This is Better

Our little uninvited winter-in-April has finally retreated back north and so this morning's weather featured our more typical warm and humid conditions. I was awakened well before the alarm sounded today by the non-stop ship foghorns out on the river. Although it's practically a mile away, the sound of the ships' horns carries far on these foggy mornings. As soon as I hit the floor, the neighbor's two little dogs, who are temporarily staying at our house, started yapping and I was only too glad to get out the door to the relative peacefulness of the predawn city. These dogs were abandoned out by the levee a few months after Katrina and the neighbors ended up catching and adopting them. Our best guess is that they are half dachshund and half chihuahua. As I climbed up to the levee, I could hear the the high-voltage power lines that span the Mississippi River crackling in the fog overhead. It's so loud that when you look up you expect to see sparks or something.


It was really a shame that we had to deal with fog the entire ride, because the temperature was good and there was a pretty big group. As it was, I had my headlight on the whole time. It was a pretty decent ride, although the fog did keep the pace down just a tad. That was probably a good thing, because I couldn't see very well through the water droplets coating my clear glasses, and I was reluctant to take them off because one eye was still red and irritated from something that had gotten stuck under my eyelid last night. Anyway, once the fog lifted, the sun came out and things around here started feeling a lot better. Coincidentally, I was just reading about a study in Cell about skin tanning and melanin production where the researchers found that in the process of making the hormone that stimulates melanin production, which happens when we're exposed to sunlight, we also handily produce an endorphin. No wonder I'm happier in the sun...

Got a TM from The Daughter this afternoon saying that it had been snowing and sleeting all day up in Iowa City. Brrrr. I've had 'bout enough of that.