Today’s heat index finally quit at 103 degrees. At some point after that, with the daylight fading and things still as sticky as possible, I set out for a little bike ride.
And this is how you know it is hot and humid. Usually, because of the speed and the wind … let me rephrase … because of the “speed” and the wind you don’t feel a lot of sweat. For a person that can sweat a fair amount, this was a weird sensation to grow used to. I could be out on an extremely hot day and, aside from a bit of it getting into my eyes, I never seemed to sweat — at least until I got home.
About halfway through today’s short little ride, though, I noticed that every inch of my clothing and most of my skin was covered in perspiration. The dew point and the humidity were the same. There was nowhere for the moisture to go.
Not too long after that I ran across this sign. I was on one of the usual roads, and they’d been advertising this closing, so it was not a surprise.
Today might have been the first day of the closure, which was supposed to begin yesterday. And here I remembered one of the many virtues of the bike. I can go where a car can’t go.
The work has something to do with an overpass. In addition to the closure and detour signs, and the barrels, they’ve got barriers up on either side of the bridge. Presently, they are set up to allow a zig-zag access, presumably for the heavy equipment that should be arriving tomorrow or the next day. I suppose you can still get through there in a car, but you’d have to work at it. I didn’t have to slow down.
I might have sped up on the overpass, though. Who knows why they’ve got that bit of the road closed.
Anyway, it was a usual route, one that has the benefit of being well-defined, and quite in the evening. It’s easy to race the darkness on a route you know well.
Here’s a bit of it I don’t think I’ve photographed before. That’s probably not my fault, it’s the asphalt.
There was no wind for this ride. Not even a breeze. And it seems that I can still do an almost decent ride when I’m not battling the breeze. My computer was pleased. Pleased to be going fast for once.
That’s not fast, but respectable by my standards; I’ll take it. I’d take a little cooler weather, but I’m not going to get that in the near future.
