Tropical Wave

Looks like it will be a wet mess around here for a few days. The first hint came yesterday evening. I'm sitting in bed, just having finished my salad and wine dinner, when - CLICK - the lights go out. No thunderstorm, no strong winds, no cars crashing into telephone poles - nothing. I look out the window and a few of the neighboring houses are dark too, so I walk around to the front door and see two trucks from the power company with their flashing yellow lights, blocking the road a few houses down.

Wandering down the street I meet up with a little cluster of neighbors watching the power company guy in his cherry-picker and get the scoop. Power should be back in a few minutes. The loud unexplained explosion we heard about this time the night before was one of the power lines shorting out because of the tree branches that have grown all around the transformer. The neighbor whose house was near that transformer (along with the rest of us) still had power for lights and stuff, but one phase of his 3-phase airconditioner was out so he had had a hot night. They were just now fixing the problem, and it was interesting to see the hydraulic acrobatics involved in moving this guy around amidst all of the power and telephone lines and tree branches. The transformer wasn't just near some tree branches, it was practically IN the tree. I could barely see it from the ground. I met one of the neighbors who is renting one of the many apartments along the street (lots of 1920's and 30's doubles around here). She is on a pediatrics fellowship at Children's Hospital and has recently moved here from somewhere like Kansas. She was wondering if and when the leaves would change color. Ha. Had to give her the bad news that if she's not careful, she could sleep right through Fall, and there are only a few species of trees here that actually change color significantly before Winter.

Anyway, I digress.

The weather here continues to be humid and rainy. We got in our 45 miles this morning, but it was a long ride back from the turnaround, mostly into a 20 mph headwind. The outbound leg was fast but easy with such a nice tailwind, and we spent quite a long time at 29-30 mph. The ride back was not so nice, however. We got an erratic paceline going, with the speed hovering around 22 mph, but with the winding road and blustery winds, it was anything but smooth. The wind had even the normally stable experienced guys looking instead like Cat. 5 riders on their first group rides. Somehow, nobody crossed wheels and went down, and we all made it back OK.

When I got home there was a message that the race numbers hadn't arrived yesterday as expected, but after calling and tracking, it looks like they'll arrive tomorrow, so no problemo there.

I made the ride into work just ahead of a little rain shower, and it's looking like the weather will do nothing but get worse for the rest of today and tomorrow. It makes me want to be curled up in one of those soft chairs at the coffee shop.