Meh, what do those weather geeks know

Yeah, yeah, chance of rain this afternoon.  Ok, we get it: afternoon and evening thunder showers, lots of moisture, unstable atmosphere, yada blah blah.  Promises, promises.  That’s what you said yesterday and my yard is still drying up.

It was very humid this afternoon as I headed down to Yellow Bike.  Lots of puffy white clouds, some starting to build vertically.  Barely a hint of wind.  As the shop progressed I began to see less blue and more white.  Hmmm…maybe those TV weather dudes got it right.  Towards the end of my shop I noticed the northern sky was all clouds and they were less white than menacing black and gray.  This could be interesting.

That’s what I get for making fun of Mother Nature

Yesterday we had similar threatening skies but it was all bluster and thunder.  A few drops at most.  I called Mother Nature a tease and dared her to storm on me (doing my best John Cassavetes “show me the magic” imitation.  I didn’t think she heard me or decided to ignore the puny mortal grousing about drought.

Well she didn’t ignore me. I’ve done a few stupid things in my life.  For example:

• jumping out of perfectly good airplanes with nothing to break my fall but a 28 foot diameter piece of nylon.
• or doing an entire training flight with my ejection seat not armed
• or trying to make a jigsaw puzzle out of a 30 million dollar aircraft by flying too low (my wingman said my aircraft and its shadow appeared to merge on the water)
• or earning college money fighting forest fires

The list goes on.  But it’s really not too smart to call out Mother Nature.  Sometimes her sense of humor is a little hard to figure out (or survive).

I thought I could beat the storm home.  It looked to be well to the north.  Had I only read the text message my wife sent me about it already storming at home, I might have made other choices.  I knew I was in trouble when I began to see roll clouds form and I got the first taste of cooler air from the storm outflow.  Oops.

I’ve seen heavier rains than what I pedaled through but I’m having trouble remembering exactly when and where.  Philippines ’85 comes to mind.

Hey bikes don’t melt in the rain, who knew

This was a baptism for Thorpe.  He’s been in light rain before.  But this was standing-water-in-the-streets-simultaneous-lightning-and-thunder-Mother-Nature-showing-Old-Guy rain.  He handled it well.  Will need to do a light cleaning and put fresh lube in places.  But it was a fun ride despite the 20 pounds of water I was carrying in my clothes and the dumbfounded looks from the cagers.  I did get two big thumbs up from some guy running along Grover.  I rang my bike bell and returned his thumbs up.  Both of us grinning like idiots.

I must remember to carry a cycle cap.  My helmet doesn’t have a visor.