Summer Haze

This is the view looking down Canal Street toward the river in New Orleans from the roof of the Tidewater Building. On the left is the edge of the French Quarter and on the right is the "American Sector" aka the Business District. The French didn't really care for the Americans when they started to move here and pretty much kept them from buying property in the old French Quarter, so they all ended up on the other side of Canal Street. Lots of the big business long ago moved a few blocks upriver to Poydras St., so Canal has become a permanent downtown development project. When I was a kid, though, you dressed up for shopping trips along Canal St. where all the big department stores were before the suburban shopping malls and parking lots drew everyone away.

I didn't think it was very windy this morning. Scott did. Scott was right. As the group slowly started its morning training ride ritual today, Scott and I rode at the front for a while at an easy warm-up pace. I finally started to notice the moderate wind in our faces. Once we reached the bridge Scott said something about it being time to pick it up or something and he surged forward. I dropped in behind him and the morning discussion group quickly thinned out into the morning paceline. Somewhere around the country club we picked up Howard, riding his TT bike. He quickly rode up to, and off of, the front, looking behind every now and then to see if he had successfully instigated some action. The group wasn't too interested today, though, and he hovered out there for a long time by himself as the rest of us worked a paceline at around 24 mph.


I remembered the sand at the last possible moment. Tuesday I had been surprised by some deep sand across the road at the "dip" where there are usually a lot of rocks and stuff that has washed down from the levee. For some reason there had been a short stretch of rather deep sand on Tuesday. It was enough to elicit a surprised "Oh S#!t!" and you went through it, but it was short enough that you were back on solid ground before you could get yourself into any real sideways type trouble. Well, I did the exact same thing today as we blasted through that section and back up the levee on the other side. By the time we got to the turnaround, I noticed we had lost a few people, including Robin who earlier had been acting as the unofficial paceline coordinator. When we went through the "dip" again on the way back, I realized where he had gone because a three-foot wide section of sand had been pushed aside leaving a nice path of asphalt. As the river curved a bit to the south we started to pick up a nice tailwind and I started to up the pace a notch. When I pulled off, Jeff rolled past and asked if I had an early meeting today or something. I just told him "no, but I have a nice tailwind!" It was a good ride coming and going today, but I got home still somehow feeling kind of sleep-deprived. I think I need a long quiet vacation or something.

I wandered out on the roof today and snapped some photos through the summer haze that makes the horizon little more than a grey smudge between land and sky. Here's a photo of St. Louis Cemetery #1, sandwiched between the partially occupied housing development below and the municipal auditorium above. You can take tours through this cemetery, which lies just outside of the French Quarter. If you do, say hello to my maternal grandfather and the Feraud side of the family.