In Which Money Appears on Shifting Streets

Amid fall leaves starting to appear on pavement--this. Well, OK.

A very mixed week of bike commuting—I was dodging rain for much of the week, but was still able to ride.

I wish they had less rain north of here, as the Cedar River is expected to make a mess in downtown Cedar Rapids next Tuesday, no doubt playing havoc with trails in that area. Of course, the damage to businesses and homes are a much more serious blow than washed out bike trails, so here’s hoping the raging waters of the mighty Cedar scare us more than scar us.

Thursday--the rain came down pretty hard, but briefly. Walking back to Warde Hall from the library to get Clarence and head home. Wet pavement, but dry skies, and I'll take that.

Anyway, early in the week, not sure if it was Monday or Wednesday—it had to be one of the two because its darker on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I leave for work earlier in the morning—I found a dollar on the sidewalk on C Avenue. Money has an odd impact. For a few coins, I won’t stop; in fact I’ll hope that if a kid lost them, she or he comes back and finds them.

For $100 (or more) I would call CR Police. But a one spot seems to be in that sweet zone—too easy to blow away to leave in place, too small to not claim. Thank you, universe, although I’ll probably end up slipping it into a church collection basket—I need the good karma more than anything a biker could buy with $1.

As I said, much of the week was spent dodging rain, but I was largely successful in that. I did have to wait until about 7 to leave Thursday night, but otherwise the storms we had were not time during my commute.

I did run into another problem. The City of Cedar Rapids apparently had decided that pavement is passé, and seems to be converting many streets in the Kenwood neighborhood into gravel roads. F Avenue, an almost unavoidable main road of my commute, has been closed for several days, and the alternative streets to the east all have fresh, loose gravel on them.

It's too loose for comfortable biking, that's for sure. And too many signs like the one below. Sigh.

Not exactly a bike friendly surface, although I’m been more worried about a sharp pebble flat than a spill—fortunately, Clarence is a very stable bike and I’m an old man biker—one skill we old man bikers have is we can balance when the bike is moving very slowly. Maybe a physics guy can explain it—does big guy equal big momentum equal stable biking at very low speeds, or am I just conditioned by years of slow biking to balance well while barely moving?

Anyway, I will be glad, I think, when the street work is done. But I hope they don’t convert too many of the streets I ride on. Gravel! In the midst of a city!

Not a fan.

Wednesday or Thursday? Foggy morning on the way to work, crossing MMU campus. Pretty sky, below, on Wednesday. Clouds sadly have brought too much rain to the area, but they can made the sky look nice.

In Which I Contemplate The Power of 40

Quite street during my afternoon ride Jan. 12. I think this is H Avenue. Note that despite the wet, which promises some ice issues that plagued my commute home Monday night, it's still refreshing to see pavement.

Sunday’s bike ride was an illustration of what a January thaw can do.

Just last week, most of the roads in the Kenwood neighborhood were covered in ice and snow. But by Sunday, when the sun peeked out now and then on a partly cloudy day, and when the temperature flirted with 40, all busy streets on my route were mostly bare pavement, while side streets has a mix of wet, slush and some ice--but were no longer covered completely in snow.

Riding conditions have vastly improved over last week. During my Sunday ride, on the way down to Mount Mercy University, right after crossing Collins Road on F Avenue, I saw two women jogging towards me. I idly wondered about whether it was worse to try to run on sometimes iffy streets than to bike on them—and, I have no idea what the answer is—when I noticed that I knew these two. They’re both MMU students. And they were at least 4 miles from campus.

H and maybe 37th Street? 38th? Not the busy one by Rockwell Collins, one street north. Some very cold looking water and ice--but most of the ride was better than this.

It was a fine afternoon for a longish run. I think both of these young women are on the track team, so maybe a 10-mile ride was just par, for them. I was glad that others were taking advantage of this spring-light break from our long, cold winter.

After I got to campus, I met a student at the campus newspaper office, and then spent some time working in a computer lab, printing papers to grade. By around 4:45 or so, I was ready to head home.

This is last week, Jan. 8,  just for contrast. Not sure of the street, but it is a quiet one in the Kenwood area, and yes, I rode my bike on this.

What a difference January makes. It’s the dead of winter, but there is change in the air. At 4:45, it’s no longer the dark night it as in late December—there is a bit of light until well after 5.

The sun is coming back. We even have a 40 degree day. Well, hooray for the change!

Miles today, Jan. 13: 12. Year-to-date total: 33. I won’t get many, or probably even any, more this week with snow forecast for Tuesday, but at least it’s nice to know that the white stuff can become wet stuff.

Here are some images from my ride home around 5 Sunday evening:

One of two new lights my wife got me for Christmas. The other, a red one, is on the rear of my helmet.

I'll use some sunset pictures from Jan. 13 on my other blog. This is Jan. 12 as I head out. In late December, it's full dark by 5. Nice to see you coming back to play in our sky, Mr. Sun!

The evening was so fair, I took the longer trail route home Sunday. Saw some joggers. These are not the two MMU students I wrote about, since I saw them on F avenue. This is the Cedar River Trail, and I did see several walkers, bikers and runners on the way home.

I don't think I'll be using the Harding Middle School bypass until there is a more sustained thaw. I briefly had to walk Francis around this ephemeral lake.

On the sidewalk at Noelridge Park, Sunday around 5:30. Still barely light enough to take a shaky photo with a long expsure. I think I caught all of the lights on Francis flashing--the smear of brighter white on the corner of the basket is the new light shown earlier.

Sunrise At Kenwood School

Sunrise in a cloudy sky this Monday.  Very pretty.

Yes, I know it’s been done—in fact, I did it myself last week—but please excuse yet one more picture of the morning sun at Kenwood School.

And, below, at the corner of 42nd Street and E Avenue, a bit north and a few minutes before the top photo.

Yes, it was a fine morning—warm compared to what we’ve had lately, lighter due to the weekend clock change and a bit damp.  Damp is not good news for a biker, but I can’t feel anything but good about wet in this drought year.

Happy Monday!  And welcome to the morning light/afternoon dark season.  I’ll be using my lights pretty much every day for the afternoon commute, and the midday sun will continue its cruise to southern climes.  Well, I hope Paraguay won’t feel too baked as they enter their late spring, early summer time in the southern hemisphere—Jon, is there any chance you’ll eventually get a bike down there?  For us in the north, we’re n the dark phase of the year.

Dark, but still practical for this bicycle rider until the ice and snow come.  Let us hope there’s not too much of that—even if I do like H2O from the sky!

Sideways, blogger, really?  The photo is not that way on my computer.  Anyway, sunrise at 42nd Street and E Avenue.