Southern Winds

Yeah!  Warmer weather for a while.

With our weekend of freezing weather in the rear-view mirror, I woke up this morning to a relatively mild 55 degrees, rising to 61℉ a couple of hours later when I got back home.  It's 72 ℉ right now and looking like we won't see anything lower than 59 for the next ten days, which is also about when we'll see the winds swing around to the north. The next few days are going to feature warm temperatures and significant southeast winds. I'll take that over freezing and strong north winds any day of the week. We'll probably have a few days with pre-dawn temperatures over 60, which means I may even get to ride with bare knees. Granted, my personal knee-warmer threshold of 59 is kind of high compared to most, but I'd rather keep those old tendons nice and warm rather than risk any winter tendinitis. Plus, these old knees are probably running kind of low on lube anyway.

So this morning I rode out to the lakefront wearing knickers, base layer and long-sleeve jersey with a thin wind vest on top. It was very cozy, but once we got to Lakeshore Drive I knew the vest was going to have to go into the pocket pretty soon, which it did.

The group wasn't too energetic this morning, which was a bit of a surprise considering the warm weather.  I think a few people were missing.  After we got off of Lakeshore Drive and onto the bike path VJ, who was on his TT bike again, started spending long, long times at the front. He wasn't going super-fast or anything - mostly in the 25-26 mph range - but everyone seemed pretty content with that.

Regrouping after the turn-around in Kenner and riding straight into the rising sun.

As we turned around out at the casino boat in Kenner the sun was just starting to peek above the horizon. A little while later I noticed Mike W had somehow appeared in the paceline, weaving and bobbing as usual but otherwise just sitting in like the rest of us. That one cog on my cassette that was skipping on Sunday seems to have settled in, or more likely the chain has settled in, because I didn't notice any skipping at all this morning.

Yesterday evening we picked up The Daughter and her two dogs from the airport. Some time early that morning our own dog had somehow, with remarkable stealth, gotten a freshly baked lemon meringue pie off of the kitchen counter. It apparently landed upside-down on the kitchen floor and he helped himself to, thankfully, mostly just the crust.  That evening when I got home from work I discovered the remnants of a bag of potato chips on the floor in my office along with dog vomit all over the living room. I think that one of The Daughter's dogs has taught him that it's OK to get things off of counters and tables to eat.