Winter Morning Train--ing

The cold front that came through Saturday dropped the local temps down into the 40s by Sunday morning. I piled on the clothes, summoned up my lagging enthusiasm, and stepped out the door at 6:30 am to meet the Sunday Giro Ride. I rode straight into the cold 20 mph north wind for four or five blocks before sanity won out over determination and I retreated to the house. A couple of hours later, after the sun was up, I ventured out again, and although it was still nearly as windy and cold as it had been earlier, the sunshine made it a bit more tolerable and I logged thirty miles or so on the levee. I'm still not really in "training" mode; still content to log relatively easy and unstructured miles, even lifting my head once in a while to enjoy the scenery. Sunday, a train climbing the Huey P. Long bridge over the Mississippi caught my eye. One thing I always liked about Christmas was playing with the train on the living room floor. It was always a challenge to get the thing working in the first place, and then the game was to see how fast you could make it go before the whole thing derailed on the curves. It never went fast enough for me, though.

The Daughter finally made it in late Sunday afternoon, and this morning she is sending her car keys and parking ticket to a friend who can drive her car back from Chicago to Iowa City. By the time we're done with the overnight mail and fees and stuff we'll probably save about half of the $200+ that it would have cost to have had her car sitting in the economy parking lot up there for the three weeks she'll be gone.

This morning we had a small group up on the levee, and although the wind was still strong and the temperature still in the lower 40s, the sun was out and we had a pretty good ride. The morning sky was dramatically red. The photo doesn't do it justice, so you'll have to use a little imagination. Certainly enough to justify a pecan praline or two, anyway. On the way home I rode through Audubon Park and when I came out onto St. Charles Avenue I remembered that the streetcars had finally started running all the way down St. Charles again as of Sunday morning. The line still isn't finished along Carrollton, but anyway it's nice to have them back on St. Charles where they belong. As luck would have it, one came lumbering by just as I was crossing, and I was lucky enough to get a nice photo, complete with waving conductor. Welcome back!