In Which The Big Melt Begins

Bike rack at Warde Hall, Mount Mercy University. This is a shady spot on warm afternoons and the snow is several feet deep. When it's gone, we will know spring is really taking hold!

It was a  wet, messy ride this morning—a wonderful, wet, messy, sunny, warm ride. I got an e-mail from a student saying she had run out of gas and could not make it to class. I replied that I had eaten Corn Chex, and so was having no fuel shortage for my ride.

There is so much snow piled on the world here that one night when the low doesn’t dip below freezing doesn’t get rid of it all. It was nice yesterday, and it is downright gorgeous today, which makes a day of school that much more tragic.

If we can have snow days, how about an emergency spring day? It’s the first warm day of the new season, so it’s too nice to have class? Please? Nope, sorry, I can’t get there because I must ride bike, ride far, splash and roll and enjoy the day.

Sigh. Not so much. Still, even if it was dark following the implementation of Daylight Savings Time, and even if it will be darkening by the time I head home, I take this day as a token, a sign of many more nice days to come.

Knock on wood.

It will snow tomorrow, but not stay so cold this week that the snow that falls will stick around long. Spring is in the air here in frozen Iowa. I took a walk with my wife yesterday, and a man who lives in our neighborhood and who commutes by bike in warmer months was just getting his steed out of the garage, chain oiled, tires pumped, ready for a new riding year.

Me, I have already put 120 miles on Francis this year before this morning. But there will be more 50-degree days and sunshine and warmer and biking and lots more miles than 120!

Bikeyface had a cute blog post about how bike racks aren’t usually available in winter. I solve that at MMU by parking inside, and it will be some time before the snow melts away from the bike rack at my building. Still, I don’t really expect bike racks to be a priority for snow removal. It’s just nice that we’re finally at that point where Mother Nature may lend a snow removal hand.

That’s when spring will officially be here—when the bike rack is free of snow. May it be soon.