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.