Monday

When I got dressed for this morning's ride, I figured it would be a little chilly, but I hadn't seen the forecast and didn't have an outdoor thermometer so I was kind of flying blind. I slipped my trusty Defeet Undeshirt under my jersey and pulled on my arm-warmers for the first time this Fall and still practically froze my arse off for the first 10 miles. I had left a bit earlier than usual, so it was still rather dark and as it turned out, I was just a tad underdressed for the occasion. The next surprise, though, was the bridge. I always know when I'm close to the bridge because there are usually a couple of big dogs sitting in the middle of the street waiting for me. This morning was no exception. Rather than use dog psychology on them this morning, I decided to go instead with the brute speed approach and ramped it up to about 28 mph coming down the small incline. Indeed, I caught them a bit by surprise and they gave up surprisingly easily today. I think they knew something that I didn't. A bit farther down the road I came to the bridge that has been closed to traffic forever but is usable by bicycle. Well, apparently the decided to start actually tearing it up last weekend, so I had to turn around. There were a couple of guys in a pickup truck there and one of them rolled down the window and said he was there taking pictures of the bridge. Anyway, now the dogs were going to get a second shot at me, and this time I would be going uphill, so I shifted into my dog psychologist mode and as they approached started talking to them as if I were their owner. It always throws them off. So I got in a nice 25 miles this morning without any dog bites, although my feet were still cold when I got home.

I had to make a run into Baton Rouge this morning to pick up a new temperature sender and thermostat for the car. Then, after waiting an hour for the engine to cool down, I couldn't get the thermostat replaced because of an inaccessible bolt with a damaged head. I was able to replace the sending unit, although I don't think it's fully tightened. You really needed to remove the thermostat housing in order to get to the sending unit, but I managed to unscrew the old one and install the new one, and I think it's tight enough, but I won't know for sure until I get the engine good and hot. Let's just hope that my temperature gauge issues were being caused by a faulty sender.

This evening The Wife and I went for a 15 mile ride just before dark. I had intended to ride a loop that we had used for the district championships a few years ago, but missed the first turn completely and we ended up just riding out and back on the same road. It started getting dark toward the end so I turned on my little flashing rear light only to find that its batteries were toast. The headlight wasn't much better either, so I guess I'll have to spring for some batteries, even though two of them are rechargeables (for which the recharger is, of course, in New Orleans) and I have a bunch of new batteries sitting on my dresser in New Orleans. This nomadic life certainly makes it hard to keep track of your stuff!