What's Comin'

It has been a difficult weather week for riding, even down here in the southern delta where it's been unseasonably warm and rain-free.  Why would that be a problem, you ask?  Well the problem has to do with south winds and the Mississippi River, the former being warm and humid and the latter being ice water from the frozen north.  Every morning this week I've ridden out to the levee to find it partially or fully blanketed in fog.  The lower the wind, the thicker the fog.  This morning was the first time all week that I didn't have to keep my headlight on, and that was only because the wind had picked up. It's also the reason I don't have much in the way of photos.  Anyway, that's apparently about to change.  The cold front that has been causing super-low temperatures all the way back to the Rockies is approaching the city like that "rough beast that slouches toward Bethlehem" from The Second Coming.  It would be one thing if a big cold front would just blow through, drop the temperatures and move on off to the east, but this one is barely moving now and in all probability will back up out of the Gulf after coming through and cause all sorts of unpredictable nasty wet weather.  Or not.  They don't really seem to know for sure. 

So yesterday I finally went over to the Tulane Sports Medicine Institute to get this neck/back thing checked out since it's been nearly four weeks since I fell on my head and it is still hurting after half an hour or so on the bike.  They took a whole series of x-rays, and the good news is that there wasn't anything there that looked like a major spinal problem.  Granted, we didn't fire up the NMR for this  -- oh, I mean the MRI (the general public is still afraid of the word nuclear, despite a general ignorance of both physics and pronunciation).  The plan for now is prednisone for a couple of weeks and maybe a little physical therapy next week in hopes that the muscles and related soft tissue that I have angered by not lying on the couch enough will calm down.  We'll see.  I'm giving it a 50/50 chance and hoping for the best.

This morning it was over 70F when I went out to the levee to meet Scott and David.  Just as we were about to take off a little group of Semi-tough riders came past so we caught up with them and rode together to the pipes where they turned around and we continued on to the parish line.  We did spot the Bald Eagle perched in his usual spot near Colonial Country Club on the way out, and again on the way back in another tree.  Thanks to the wind, the fog wasn't bad at all this morning, with the only significant accumulation being around the Ochsner bend where the long stretch of north-south river gets the south wind good an cold before it runs into the levee there.  I don't really know what the weather or riding possibilities are going to be like this weekend, except that we'll probably be back to winter temperatures.