myself included) behaved on the road that day, and everyone got where they were going with no incident, but the silliness of calling the right shoulder a "lane" really made me laugh.

Aside from the pic, the shop had not actually received the stem they thought they did. That was okay though, I killed an hour window shopping and headed a bit further on to my dad's house. Ends up he too was wife-less this day, and invited me to stop by. We had a lovely morning/afternoon visiting and he gave me a ride home, which was good because my voice was starting to fade (even though my energy was adequate) and the reduced strain was probably good for me.