A Gap on the Radar

I went to bed Friday night with little hope of being able to ride at all on Saturday. The forecast offered nothing better than a 70% chance of rain. Sure enough, at 6:00 am the streets were soaking wet. I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep, finally rolling out of bed around 8:30 am. I checked the radar on the computer, only to get a full screen of green. An hour later, however, there was still no rain actually falling and upon checking the radar again around 10 am, I could see that there was a clear gap in the rain with the city right in the middle of it. So I sent out a quick note on Facebook and planned to try for a ride at 11.

As I rode out to the levee I was surprised by how wet the roads still were. I'd thought they would be drying out by then, but alas, I was sadly mistaken. "I should have ridden the rain bike," I thought. What didn't surprise me, though, was that there wasn't anyone else up on the levee when I first arrived, but a couple of minutes later I ran into Mignon. Somewhere out past River Ridge we ran into a fog bank, and from there all the way out to The Dip it was basically like riding in a light rain. I was glad I'd anticipated getting wet and had dressed pretty warmly. By the time we were halfway back I could feel the water sloshing around between my toes. I could also feel my front tire going flat. Cold and wet, I had to stop and change the tube. While I was doing that Mignon was trying to deal with a problem contact lens that ultimately ended up falling out of her hand onto the wet asphalt below. It was impossible to find it, of course. Anyway, by the time I got home I was rather chilled but otherwise glad I'd managed to take advantage of the gap in the radar to get in a couple of solid hours on the bike.


Like everyone else in the city, I ended up in front of the TV later in the afternoon to watch the Saints game. Unfortunately, somewhere around halftime there was a loud "boom" a block down the street and the lights went out. So for the next two hours I was without power, sitting on the couch watching the text updated of the game on the Blackberry by candlelight. I'm pretty sure the Entergy guys waited until almost the end of the game before they came out to fix the blown transformer. Can't say I blamed them.


Tomorrow will be a Giro Ride for me because I have to be someplace by 1 pm. At least the weather should be better!