Clear Blue

Last weekend's riding wasn't much fun for me. The combination of wind and cold lasted a bit longer than I was willing to deal with, I think. I went out Sunday morning to find both the temperature and wind a bit lower than Saturday, and put in just a bit over an hour. From the start I was not too enthusiastic. I rode out seven or eight miles into the wind on the levee and turned around to head home. Then I ran into Realdo, so turned around again and rode with him and, eventually, Tim for a few more miles before finally bagging it and heading for the showers. Sometimes it's just not worth kicking a dead horse. Reo and Tim probably put in another two hours at least. I spent the rest of the day feeling cold, lazy and hungry.


This morning, though, I was feeling better. Not coincidentally, the winds had died down to zero and there was a clear blue sky. Although the temperature was in the low 30s when I left, and the levee was covered with frost, the lack of wind and the steadily improving daylight made me far more interested in riding than yesterday. As is typical for Mondays, there was just Joe F up on the levee, so after chatting for a mile or so, I got him on my wheel and just rolled steadily and a moderate 19.5-20 mph pretty much all the way out and all the way back. This kind of riding almost qualifies as on-the-bike meditation. The skies were blue, the sunrise was beautiful, and for the first time in days it felt like I had control over my own front wheel.


After a two-hour strategic planning meeting in the morning, I thought I'd step out onto the roof and snap a couple of pictures (with my cheap backup camera). The first photo looks southeast over the French Quarter and the bend in the river at Algiers Point. Far in the distance would be the now-famous lower ninth ward. The other pic looks more to the northeast over the housing project and old St. Louis #2 Cemetery (where my great-great grandfather who started this whole U.S. klan is), mid-city and the section of I-10 that comes through the city. Part of Lake Pontchartrain is in the distance. As you can see, there's still a lot of blue in the pictures, and I'm not talking about the sky.

The Krewe de Vieux paraded Saturday night, and although I wasn't able to convince The Wife that it was our civic duty to go out in the freezing weather to attend, I did check out their website. No photos yet from this year's parade, but I'm sure they'll show up soon. As usual, they did a great job at taking jabs at all of the local, and federal, politicians. They really have a lot of material to work with this year! I liked the float that asked France to buy Louisiana back!

So The Wife made airline reservations for our next visit to Iowa City for the same weekend as Rouge-Roubaix. Hmmm. I could send her up there alone, I think. I just wish I knew if The Daughter's knee would be well enough by then for her to compete or not. If not, I wouldn't feel too bad about paying the cancellation fee and saving the ticket for the next time. We'll see...