Crazy Man Walking

New Orleans was a damp, grey place this morning, and it would have been hard to get out of bed if I'd actually been sleeping. The Wife has been battling a head cold, and losing, for the last couple of days and whenever that happens she makes the most ungodly sounds during the night while trying to breathe. Needless to say, I was up a little early today.

So with the temperature in the 50s I opened the door and felt the chill of a misty, foggy morning envelop my face like a piece of wet Saran Wrap, and turned right around to fetch my vest before venturing out to the levee. The krewe up there was on the small side today, and it was darker than usual as well, but we started out at a nice little clip with a light tailwind and everything seemed good. For some reason, however, today must have been "drive your truck over the levee day." We must have had to actually hit the brakes four or five times, in one case for a caravan of three trucks. Somewhere past Central Avenue we spotted Tim and Charlie down on River Road and couldn't really figure out if they were finishing a ride, starting a ride, or wanted us to wait for them. After a moment of discussion we decided Tim was strong enough to catch us, and besides it would be good practice for the Tour of Belize. Sure enough, he and Charlie closed the gap after a little 28 mph time trial, even though they had to turn back before we'd hit Williams Blvd. A bit farther along we came upon one of the usual Jefferson Parish trucks that picks up trash. It was parked dead-center atop the bike path and its occupants were way down on the batture, so we had to make a little detour onto the grass. Otherwise, it was a pretty typical Wednesday ride, even if the dreary weather did spoil the mood. Typical, in fact, in more ways than one...

You see, there's this one crazy man who walks on the levee every morning who has a death wish. When he sees the group coming he will always move over as close to the center line as he can and dare us to hit him. Apparently the rest of his life lacks excitement. This morning he did it just as we were approaching some other people or cars or something, so the group had spread out a bit as we slowed down. As we went past, Jeff said something like "you can't move over just a little bit?" To which he replied, in the wonderful flowery language common to crazy people and drug dealers, something to the effect of "I'm in my f-ing lane!" Sadly, this is just the type of person who would never respond positively to either threats nor reason, since he clearly wishes to provoke the cyclists. Why? We can only wonder. Perhaps it's just a lack of prescription drug coverage.