Falling Temp, Rising Water

The weather this morning was splendid, except for the fact that the temperature was back down in the low 40s and there was a howling 20 mph north wind. I suspect it was one of those factors that slashed the levee ride turnout to four, but hey, after having to pull the plug on yesterday's training, I was not about to let a little cold and wind stop me today.

So we headed out for the usual Wednesday ride, nearly all of which was a battle with headwinds or crosswinds, and at least got in 75 minutes or so in the small ring. Thanks to yesterday's unscheduled rest day I was generally wanting to go a little harder than we did, but no doubt we'll have a good long ride tomorrow. Of course the temperature is supposed to be a bit lower tonight, so that might keep a few people inside on their trainers. I have to say I've been just loving the earlier sunrises lately and it's really going to suck when we have to switch to DST at the "new" earlier date of March 9 this year, especially since that happens to be the day of Rouge-Roubaix.

I've been noticing the river level rising over the last week, and at this point most of the batture is under a few inches of muddy water. It looks like this is about as high as it will get for the moment. At least that's what NOAA thinks. Still, even though the rising water is still a good ten feet below flood stage, it's always a little unsettling when it starts approaching the levee.

Meanwhile, back in the 'hood, the city contractors are wrapping up installation of new gas lines along the section of Pine St. near my house and when I got home last night I was glad to see they had poured the concrete to replace the sidewalk they'd broken up.

Then I took a closer look. Sheesh! What a crap-ass job. Apparently trowels and floats are as foreign as the workers themselves. They also broke the classic old blue and while tiles that spelled out "Pine" on the Pine St. side. Those are supposed to be replaced, being historic and all. Then, for reasons I cannot even imagine, they decided to stick the two surviving letters randomly into the concrete facing the wrong street. Now that's just freaking amazing. Maybe they rationalized that, after all, it does happen to be the Northeast end of Neron Place.