In Which I Take Two Damp Final Rides

View of MMU campus as I cross Rohde Plaza on Francis this morning.

Not final forever, I hope. But snow, snow, snow tomorrow—and by the time the streets of CR are passable again, at least three days, maybe more with the cold coming and the lack of snow removal on residential streets, plus the fact that I’m out of town at the end of the week … well, no more riding this week.

Still, it was not bad work for a winter week, since I got an extra ride in Sunday.

The morning ride was a bit dicey due to ice. Several cars were slipping around corners, and it was the kind of damp morning where it was hard to distinguish the wet from the slick. My wife and daughter left before I did, or I might have changed my mind about biking, but by the time I got Francis out of the garage, bicycling was the only way to go.

Along one street, a man was pitching ice form a storm drain into the street. I suppose it was civic minded of him to clear the drain (or he didn’t want his driveway any more iced in), but the transit of little burgs, especially since it was on a downhill stretch of road, made life briefly more exciting than need be.

Still, despite the grey morning, I made it OK. The ride home was just as damp, but fortunately warm enough that the cars were no longer ominously sliding all around.

It’s probably good I biked. After the Iowa Caucuses, we celebrated with cookies and ice cream. I was burning the calories in advance.

Just getting ready to leave plaza for ride down walkway to Warde Hall. No, I did not strike the students in the walk, but rode very slowly and allowed them to proceed.

In Which I Dodge Pickups In The Mist

Dripping bike spokes at Warde Hall bike rack. Not my bike--I parked inside.

It was quite foggy this morning. I didn’t ride yesterday due to rain, but decided to chance the morning mist.

Well, I rode with lights on, but didn’t have any dicey moments. A student who drives down 380 from north told me she feared for her life at one point, due to thick fog that prevented her from seeing traffic as she barreled down the autobahn.

Me, I tool along quite residential streets at modest speed. The fog limited visibility, but didn’t make the world invisible. I had to stop three times to take out my handkerchief and wipe my glasses, but that was all.

Corner of C and Blair's Ferry this morning at 8 a.m. Time for lights.

Web I saw leaving house.
Don't fret, sister, no spider.

The air was actually fairly pleasant. When wet air is warm, as in a summer afternoon when both the temperature and humidity are above 90, it feels “used,” almost like you’re sharing the breath of a warm-blooded, and very damp, dragon. When wet air is cool, high 40s, for instance, and there is a mist in it, it moistens the nasal passages and feels a bit refreshing going down. It was that kind of morning.

When I got to work, I parked inside. I though water might collect on Francis otherwise, and the drops on a bike parked in the bike rack seem to substantiate my conjecture.

I’ll put some chain lube on when I get home this afternoon, but for the most part, the damp ride wasn’t as wet as I thought it might be, nor as scary as it could have been.

And it was nice to back on the bike.

Thursday--sunset. My wife and I are out on a stroll. the clouds start to break up, but overnight they will return at surface level. Not foggy, but cloudy at noon on Friday.

The World Emerges Slowly

Looking down MMU hill after I've locked my bike to a damp rack this morning.  Lights disappear in the mist.

A bicycle ride on a cool foggy morning:  The world is more acoustic than visual.  The lights of the street and cars are smears in yellows and whites, and shapes of trees, signs, houses emerge as if they were being extruded from some world-making machine.  Did I remember my towel?  Can I come up with the question for which the answer is 42?

Because the world is so visually muted, you almost expect sounds to be also muted, too, but it is not so.  There is a strange quiet to the morning commute, but it’s because most cars crawl along a bit, drivers straining to see beyond the grey barrier.  All except for that one jerk in the ugly black SUV who zooms across lanes and careens around the corner of Blairs Ferry and C Avenue.  I hope he emerges from the fog in the neighborhood of a police cruiser, and they stop his sorry butt.

A poet once said that fog comes in on little cat feet.  Carl Sandburg was wrong, of course.  Little cats are rambunctious and their feet go “thump, thump, thump.”  Fog comes on old cat feet, sneaking round like the old Tom who doesn’t want to arouse interest from those darn youngsters, and say away from my food bowl or you’ll find out my clawless front feet can still cuff you pretty hard.

I was a bit concerned about the commute this morning.  Of course, I ran with lights on and didn’t need sunglasses.  I have to cross several busy streets.  But, while the mist shrouded the world, it was a veil, not pea soup.  I could see well enough and the cars were going slow enough that it was actually one of the easiest rides I’ve had.

The misty air settled on me a bit, and I felt damp.  But I’ve had days where I had to stop to wipe my glasses.  This morning wasn’t like that.  The fog just added a bit of mystery to the ride, and the cool air felt pleasant, despite the damp.

Maybe I Need a Fog Horn?

The ride this morning was a big foggy, damp and cool—that special cool that seems to seep in when it’s wet.

Fortunately, it wasn’t really all that cool, and my old “Mount Mercy College” sweatshirt that I like to wear to Mount Mercy University is warm enough that I briefly debated whether I needed it in this weather.

I did.

Did not run with lights, though.  My bright vest, I thought, was bright enough, and cars no had trouble seeing me.

I’m not sure how much bike commuting I’ll do this week.  There are thunderstorms in the forecast pretty much every day but today.

On the other hand, it’s the nature of summer storms to blow through.  Despite being on the cusp of May, we're having early summer weather here in Iowa.  I’m not sure it’s supposed to settle in and rain all day on any day this week--just afternoon storms fueled by summer-like humidity, sunshine and temperatures.

Maybe I’ll just have to keep the chain lube handy and time my commute.  We’ll see.

I love this fog picture, from Mundoo on flickr.  It was taken this month in Australia.  Our Iowa fog isn’t quite that pretty, and visibility was a bit better in Iowa this morning ….

An Additional Thought ...

My sister Toni posted this for me on Facebook, it's was posted by a friend of hers, Marc Zappa. What is it? Mt. Rushmore from the Canadian point of view.

As all my CR Biker posts do (just to prevent blog traffic to this site), my "butt" post from the weekend showed up on my Facebook page as a "note."

I've never understood why WordPress has such a logical connection to Facebook--why that site automatically posts an attractive link to a blog post, but not the whole post--while Blogger seems to have designed it's Facebook connection to depress blog traffic. Then again, why is there only one "blog of note" each day on Blogger while an attractive menu of 11 new blogs is suggested every day by WordPress?

Hmmm.

Anyway, it was a wet and wild ride this morning with fog clinging to my glasses as I peered through the mist hoping to avoid being smashed by a car. Luck (and light traffic on the back streets I commute on) and my battery-powered lights were with me.

When I got here, I saw that my butt post had appeared on Facebook, where it drew a few comments. Funniest was the picture, posted by my sister Toni, shown above. Warmed my fog-chilled heart.