Best Portrait

This photo sums me up in so many ways. Thanks to the nice stranger who was there to step in as I tried self-portraiture after riding 100 miles.

Downpour

Fast-moving thunderstorms are not uncommon in Nebraska. I thought I could beat the one that blew through this morning. I packed my toast & peanut butter breakfast, left my coffee unfinished, and headed out the door as the weirdly-golden sky changed to sprinkles.

Then utter downpour, with 50 mph wind gusts and pea-sized hail to boot. The streets were washed out, I saw a few branches fall, but I kept on going, fearing worse -- possibly larger hail.

Arriving at the NSOB

Helmets are good for more than protection from falls. The worst hailstone hit was in the pit of my elbow. That stung.


It's not so easy to see, but I poured a nice lake out of my shoes. I also wrung my pants out of their dripping wetness. Good thing my trusty Re-Load kept my change of clothes (and I brought a change of everything, mind you) and my camera high & dry.

By the time I'd changed, the sun was out again.

Now, at 8:30 PM, it's still 88 degrees, and the heat index has finally dropped from 103 an hour ago to 99. Allegedly, we're rocking a dew point second only to Miami.

Thunderstormy Sunday

Becca & I went down to the Mill this morning for some coffee and rainwatching on the dock.


The streetlights kept coming on and off as the sky darkened and lightened. Very subtly, though, making me wish I'd had my proper video camera for a longer timelapse.

Yum, creole lait & a honey peanut muffin. Before we left, I indulged in the last copy they had of the NYT. I'm about 2/3 through the Sunday crossword, and missing Sunday Club.

Wildlife Ride & Dinner

Jennie & I felt the need to mellow out yesterday afternoon, so we went for a nice little ride to Roca. It was a journey filled with wildlife.

First, and most exciting, my foot was a mere couple of inches from a huge snake. We screamed for a good long while and I didn't have it in me, as much as I wanted a photo, to go back and pull out my camera. I looked it up today, and I'm quite certain it was a young common kingsnake.

(image: UNL IANR Snake Key)

If it was, it likely wouldn't have done me any harm, but I wasn't about to go near a snake I couldn't identify.

A mile or so further down the trail, we encountered 3 young deer, and one stood on the trail until we got quite close while the others bounced through the woods alongside us. A bit later, we saw a large wild tom turkey in a fallow field, fanning out his tail feathers.

As we got closer to Roca, it started to rain a little; it felt great, seeing as though it was 89 degrees out. We paused at Roca Road and were debating whether to check out the Roca Tavern or not when a major strike of lightning and a booming, long thunderclap convinced us that a pitstop was probably in order. Soaked and colder, we sat down for a couple red beers.



After the rain passed, we headed back into a strong, cold headwind. On the way back, we saw bunnies, another deer, and several varieties of birds, of course.

Dinner: trout with kale, tortilla español, and ice cream with raspberries.

First Tornado/Thunderstorm of 2009

I have what would best be described as a morbid fascination with tornadoes. As a child, I got extremely upset when everyone went outside as Ken Siemeck implored us to get in our basements. I had a little suitcase packed full of my favorite matchbox cars, die cast John Deere implements, and maybe a doll or other trinket that I could take into the fruit room with me at a moment's notice. Though we lived in Lincoln, we spent most of the summer on the farm, taking care of the garden & haying; for my brother & I, this also involved the creation of elaborate games with elaborate rules & generally getting into trouble. On the farm, the nearest tornado siren was in Emerald, a solid 4 miles away and hard to hear. The notion that the sirens might be going off and we couldn't even hear them??? Terrifying. (As of a few years ago, there's one at the lake, so this wouldn't be a problem anymore. Not consequently, I now enjoy watching the sky.)

But I loooove a good thunderstorm. I missed them thoroughly in New England. Now, March 23 seems a little early, but we had our first tornado warning today (a brief blast of the sirens, even), in what was a narrow, windy & fast-moving band of storms. It's snowing in Scottsbluff. I managed to bike home in the 10 minutes where it really poured. Right before I left my office, though, it was sunny & there was a rainbow.


Note, however, the extremely windblown flags. The state flag has even been wrapped around the pole a few times.

memorially riding day bikes

This morning, Felice, Mathias, and I headed out on city trails for a good long ride. Near my house, we saw lots of downed trees from last night's storm.



The 60+ mph wind gusts made the trees look like this, even with a fast shutter speed. My neighbor, however, was so committed to finishing her yard work that she was out with her LEAF BLOWER.

Once we got into the suburbs, the erosive properties of new development and empty lots filled the underpasses with an inch of mud.

Levels of bike gear appropriateness for conditions:

Mathias -- Kona dr. dew with disc brakes, off-road tires
Felice -- Surly cross check with fenders, cross tires
Me -- Bertoni roadie, slick tires

I managed to stay on the bike through it all, but at the end of the trail, as we walked up the 30 or so feet to the street, both Felice and I got so much mud caked to our brake calipers/fenders that our wheels no longer rotated. As we pulled off handfuls of mud, Mathias threw more at us. About a mile later, on another mud slick, we considered going mud sliding on the sidewalk along 84th street. We chose to throw mud at each other instead.

Once we got home, I was too Germanically driven to clean off my bike to take photos of the muddiness. Apologies. Here's video of the tree in my front yard, instead.


Wind Storm from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

Training Week: Ride #1

View Larger Map

Google's new map embed feature is still a little unironed, seeing as though my initial plotted map showed us going straight down 14th Street, not onto Warlick and Hwy 77 -- well, also, not to mention the bike paths we went on can't be selected -- but this is a pretty good sketch of last night's training ride.

Felice and I left shortly after 5 in oppressive humidity and rush hour traffic, had spectacular views of clouds at the crest of 40th and Saltillo Road, and then headed back into Lincoln, only to be completely overpowered by an incredibly fast-moving and powerful thunderstorm. With branches falling and the suddenly cold wind whipping into our tires, we took shelter with the remainders of kiddie football practice at Tierra Park, then waited for a ride (the coaches adopted us a little, making sure we had one coming) from Ande as rain poured, winds gusted to 80 mph, and golf ball sized hail pounded down. When Ande did arrive, we loaded the bikes in the downpour, hail pinging off my helmet, then drove slowly back through neighborhoods darkened by power outages, dodging massive fallen tree limbs.