It rained last night. I heard it at times, but slept through most of it.

The forecast for today was supposed to be pretty nice. I woke up to wet roads. I figured it was just residual moisture from the rain during the night. Seeing as I had to ride 20+ miles today I opted to take the road bike without fenders. I figured that the roads would be drying out soon and I would be fine without the protection. My first stop of the day was about 4 miles from home, so I just wore my work clothes.

Well, once I was rolling the pavement was a lot wetter than it had looked. Misjudgement, but it didn't seem necessary for me to return home and re-pack to take my hybrid with fenders. I rode slow, just below the point where I could see my front tire starting to spray water. I didn't want to get my work clothes any dirtier than necessary. I decided I'd rather be a few minutes late than covered in slop.

Once I came down out of the hills where I live and got on the MUP by the river it really sank in how much it had rained during the night. There was lots of flooding. The river had risen by at least 4 feet above normal and in many spots overflowed its banks onto the MUP.

Whenever possible, I went around the flooding. Sometimes I could just ride through grassy areas, but sometimes I had to dismount and walk/carry my bike through some unpaved areas that weren't ridable. In a few spots there wasn't any way around the flooding, but the water level was only a few inches deep (and was completely still with no current) so I just rode as slow as possible through it.

Unfortunately I judged one spot incorrectly. The path went down below a bridge carrying a major street. There was about 30 foot stretch of water under the bridge. I considered leaving the MUP and crossing the street on foot, but there wasn't a light/crosswalk and the traffic looked pretty heavy. I decided the water under the bridge couldn't be that deep as I rode that route often and don't remember it being unusually low in that spot.

Wrong. I got out in the middle of it and realized it was much deeper than I had guessed. The water was up over my bottom bracket (rats) and my feet got soaked.

Thankfully I had a spare pair of socks available at work. Unfortunately they are white and don't match my business attire. But they're dry so I'll deal with the fashion faux pas to not walk around squishy all morning.