Pack in the Pack

Although I had hoped to ride out to the Giro ride this morning, there just wasn't enough time once the insurance adjuster rescheduled for 11:00 a.m., so I drove the car out to the lakefront instead. It was the first time I had been out that way since the hurricane, and coming over the I-12 overpass onto West End Blvd., I was shocked to see a huge mountain of hurricane debris piled up in the broad neutral ground between Pontchartrain Blvd and West End Blvd. Then, as I rounded the curve onto Lakeshore Drive, I could see the old lighthouse, leaning precariously toward the water. I honestly don't know what was holding it up. Anyway, a cool front came through last night and it was chilly and very windy out at the lakefront as the recently resurrected Giro ride headed out. We had somewhere around 15-20 riders this morning with only a few who wanted to go hard. Other than the wind, the weather was beautiful and things stayed reasonably calm all the way down Hayne Blvd. past rows and rows of flooded houses. When we got to that spot on Paris Rd. where we have to cross over two lanes of interstate highway, the idiots in the lead almost got everyone killed by crossing in front of a truck towing a boat in a curve going 60 mph. There was a lot of impatient traffic making the curve heading into Chalmette and a few of us had to wait quite a while before we could make it over to the right lane safely. Not to worry, though, because I knew that Eddie C. had a slow leak and was going to have to stop sooner or later, which turned out to be arond 6-Flags.

Chef Highway was interesting. Once we got out past Highway 11 where there are a number of ship-related businesses, we could see huge gashes in the asphalt where ships had dragged bottom across the road during the storm surge. There were a few along the edge of the road, and many more way back in the marsh up against a small levee where big cranes were at work trying to retrieve them. Anyway, it was nice to be riding with a group again, and once I got warmed up I felt pretty good. A few of us rode back ahead of the group to get a little more exercise. One thing I saw that really stuck in my mind was a business jet on the front lawn of the old Lakefront Airport. It almost looked like it had been parked there on purpose, except that the main gear looked partially collapsed. It must have gotten washed right out of one of the hangers.

So I get back to the car a bit later than I had expected, and figure I'll rush back to the house so I can take a shower and relax for a minute before the insurance adjuster shows up. I head down Pontchartrain Blvd. and am soon detoured all over the place. You still can't get onto I-10 into the city from Pontchartrain Blvd., so I had to take a circuitous route over to Canal Blvd. and stop at about fifty of the 4-way stop signs that have replaced all of the non-functioning traffic lights around town. The insurance person shows up about half an hour late after calling for directions and to through the house, select which photos she wants me to email to her, and she tells me she'll have a roofer come out next week to have a look at the roof. On the plus side, she said that they will cover the refrigerator. I spent the next couple of hours out in the back yard cutting down the tree that had fallen on the garage, and although there was lots more I could do, by 5:00 I was ready for a glass of Rouge Red Ale, so I swept up the thick dust that had accumulated on the porch and took a long break.

There is a lot of activity in my neighborhood, and the stench of refrigerators has been mostly replaced by clouds of dust that have made the air quality pretty dismal. The cool North wind today certainly helped, but we could really use a little rain around here. The Corps of Engineers folks were on my block today checking our houses that might need "blue roofs," which is their program where they put free blue tarps on damaged roofs. Problem is, they don't do that for older asbestos shingle roofs like mine (and many others in this area), so I got a little paper taped to my window indicating that I don't qualify for a blue roof. I chatted with them for a while and when one of the guys saw the roof rack on the volvo he said he recognized me and that he had done some riding off-and-on.

I'm thinking that tomorrow I'll go ride the levee. I really do need to attend to a bunch of stuff around here and although I'd love to do the Northshore ride, I should probably put those two hours of driving to better use.