Beginning to Feel Like Winter

The morning levee ride have been hit hard by the recent drop in morning temperatures.  Yesterday I was running a little late, and when I finally got to the levee bike path I ran across Woody and a couple of other guys going in the other direction. "We going to ride around Audubon Park," they said.  The only rider who had actually shown up at the usual time was Big Richard, so I went with the larger group and turned around.  I ended up with a nice hour's spin.

This morning the alarm went off at 5:45.  I reached out from under the covers and turned it off.  At 6:00 the alarm on my watch went off.  I shoved my hand underneath the pillow until it stopped.  At 6:10 it went off again.  This time I fumbled for a button to silence it, but still didn't actually get out of bed. It was nearly 6:30 by the time I actually got up. I still would have had enough time to make it to the ride except for the fact that I'd left practically all of my riding clothes in the dryer down in the basement. By the time I'd pulled out the gloves and shoe-covers and other essential cold-weather gear I knew I'd be late.  The sky was grey and so it was darker than usual when I finally hit the road, and when I arrived at the levee three minutes late I didn't even slow down. For the next half hour I just cruised at around 20 mph out to Williams Blvd., by which point I realized that there probably wasn't anybody else out there.  When I turned around I met up with Donald who said, "I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."  Apparently he had been chasing me the whole way out.  So we rode back together into a light headwind. Eventually I dropped back into his draft.  Sometimes riding with Donald is like riding with a diesel truck. He just keeps going and going and going.

It's been a busy week at work so far, but I sense that things will be winding down rather quickly over the next week or so. This little surge of activity is probably just people trying to wrap up some things before the holidays.  Speaking of holidays, I'm always surprised how early exams are at Tulane (and elsewhere).  I think most of the students will be finishing up their exams in the next day or two.  For our own office, it won't make much of a difference except that it will start getting hard to find some of the faculty.