Man oh man, where to begin...

Last Thursday was quite insane. There was the threat of rain, so I had the fenders on the bike ready to go. I was up at 5 AM, looking at the radar. There was some rain nearby, so I figured I could beat it to work. And so I did, barely.

This pic is from about 3 or 4 miles away from the office:


LITERALLY 10 seconds after getting under the front porch at the office, the sky just opened up. And it rained, and it rained, and it rained some more. 10 inches in some places of the county, they said. Flooding everywhere. Homes and cars destroyed. Thankfully my home and office are both on somewhat high spots.

By the time I was ready to leave, the rain had moved out, and the water receded. I took another pic on the way home of a creek, just to the left of the pic above. This is normally just a trickle of a stream, at least 8 to 10 feet lower than the water seen here:



I rode past lots of areas that flooded. One area I ride in the morning has the entire street covered in dirt, and lots of nasty, wet building materials piled outside all the houses. I really feel bad for those folks.

Tuesday must have been uneventful, I can't remember much about it.

Yesterday was a b*tch. I overslept, and instead of leaving around 6 AM it was more like 6:40. However it was still pretty uneventful. Yesterday afternoon was a WHOLE different story! I normally leave the office around 4:30-4:45, but this time I didn't get underway until about 5:10.

Now I always ride as visible and safely as possible, with 2/3 of my route on 2-lane rural roads, mostly with little traffic. Before yesterday I could count on one hand the number of cars that have buzz passed me this year. But yesterday I must have had 7 or 8 cars either do a split-lane pass with me riding lane center or left of center, people flipping me off, honking, coming REAL CLOSE behind me and then flooring it into the next lane to pass me, etc. I don't know if it was the later time of me leaving or what. It really was insanity.