The local forecasters are saying that tonight we're going to have the coldest weather we've had for this date in at least forty years. The temperature is supposed to fall to 27 degrees here; with the wind-chill, the "real-feel" temperature will be 20 or less.
Now, if I were in New York, I probably wouldn't give a second thought to this weather. But I'm in Florida. Granted, it's about an hour and a half northeast of Orlando, but still...
I guess this weather is Floridian compared to what they're having in New York and, in fact, just about all of the Eastern seabord north of Savannah, GA. And I did get out for a brief ride this afternoon. Although it was still chilly and breezy, there was scarcely a cloud in the sky. Plus, I saw very little traffic. On the other hand, I did see lots of pine trees. I've nothing against them, but after an hour of seeing little else, they can get monotonous. Perhaps I wouldn't have felt that way if they were magnolias or some other trees I don't normally see.
The other day, I described the apparent lack of commuter and utility cyclists in these parts. That leads to drivers, whether intentionally or not, riding close to cyclists or turning into an intersection as a cyclist crosses. To be fair, the latter may be due to the faulty timing of traffic signals.
Those same motorists, once they leave their steel cocoons, can be very pleasant and polite, or even charming. I encountered one such driver today: He made an uncomfortably close turn and, upon noticing me, rolled his eyes and said "Dang!" or something stronger. As his window was closed and my lip-reading skills are only slightly better than my navigational or computational skills, I can't be entirely sure.
Anyway, I stopped in "Monkey," one of a local chain of 7-11 type gas stations/convenience stores, to use their bathroom. On the way out, I picked up a pack of Crysto-Mint Life Savers. As I walked up to the counter, that same man was chatting with the cashier. He turned and, upon seeing me, drawled, "How d'ya do, ma'am?"
"Oh, very well, thank you. Lovely day, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is, ma'am. I hope you're having a nice holiday."
"Why, thank you. And I hope you're having the same."
When I used to come down here in boy-drag, I found that some of the young good ol' boys would run me almost off the road and whoop, yell or make comments about my obvious Yankee-ness. Ironically, I was born in Georgia, though I spent only the first five months of my life there. My father was stationed there with the Strategic Air Command, and during my infancy, they moved him, my mother and me back to New York.
In the visits I've made since becoming Justine, I find that the motorists act more out of neglect or ignorance, or an unconscious sense of entitlement, than out of outright hostility than they did when I was Nick. And, in my days as the "before" photo, people were invariably polite and often friendly when they encountered me off my bike. Now, I still find most of them polite and friendly, though some men are what some would characterise as chauvinistic and sometimes solicitous.
These experiences remind me of what someone once told me: In Florida, South is North and North is South. Down to about Orlando, it's very much like one encounters in Georgia or Alabama. But much of the area south of Epcot Center has been colonized by Yankees and Quebecois.
But as far as today's weather goes, North is North, all right.
This week, I'm posting from a computer that's not my own. So, for some reason, I'm not able to include more than one photo in any given posting.
That's a shame, because even the two relatively brief rides I've done since arriving here have given me opportunities to seem like I'm a better photographer than I actually am!
As you can see, Christmas Day was a nice time to be at the beach. Today, not so much. Maybe they flew to Bermuda and are celebrating Boxing Day.
No, I'm not taking a cycling trip in France with a stop in Giverny. (I did that once, though!) This is a good bit closer to home and family. And I am in a place whose name begins with an "F."
And, much to my delight, I've found one of the best walking/cycling trails I've seen in a while. Perhaps even more gratifyingly, it was built within the past two years, in a place with a terribly depressed economy.
Think of the places in the US that have been left on the verge of asphyxiation since the housing bubble burst. I'm in one of them right now: a county with an official unemployment rate of 18 percent. That's where I'm going to be this week.
Yes, I am in Florida. The weather was warm today, and I overdressed a bit when I rode. I guess I was expecting a repeat of yesterday's weather, which was cooler. Before I came here, Mom and Dad relayed some details of the coldest December this area has experienced in the time they've been living here, and for many years before that. As an example, my mother said, oranges fell off the tree in their yard because they'd frozen.
Well, whatever it's been here, it's still not Bedford Falls. Last night, I watched It's A Wonderful Life with Mom and Dad. It's the first time in many years that I've seen the movie. It's actually a rather good movie; it is cloying and sentimental, which, I suppose, a holiday movie should be, at least if its makers want to have a large audience. And it does make a timely and timeless point about the human condition. However, even though it was worth seeing again, I can't honestly say that I saw anyone or anything in it differently than I did when I last saw it. Then again, maybe I'm not supposed to. After all, we're not talking about Othello, from which I learned a few new things when I taught it this semester.
About the bike riding here: There are actually a pretty fair number of dedicated cycling/pedestrian paths that are set off from the main roads. In fact, one starts just down the road from my parents' house. The problem with them, as in so many other places, is that they begin and end abruptly, and pick up in other places. Such has been the case since I first came here seventeen years ago.
It is perhaps the most frustrating in my favorite place to ride around here. Route A-1A skirts the ocean from Marineland to Daytona Beach. (It may go further in either direction; I know only about the stretch I've mentioned--and cycled.) It's as beautiful a ride as one can find anywhere, but it's narrow and full of turns. And some drivers see cyclists as obstacles--to what, I don't know--even when we're nowhere near them. Of course, that's no different from the situation in so many other places. But it's frustrating, and even dangerous, to be cycling along a dedicated path that ends abruptly and to have to pedal out onto a roadway where drivers aren't anticipating you.
I guess the situation I've described is a result of two things. One is that most of the drivers don't use that road on a daily basis, so they have no way of knowing what to expect. The other has to do with the fact that almost no one here cycles for transportation. I've seen a pretty fair number of cyclists in the times I've visited, but they were all riding for recreation. Of course, I'm not knocking that: After all, that's what I was doing, too. But, having spent most of my life in urban areas, and much of that time in communities where significant numbers of people pedal to work, shop, go to school, visit museums and to other daily activites, I am convinced that unless there is a critical mass, if you will, of cyclo-commuters, non-cyclists will treat cyclists out of ignorance or with disrespect, or even hostility. Lycra-clad racers and wannabes, of which I was both for long periods of my life, do nothing to change motorists' attitudes about cycling and cyclists.
Now I realize I've stumbled over one of the great paradoxes of cycling in America. The places where people would most want to ride are the ones with the least (or non-existent) cycling culture. On the other hand, the places where there are the largest numbers of people who use their bikes for transportation are the most congested and polluted, not to mention the sorts of places where people wouldn't choose to take a cycling trip.
Then again, Monet and other artists often had to get away from the art world in order to create their best work. Would he have come here? With his bike or on it?
