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