Well, last night's rain turned all those beautiful crunchy autumn leaves to a slimmy, slippery mess. It wasn't raining when I started out this morning... in fact it was pretty nice. I could see the almost full moon glowing through the clouds. Things quickly changed as I rode to work.

First I caught my pant cuff in my sprocket and tore my pants.
Everyone who lives between me and work must have raked their yards last night and shoved them out into the street...in MY bike lane. I had to ride in the road most of the way. Light traffic made that not too bad.
Then, about a mile out, it started to rain. Not just a little light rain, but drops that stung when they hit. I had to take my glasses of to see.
Then as I was almost to work... about 1/2 mile...it happened.
I saw a car in the bike lane 100 yards ahead. It was just sitting there, motor running, lights on. I knew someone was in it so I used caution as I approched. There was no traffic so I pulled out wide to go around the "soccer mom van" (should have been my first clue) right across the street from the school bus stop (clue number two). As I got even with the back bummper of the car a kid stepped right out in front of me from in front of the car. I yelled "yo,yo,yo!!!" and at the same time his friend, from across the street yelled, "Dude, stop there's a bike!"
He stopped. Right in front of me...kind of like a deer in the headlights. I swerved left and just missed him. I was close enough that I could have reached out and smacked him on the side of the head...which is what I should have done....but then his mom would have run me over in her soccer mom van. Oh well, I made it to work in one piece.
You can't have adventures like this in a car!

The ride home was dry and uneventful.