Second post in the week-long "BIKE COMMUTE STORY WEEK", Tuesday, February 02.
#mybikestory
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.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
My morning ride 2016 02 03 #mybikestory
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.
#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.
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.
#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.
#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.
#mybikestory
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.
#mybikestory
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.
#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.
Friday, March 4, 2016
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.
#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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)