Wilted

The City of New Orleans arrived at Union Station a little earlier than scheduled on Saturday afernoon.  Along for the 19-hour trip were The Daughter and six or seven of the gymnasts she coaches, plus a couple of their parents.  Here for their annual training camp and visit to New Orleans, they seemed none the worse for wear as we shuttled them over to the streetcar stop on St. Charles Avenue for the ride uptown to our house.  The temperature was well into the mid-90s by then, but they were lucky on two counts.  For one, they didn't have to wait more than a minute to board the streetcar.  For the other, the streetcar made exceptionally good time. After loading their luggage into two cars, I decided to take the long way home thinking that we would surely pass the streetcar somewhere along St. Charles Avenue.  As it turned out, the streetcar was making better time than the auto traffic, and we all arrived at the house about about the same time. A few hours later I drove downtown to Acme Oyster House to see what my 40th high school reunion had to offer. I hate driving downtown, and if it hadn't been so hot I probably would have ridden the bike instead, but the idea of showing up drenched in sweat was sufficiently unappealing that I opted for the motor.  The reunion itself was, as I suppose most are, a little weird. There were well over a hundred people in my graduating class, and my circle of friends was, as it still is, quite small.  That, combined with the fact that few of us look a whole lot like we did in 1971, meant that most of the people there were essentially strangers, the only things familiar about most of them were their last names.  After five years of wearing nametags on our shirts, even I got to know most of the names.  Anyway, although most of the people I knew best weren't in attendance, there were of course a few who were.  I just wish it hadn't been so loud in that old upstairs French Quarter room (thanks no doubt to the tin ceiling) that I could have carried on a conversation without alternately screaming and straining to hear.  Anyway, after enjoying more than my share of raw oysters, I slipped out after the photo, mainly because of the situation back home.

Sunday morning started out hot and humid, and as I rode out to Starbucks I wondered who would actually show up.  The Saturday Giro had prompted a number of emails and facebook posts, all saying something like, "Man, that was the fastest Giro I ever did."  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see a much smaller group on Sunday.  Even so, the pace on the way out was pretty fast, but by the time we were halfway back the temperature was pushing 95F, the humidity was off the charts, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  The pack was really starting to wilt in the heat, and the last ten miles were substantially slower.  I limped back home, sucking the last drops from my one remaining non-empty water bottle, and spent the rest of the day trying to rehydrate. I was already quite certain that I wouldn't be riding on Monday.