09 August 2015

Past The Max

Today I rode to test a new electronic device and, well, ride.  It was a perfect day for both.



But I had to test the electronic device before I could out of the house, let alone get on my bike.  To be fair, Max has never given me as hard a time as former partners, roommates and others (including an ex-spouse) have about going out without them.


He didn't say "Vous ne passerez pas!" mainly because he doesn't speak French (though he understands some).  But he insisted that my first photo on my new camera would be a portrait of him.





Anyway... Today was another near-perfect day for a ride. The temperature reached 30C (86F), but it dropped as I neared the water.  The humidity was low and the clouds were high and sparse.

Actually, I didn't take a direct path to the water:  I wandered through various parts of Queens and Nassau County before heading toward the southern bays of Long Island.



For a moment, I wondered whether those folks might be in trouble.  I couldn't see what, if anything, was propelling their watercraft.  (I'm not sure of whether to call it a boat or something else.)  From my admittedly limited perspective, they didn't seem to be in any distress.   

One thing about the ocean: It's pretty easy to tell whether the tide is in or out, and its clock, if you will, is fairly predictable.  On the other hand, the bays and inlets from East Rockaway to Freeport can ebb or swell in an instant, and the tides and currents seem to have even more random effects than those of the ocean.  You can see the results of what I'm talking about in the waterfront residential areas:  One home seems to have been untouched by Superstorm Sandy or any other natural phenomenon, while a house next to it looks, nearly three years after the storm, as if it's being held up by the boards nailed over its windows and doorways.





On this day, however, almost nothing besides those houses even hinted at one of the worst natural disasters this area has experienced in its recorded history.  Looking at the sky and the sunlight, such a catastrophe doesn't even seem possible, let alone probable.



Vera knows all about those things, but she rode like a magic carpet.  She almost always does.

P.S.:  I bought the camera because of something I'm going to talk about a couple of posts from now.

 

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