Weather watching

There's another aspect of the experience that I lost contact with over the dark season.  Today I renewed my acquaintance with obsessive weather watching by tuning in the Weather Channel just before noon for Live on the 8s.  It was 59 at noon with high winds predicted for later on in the day and a shift in the weather pattern.  It wasn't totally the news about today that got me going though.  High temperature predicted for tomorrow is only 47.  I checked the newspaper and the average for today is 41 so that makes tomorrow still a pretty nice day when compared to the average.  But a crummy day when compared to today and when tomorrow's predicted north winds at 20 to 30 mph are also considered.

Plus, once having ridden, it seems like a good time to try to ride again.

The wind came up fairly early in the ride.

Who doesn't love the cows but what you got there in the background is a student flying a kite.  True the kite has temporarily crashed to the ground and stayed there long enough that I despaired of him getting the kite back in the air for the photo that I was imagining.  Demonstrative of the wind, however, is the fact that master kiteman didn't have to walk all the way over to the kite.  He just tugged on the string until the lift surfaces of the kite got reoriented to the desired into the wind configuration and up it went.  It takes a strong breeze to do that and today we had it.

I got down into the Fairgrounds.  I was intrigued when four identical white trucks passed by in front of me so I turned in the direction from whence they had come to investigate.

This is the second instance in the last few years of large fleets of identical trucks being stored in a Fairgrounds parking lot.

It isn't the same group this time though as the last time they were Fords and this bunch is Chevys.

I circled out of the grounds and headed back north into the by now punitive wind.  I thought I might try for a few more miles than yesterday but it was HARD.  I got as far as the Library and turned it around.

So that's south as far as the Fairgrounds and north as far as the Library.  Certainly nothing epic but a satisfying two miles more today than yesterday.

I opened up my BikeLog and did some poking around.  This is the first time for any miles whatsoever in March since 2012.  I got in a ride on the 11th that year when the notes column indicates an all time record high temperature for that date of 66.  Rain on the 12th and then 60s and 70s for the next three days followed by hockey.  So an early start but not anything particularly historic.  Today after I got home I went to the bakery and the grocery store and it was actually kind of fun walking around a bit rubber legged.  The ride was hard but hard is at least part of the point and today it feels just fine.