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.