Consecutive bicycle work commute number 800. That's a nice round number.
Crazy ride today. We had more storms last night, which thankfully didn't include more tornados. It did, however, include about 4 inches more rain.
I ran into some flooding blocking the road under a railroad trestle, so I back tracked and carried my bike up over the ridge where the tracks were. Once I made it back down the other side, I looked 100 yards down the road and saw my friend @
labrat doing the exact same thing. I started riding towards him and he hollered to get my attention, not immediately recognizing me. He was going to tell me that the MUP was blocked in the direction I was heading due to some downed trees.
Once I got closer he saw who I was and we chatted for a bit about the best alternate route to get to work. We decided to ride the opposite direction up the MUP and take the old railroad bridge across the river, then head up 24th street which is a nice quiet residential route. Before we got to the old railroad bridge, though, we ran into more flooding. So we had to re-evaluate again.
I proposed one route which was a little quieter, but would have added quite a bit of length to our already lengthened commute. Scott decided he was going to head up 26th street, which is one of the busiest arteries on this end of the city. I decided to go with him. Thankfully we only had to go about 1/4 mile on this busy street until we got over the interstate, and then could turn and take side streets. However, because of road construction the busy street was down to one lane in either direction with no shoulder, so we had to ride as fast as we could up the big hill over the overpass. I got pretty winded.
Once we were off the main road things calmed down a bit and we chatted as we rode. About four miles he reached his work, so I bid him farewell and finished riding about 5.5 more miles to our office.
This route took me through an area that had received a direct hit from the tornado. The pictures I took yesterday were nothing compared to the destruction I saw this morning. Entire buildings have been destroyed. That's rotten to think of all the people who lost their businesses and their jobs overnight.
After a little more than an hour I finally made it to the office. Normally it takes me about 35 minutes. Given that 800 commutes is a nice round number I snapped a photo to commemorate the event:
