Ice on the Batture

It was another cold one this morning, and although I was awake in plenty of time, the whole wardrobe selection process took so long that I was late getting to the levee bike path. I reluctantly pulled up my sleeve, pushed down my glove and glanced at my watch. Hmmm. Two minutes late. Two minutes can be a very, very long time when it defines the gap between you and the riders ahead of you. As it had the day before, much of the shallow standing water along the batture had a thin layer of ice along the edges. Way, way up the road I could barely make out something that seemed to be moving fast enough to be a bike, but I couldn't even tell if it was a single rider or a small group. Considering the 31 degree temperature, all I knew for sure was that it wasn't a big group. Over the next seven or eight miles I slowly but surely started to close the gap, and by the time I was approaching Williams Blvd., I could see that there were two riders. The one in yellow looked like John. I finally made contact with John and Jay shortly before the turnaround, and realized that I should have started unzipping my vest a lot earlier. My base layer, otherwise known as an old jersey, was already wet with sweat, but at least the effort had warmed me up.

The ride back was, as it had been the prior day, harder. There was still a brisk east northeast wind making us work for most of the return trip. I got home feeling rather energetic, though, and whipped up a quick omelet for breakfast before rushing off to work.

Later in the day a couple of emails alerted me to a news report on the WWL website about a homeless man who had been caught, stolen laptop in hand, by the police. He'd admitted to breaking into something like 25 homes over the past couple of months, stealing items to sell or trade for drugs. My house was one of those on the list. I'm glad that the police caught him and are able to connect him with the rash of break-ins, and I guess I can take some comfort in not having to worry about him coming back any time soon. Life in the big city . . . . .