While I'm at it . . . the strangeness of choice

Following hard on the heels of the previous post, I thought I'd offer this little tidbit for my Cycling photo challenge 5.

One morning, more or less recently, I decided to get to work early. Not terribly early, mind you, just, say, 30 minutes or so early.

I did manage to leave home earlier than usual. Perhaps not the 30 minutes I had shot for, but early nonetheless.

Opting for what has become my default route down the Levee I didn't experience anything sufficiently unusual to draw my attention. At this point, it would take a fair amount of strange to draw my attention.

Up the Florida Street ADA ramp, I take the long wide turn across the wet steel of the railroad tracks set between the slabs of new concrete. On a foggy morning like this one those two very different surfaces can be a little confounding on a bicycle.

Topping the levee I notice a person, a man, with a camera on the river-side levee steps shooting the river fog. He notices me at about the same time, swivels in my direction, and starts shooting. At least I imagine he is shooting as he has begun to track me with the camera to his eye. I can't hear the camera motor or much of anything else with the wind in my ears.

Doing my best to ignore the photographer and not stare directly into his lens, I'm almost parallel to him and gaining speed as he lowers his camera and stands up. At that point I recognize him; it's Jon Barry, local photographer.

I shout a greeting as I pass eager to get to work early, which is the reason I'm there earlier than usual. Early enough to have run into Jon who isn't usually on the Levee when I'm there for the moment passing that point at trail head. He is not usually there either but the fog that morning held promise of a good shot or two, so there he was.

So what?

Well, our coincidental meeting led to this . . .

When it was first posted a friend commented that she thought it was a planned shot, something Jon and I had cooked up and, perhaps, practiced. It was, as far as I know, completely happenstance, the two of us there at that moment for entirely different and mutually opaque reasons.

This is another example of why I love riding my bicycle. Not the image, though my ego does enjoy it. The thing I love is that it happened because of the unseen things that being us together.

Another reason I love bicycling: The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and Schrödinger's cat

There are lots of reasons I love riding a bicycle, MY bicycle specifically. My bicycle, Pythias, and I get along very well, thank you. We fit each other. I worry about Pythias and keep him in fine fettle. "He" forgives my stupidity, usually best expressed when I drink too much and decide I can ride home, no problem. We ride a fairly long way together every year and manage to remain friends, as odd as that may sound.

But, for the purposes of this post, one of the things I love about riding my bicycle is the way things change. More to the point, I love how things happen WHEN things change.

In this instance, it was a single live oak leaf that brought this home to me.

Once upon a time . . . um . . . no . . .

One afternoon, when I was still at work, I received a PM on Facebook from a friend. We had scheduled a chat-over-dinner-thing at a downtown Mexican restaurant that evening.  Life was changing around us both and we were interested in getting to know each other a little better and learn more about how we felt about making Baton Rouge more interesting according to our own interests, which just happened - we felt - to intersect more often than not.

Accordingly, I was planning on going home via the Levee, a route I take quite often. I know how long it takes to get home within a 2 - 3 minute window on that route, I use it so frequently. The whole thing was laid out in my mind, a perfect space-time map of my route home, my route to the restaurant, the conversation over dinner . . . everything.

The content of the PM completely wiped out that map. My friend could not make it. So sorry.

Inertia being what it is, I thought I'd just go home on the Levee anyway. It was VERY clearly in my mind in a way that really, really made it seems like it had already happened, like it was a memory of the future . . .  weird.

Fortunately, I changed my mind. I had plenty of time and no particular reason to hurry so, why hurry? Why not take a longer route home, another familiar route but not so familiar as the Levee?

So, I did. I changed my mind.

And now . . . a digression . . . for a joke . . .

These two physicists, see, are driving across country from New York to California to attend a symposium on quantum mechanics. They have a nice rental (who owns a big car in Manhattan?), adjusted the seats and temperature a long time ago, and got to talking.

By the time they are in west Texas the discussion has become heated, the points increasingly abstruse, string theory keeps weaving its way into and out of the conversation, and the velocity of their automobile has increased to well over 100 MPH, which neither of these overheated physicists notice.

A Texas State Trooper, headed the other direction certainly did notice.

Now, in west Texas, speeds north of 100 MPH are only borderline problematic. It's a long way to anywhere and, as long as the driver is keeping it cool and staying in their lane, well, it's not necessarily a problem . . . unless the car has New York plates, then, it's a Problem.

Whips around the state trooper, pursuit mode engaged, and before you know it those New Yorkers are all lit up, the siren is wailing, and they are getting a command to pull over NOW via the secretly juiced up PA.

You know what happens next. The cars pull onto the shoulder more or less in unison. The trooper takes a little time getting out of his cruiser needing to run the tags and all. Then there's the slow, cautious walk to the other vehicle well clear of the doors and what not.

The physicists are now more or less fully engaged with where and when they are but anxious to get back to the Point, as divergent as that singular point may be.

Window rolls down. "Yes, officer? Is there a problem?"

"Do you know how fast you were going back there?" somewhat cautiously as is the Trooper's wont.

"No, actually, we don't," somewhat huffily, "we were discussing . . . things you wouldn't understand."

Not the thing to say to a Texas State Trooper.

"Well now, is that so?" drawled out for all its worth. "Your license and registration, please." hand out ready to receive said papers.

Looking them over somewhat skeptically, the Trooper says, "Pop the trunk."

"What?" says the driving physicist. "How does one POP a trunk?" Smirking at the rube.

"OPEN the trunk," rabbit ears (air quotes) up and out before he knows it, somewhat embarrassed by this habit.

"Oh . . . " driver fumbling for the trunk latch in the strange car, passenger physicist - being more observant - lunges slightly for the latch giving the driver and the Trooper both a start.

Recovering, the Trooper walks to the rear, opens the trunk lid fully, pauses a moment or two, makes  a sound of disgust, slams the trunk shut, and walks back to the driver's window.

"Do you know you have a dead cat in the trunk?" incredulous that it would be so.

Passenger physicist, shaking his head, leans across the driver into the Trooper's view and fairly shouts, "Well, NOW we do!"

. . .

Thank you. I'll be here through Tuesday

But I digress.

I took the longer way home. The route winds through the LSU campus to the Lakes access at South Campus and West Lakeshore (Sorority Row and U REC). I don't remember if it was crowded that evening, probably not as it was still cold and maybe wet.

At the intersection of Belmont and Drehr I opted for a right turn instead of continuing on Drehr to Broussard. At Belmont and St Rose I opted to continue down Belmont to Parker instead of turning on St Rose to Rittiner. At Parker I opted to turn on Myrtle rather than Kleinert.

And that's when the single live oak leaf hit the "frog" of my left hand.

This was no Sam Peckinpah slo-mo exploding blood bath of a hit. I didn't lose control of my ride. I didn't dodge and weave. It was more of a Zen master tap, an awareness note, a little thing of no intrinsic value but of great import.

Why?

All those changes, all the choices I made, all the route options I exercised, they all brought me to that point at that time to be tapped on the left hand by a single leaf. There was no shower of leaves, no curtain to pass through, just one small leaf falling through space directly into my path.

My morning ride - 2016 02 01 #mybikestory

First post in the week-long "BIKE COMMUTE STORY WEEK", Monday, February 01.

#mybikestory

"Everything changes and nothing remains still ... and ... you cannot step twice into the same stream." - Heraclitus of Ephesus

I enjoy riding beside the River. It's a lot more peaceful than riding with sharks . . . er . . . motor vehicles . . . on the surface streets. It also gives me the space to consider the eternally changing now that the River represents and is.

---

This morning's fog had obscured the Capitol when I first looked out my door. By the time I left for work the fog had lifted a bit and I could once again see the Capitol. Not so the River.

The Levee contains not only the River but the cold air above its chill waters. With the warm air coming in from the Gulf what choice was there but to have a deep, rich, luxuriant fog? A fog that hid barges, casinos, and push-boats along with the water they rode upon.

Riding downriver there is a curiously and obviously cooler region along the levee between the Paper Clip and the soon-to-be-rebuilt City Pier. The temperature difference is noticeable especially where it allows fog to overrun the Levee.

A little further downriver the warm air on the land side of the Levee takes over and drives the fog back into the trees of the batture. This back and forth, warm against cold, fog against clarity, continues sporadically all the way to the Vet Med trailhead where I descend and once again play with mechanical sharks.

Before I reach my "exit" I happen to look up as the fog, rising now with the morning heat, thins and the world brightens a bit. The disk of the sun is there, blocked somewhat by the fog, bearable in its terrible brilliance. So far away and yet so large, so powerful, that power somehow magnified by the fog. . . the lizard brain at the base of my skull wants to run, to hide from that, to find safe haven before its full power is revealed.

My morning ride 2016 02 02 #mybikestory

Second post in the week-long "BIKE COMMUTE STORY WEEK", Tuesday, February 02.

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A gray overcast sky replaced the fog of yesterday. With the temperature in the 70s and humidity at or near 100% my apartment was warm and damp. Everything not cloth was a bit slick. I don’t particularly like it when my sweat drips into my oatmeal but it was that kind of morning.

The weather report spoke of rain, tornadoes, and gusting winds. The humidity made the streets a bit slick, the concrete cool enough to be below the dew point.

Fortunately, I head south through town and almost all the motor traffic is heading west. The streets I cross are crowded with state workers swarming off the Interstate toward the parking garages lined up along North Street and points upriver behind the Capitol.

My route takes me past a number of historical buildings and through the old neighborhoods of downtown that were spared the wrecking ball and bulldozers of the recent past. Those neighborhoods bracket the middle passage in what is now called the Central Business District with its many surface parking lots and a notable lack of businesses.

I can see the undulating surface of Beauregard Town, the houses’ foundations built up to create a level floor. Had they been built a little later the ground would have been leveled completely changing the face of the earth on which they were built. I am happy to ride up and down these remaining undulations, these traces of the past.

Passing through the Expressway Park it occurs to me that it looks like a park with its grassy lawns, playground equipment, and basketball courts but it does not feel like a park. It can’t, really, as it lies under a massive Interstate interchange where Interstate 10 and 110 intermesh.

The noise level is astonishing. The scale of the roadway supports dwarfs everything in the park. It is a superhuman place, daunting to the human spirit and yet an outgrowth of that spirit. Best to pass quickly through.

Fortunately, it is only a few blocks to the Museum of Public Art with its very human scale. What a pleasure to see this place even on a drab day like today with the Interstate roar still very much in my ears.

Not much farther and I enter City Park. The view from Picnic Hill is radically different from Expressway Park. Here I can see the “hills” of the park across Dalrymple Drive but the trees block my view of the Lakes. The grass is oddly brown given the amount of rain we’ve had lately.

At this time of the day, the cypress trees in the Lakes, at a spot I call Roosting Cove, are almost empty of the cormorants, egrets, and ibis that come here in the evening in their hundreds. I do see a few cormorants and one lone little blue heron perched on a cypress knee near the shore. The white pelicans are no longer here or, at least, not on this part of the Lakes.

Motor traffic becomes denser as I approach campus. Unlike a friend of mine, who passed me on his bike as I was taking a picture, I stay on the bike path along the lake shore rather than riding in traffic. I will be in traffic soon enough. No sense looking for trouble.

I work late, 8 PM late, and the weather has yet to arrive. When I leave work it is well past sunset. The temperature remains in the mid-70s, the south wind blasting in from the Gulf keeping things warm and damp.

Rather than risk being caught out when the weather arrives I opt for the Levee route home. As soon as I top the Levee the south wind pushes me home. How nice to have a stiff wind behind me making my much-faster-than-normal 20 mile per hour pace effortless.

Riding that fast with the wind behind me I find myself in a quiet bubble, no sound of wind in my ears as I pace the wind itself. As I near the bridge I can hear things being blown against one another in the construction site to my right, down and across the empty River Road. Plastic snaps, metallic things ping like lanyards on masts, something rolls and stops.

The new grocery store downtown is on my way home. I stop in for something to eat, a short chat with the checkout clerk, an internal debate on beer or no beer. No beer wins and I ride home wondering when the rain will come.

My morning ride 2016 02 03 #mybikestory

Third post in the week-long "BIKE COMMUTE STORY WEEK", Wednesday, February 03.

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The weather we’d been anticipating all day finally arrived yesterday evening. I suppose it was worth the wait. It rained hard for quite a while supported by gusty winds and lightening every now and then, some quite close. There were times the howl of the wind rose and then sustained itself long enough that I wondered if it was a tornado on the way. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

When I left my apartment in the morning I looked up to learn the wind direction and strength. This is one of the benefits of living in Spanish Town – I can very clearly see the flags at the top of the Capitol 450+ feet in the air. Since the Capitol is oriented to the cardinal directions it’s easy to tell wind direction at that altitude. Its strength is more subjective based on how far the wind extends the flags. This morning there were straight out, flapping rapidly, with the wind out of nearly due north. That’s a good direction for going down river.

I headed out for the Levee path passing down Spanish Town Road running directly in front of the Capitol and dividing the Capitol park grounds from the state Museum and state Library. My plans changed as soon as I turned onto Lafayette Street by the state Welcome Center.

I could see a train on the Levee tracks and knew it would block all Levee access points even though it was moving oh so slowly. It would not be unusual for the train to stop, sit for a time, and reverse directions back into the Exxon plant. Rather than wait at the trailhead to see what would happen I opted for an alternate route.

I continued down Lafayette past the state LaSalle Building. Most mornings I can smell breakfast cooking in their cafeteria – biscuits, bacon, coffee – but not this morning for some reason.

The new IBM Building catty corner from the LaSalle Building is almost but not quite done. The past few weeks a crew has been removing and replacing the facing of the building at sidewalk level. This morning there was a crane stretched across the street with the upper end hidden from view.

A little further down the street Po’ Boy Lloyd’s was missing the usual police cars and bicycles that I see there at breakfast time. Either I was a lot later than usual or there was something going on breakfast-wise downtown.

The Old State Capitol stood there in its Gothic Revival glory. Mark Twain may have hated it but I enjoy its crenelated parapet, corner towers, and massive skylight. It’s such a rare and wonderful thing that castle-like building. I wish the cast iron turrets added in the 1880s were still there.

What little traffic there is on North Boulevard tends to clot up at the light on the corner of St Louis and in front of the 19th U.S. District Court Building. I remember sitting outside a Starbucks in Washington, D.C., on Constitution Avenue near the Capitol at rush hour watching the bicyclists dodging and weaving in rush hour traffic and count my blessings. It doesn’t take long to clear the knots of confused drivers and turn onto St Ferdinand.

The Frostop Drive-In drew my attention as I waited for the light on Government to change. The Frostop is a ghost from the car culture past having occupied that corner since 1957. Its giant mug on root beer no longer rotates but still stands luring customers in for a tasty treat.

I pass the northern edge of Expressway Park today instead of passing through the park. It still awes me with its size and noise and makes me happy to not be in the traffic above. South Boulevard is largely empty and a pleasure in comparison.

I pass the burned out wreck of a shotgun house collapsing now under its own ruined weight. A bit farther along and I notice a red camellia in full bloom, the grass around it carpeted with dropped petals. A Japanese Magnolia, time, the cold, and rain having dimmed its glory, still brightens another home.

By the time I reach The Lakes I can’t help but notice the Interstate, crawling with motor traffic, bisecting the Lake. Whoever designed the route for that road must have hated Baton Rouge to place it there. It certainly ruins the view and the peace of the area. I guess destroying the then-successful middle class black neighborhood just to the north of the Lakes was more important than esthetics or nature however altered by the hand of man it may have been.

After work, the sun was still up, the sky a motley mix of cloud types. It was considerably cooler than yesterday but the sun, however diminished, was good to see.

My ride through campus and around the Lakes on my way to a Front Yard Bikes board meeting was a pleasure. The transition from light to dark is one of my favorite times of day, made even better by the light reflecting off the water.

My morning ride 2016 02 04 #mybikestory

Fourth post in the week-long "BIKE COMMUTE STORY WEEK", Thursday, February 04.

#mybikestory

When I looked up as I left my apartment in the morning the Capitol told me the wind came out of the north-northeast at a pretty good clip. The clouds left behind by the storm of two days ago were completely gone and the temperature had fallen into the low-40s. The humidity was a mere 65%, arid by Louisiana standards.

The light was stupendous up on the Levee. Between the wind and the rain almost all the air pollution had been scrubbed away leaving relatively little to scatter and dim the sunlight. The River, as muddy as ever, looked blue, as blue as the sky above.

I guess the River had dropped enough to allow river traffic to resume and try to make up for lost time. There were more barges than ever on both sides of the River and in the channel. Push boats were churning up the River heading against the current. I think I counted 5 or 6 boats moving towards the barges. One fairly large raft of barges was being pushed downriver riding the current for all it was worth.

Further down river, flotsam lay all along the levee face leaving a tide line to mark high water. Logs lay stranded on disused roadways leading into the batture. One mangled green metal float lay beached in the grass, a different shade of green entirely. I could see the superstructure of ocean-going vessels, stranded in their own way, in the tree tops along the River’s edge.

The batture at the Vet Med School trailhead showed a narrow isthmus of land heading toward the River. No longer was there a continuous stretch of water between the Levee and the River.

I had partially unzipped my hoodie as I warmed up on the ride downriver. The cold, relatively dry air was refreshing after the days of high temperatures and humidity that led up to the storm a few days ago. It won’t be long before there will be no relief from the heat and humidity.

I guess I don’t do very well with the Long Dark of Winter. I’ve been obsessing a bit about the returning sun at the end of the work day. Today was no exception. I had a Warm Showers guest coming in so I left work and took the Levee home just a bit before sundown.

The sky, going from blue and orange in the west to blue and purple in the east, was a joy to ride under. By the time I reached downtown the sun had that intense thermonuclear orange thing going in the still cloudless sky. I descended to River Road as the sun set behind me, climbed Florida Street, caught the green light, and headed home.

My morning ride 2016 02 05 #mybikestory

Fifth (and final) post in the week-long "BIKE COMMUTE STORY WEEK", Friday, February 05.

#mybikestory

The flags were barely moving this morning, less flapping and more desultory dismissal, a waving off of a bothersome child. The temperature had warmed to 40 degrees by the time I left home, I assume almost entirely a function of another crystalline sky.

I must bore easily. I didn’t want to take the Levee again today. It was beginning to feel tiresome so I opted for the Spanish Town Road route out to 19th Street. I hadn’t ridden that way in a while and I wondered what had changed.

As it turns out, not much.

Spanish Town Road was quiet as it usually is this time of day. That will change on Saturday as the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade will roll right down that street. Traffic on Interstate 110 was moving, as usual; it’s too far from the junction with 10 to be backed up unless some monumental cluster fuck has stopped everything from crossing the bridge. The sewer access halfway to 19th Street continues to collapse but someone has placed barricades entirely around the widening hole.

Seeing the Museum of Public Art work on the north side of Dave Cano’s building is always a pleasure. Such good work and so unexpected.

Traffic is light this morning, light enough for me to take a long look at Magnolia Cemetery as I pass and the National Cemetery across Florida with its ranked white gravestones glowing in the morning light.

It was good to see a police officer pulling a speeding motorist aside in the school zone at Dufrocq. Why drivers feel compelled to speed through a clearly marked area teaming with children crossing the street is beyond me. I had a chance to say good morning to both crossing guards as I passed.

I turn off Park Boulevard as quickly as I can. As it happened, a friend was walking back to his house so I stopped to chat a bit. His house is adorned with a large sculptural piece that a small group had taken to Sundance Film Festival as part of the pitch for Louisiana. I had seen a picture of it in a local online newspaper and was surprised to see it hanging on his house.

The rest of my ride into work was as quotidian as it could be. The cold weather quite enjoyable, the clear blue sky resonating on some obscure cellular level, some ancient wet-wiring soaking up the beauty wordlessly, joyfully.

My morning ride 2016 02 17 #mybikestory

Spontaneous, out of context post in the more or less randomly created "BIKE COMMUTE STORY", Wednesday, February 17.

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It's been a strange week. It started at a little before 5 AM Sunday when the novovirus I'd somehow ingested had had sufficient time to incubate. Having done so it no longer lurked instead choosing to make its presence known in no uncertain terms.

I'll skip the details. Turn to the All Seeing Interwebz if you are that curious. You can thank me later.

I took Monday off to recover a bit. Tuesday started more or less alright but I could tell I was in for a short day almost before it started. I don't get sick often. When I do it isn't pretty, but I assume that's true for most people.

That evening the two bicycle tourists I'd kind of expected arrived. "Kind of expected" because I hadn't heard from them in a couple of days and didn't know if Monday's "rain event" had delayed them or worse. Time would reveal that a glitch in the Warmshowers mail system delayed their message until after they had continued on to New Orleans. Oh well.

We left together in the morning, a morning that was the meteorological opposite of the previous morning's dense fog. They agreed to stop on the Paper Clip for a departure shot taken over the Mighty Mississippi, fallen but not completely back in its banks.

Our leisurely pace allowed a little chit chat on the way to the place I would bid them an enjoyable trip and turn back toward work. I hope they enjoyed the kolaches.

The day passed uneventfully. I have to say, recovering from an illness makes me appreciate being well. Funny how that works.

I was heading home on the Levee when the sun had already dropped below the horizon. That horizon was limned with those colors and intensities one occasionally experiences at that hour.

What a pleasure to be there to see the contrasts, the oddly stark boldness of things seen from this side of the setting sun, back-lighting doing its dramatic best. In a few minutes all would be changed again, lit not by an unimaginably large ringing ball of burning hydrogen but by more mundane lights.

As I was completing my second panoramic image a friend rolled up on his road bike to chat. Another great pleasure taken in small things.

My morning ride 2016 02 22 #mybikestory

Spontaneous, out of context post in the more or less randomly created "BIKE COMMUTE STORY", Monday, February 22.

#mybikestory

The weather is changing again. The River remains cold and this new air is warm and wet. Is it any wonder that we have fog again?

This time the fog stayed low and, for the most part, stayed between the levees. The cloud cover wasn't too thick but the sun was only a vague smudge somewhere over my left shoulder as I rode to work.

It's easy to tell where the cold parts of the River come close to the bank. The air temperature drops noticeably and the fog tries to escape the levee but the warmth of the land side of the levee is tough to overcome under the current conditions.

There was no fog away from the river. Overcast skies darkening toward rain then lightening as a wave passes slowly overhead, Slowly, in this case, means a time scale measured in hours.

By the time I leave work the rain has stopped. The sky is gray in places, thick clouds looking like trouble. The horizon showed a hint of blue in one small place and the setting sun is burning it to ashes.

Once the sun makes it fully into that space it shows that peculiarly intense orange-red that implies a golden tone. It's possible to look at the ball and not wince, not for long of course but long enough to see it in its intensity.

The River is still foggy. Perhaps it was not foggy at some point during the day but I imagine it has been hidden under this shroud since I first saw it this morning.

Bits of things in the River - the superstructure of a push boat, the upper deck of an ocean-going ship, the implied line of a barge, plants emerging in the batture with the falling river, mallard pairs eating near shore - add to the scene.

As I near the end of the levee the fog is now gaining on the Levee. Walkers appear out of the fog slowly drifting in their course toward me. The fog chases me up Florida and home.

My morning ride 2016 03 03 #mybikestory

Spontaneous, out of context post in the more or less randomly created "BIKE COMMUTE STORY", Thursday, March 03.

#mybikestory

I didn't set out to be the guy talking about fog all the time. It just kind of happened. 

It seemed like we were experiencing fairly frequent fogs this past couple of years, more frequent than I remember from the years before that going back to 2000. I'm probably suffering from whatever they call the all too human thing of suddenly seeing lots of examples of something we're interested in that we hadn't noticed before we were interested in it, whatever "it" may be. 

So, I thought, "Why not take a photo or two on foggy commutes?" There's no guarantee that I'll document EVERY foggy morning if for no other reason than I don't work on Sundays and only one Saturday a month. Still, it's better than nothing.

Now that I'm paying attention to fog I can see that there is more than one way to be foggy. Sure, there are similarities between events but the spectrum of possible fog qualities, while not infinite, is fairly broad for ground-hugging clouds.

Thursday was a new point on the spectrum for me.

 The sun was well on its way when I arrived at the Florida Street Levee access. On most if not all of the previous foggy days the fog was vertically thick with another deck of clouds above it. The sun was more an implication or a smudge than a big ball of intensely bright burning hydrogen. Not this day.

When I turned on to Florida Street I knew I was going to stop for a photo. The light was fairly intense compared to the fog hiding the River behind the Levee. 

There must be a huge backlog of barge traffic following the most recent high water. I've noticed a great number of barges lining both banks of the River as I ride. There has also been a "raft" of barges moored in the River right off the Florida Street access. I doubt it's the same raft but there has been something there for weeks.

The fog was thickest over the River, especially in the center of the channel and those places near the bank where colder water ran. The further from those places the thinner the fog but there was fog up and across River Road. I very seldom notice the land side of the Levee but looking at and for fog brought downtown into focus, oddly enough.

The Paper Clip was in a very thin fog illuminated by the bright morning light. The KIDD was particularly interesting. Blue sky and fog . . . I hadn't noticed this before.

With all the recent run off the River is REALLY heavy with silt. I wish they would re-open the distributaries they closed over the past nearly-100 years and hope it would at least slow the erosion of the coast. Too much money invested in really stupid locations to do that though. Better to erase the state than hurt someone's profits.

I arrived at work having passed in and out of various degrees of obscurity. That proved to be the metaphor for my day.