Yesterday I rode into stiff wind, though sunshine breaking through trees and opening clouds over the sea. Then, as I had the wind at my back, a curtain of clouds drew across the sun and darkened, and I got caught in the kind of late-afternoon downpour this part of Florida experiences in summer. Then again, by that time, the temperature, at about 27C, or 80 F.
Today I pedaled about the same distance--about 100 kilometers--as I did yesterday, but in the opposite direction. I did that on purpose: The wind, not quite as stiff as yesterday's, was blowing from the north instead of the south. That is probably what dropped the temperature by about 17 degrees Celsius to about 10 C, or 50F.
The sky and sea even looked colder:
I never saw that kind of light before in Florida--not even at the place in the photos: Matanzas Bay, where it enters the ocean.
Under that light I pedaled, against the wind but full of good energy, all the way up Route A1A to the Bridge of Lions, which leads to the historic center of St. Augustine:
I think the temperature dropped by another 10 degrees Celsius when I crossed the bridge. At least, it felt that way, even after I pedaled to the old fort.
I must say, though, it's a lovely place, even when it's (comparatively) cold and still full of tourists.
And, yes, the skies cleared for my ride back to my parents' house. And I had the wind at my back.
Since I've come to Florida, I think I've seen every kind of weather one can find when the temperature is above freezing. Today, I thought I was entering a path of sunshine.
Light and warmth threaded through those tree limbs and filled the sky as I rode the Lehigh Trail, which begins about two kilometers from my parents' house and extends for five kilos to Colbert Road, which leads to SR 100 and the bridge to Flagler Beach.
There are few things in this world that I love more than descending a bridge to an ocean I can see on the horizon
even if I turn right at the end of the bridge and pedal 50 kilometers straight into a 30 kilometer per hour wind that, at moments, gusted to 40 KPH.
I mean, how could I complain when my ride was filled with the wind, the light and the hiss of the ocean--which meant that they were filling me>
Like Flagler Beach yesterday and today, Daytona Beach did not lack for people walking along the sand on the warm day. At Flagler and Daytona, however, swimming was not allowed. No one was allowed even to enter any of the beaches along the 50 or so kilometers of Atlantic Coast between them.
After savoring two of mom's meatball sandwiches and polishing them off with some strawberries and a mandarin orange, I started my ride back. After the ride down, it was almost too easy: the wind I'd fought on the way down was blowing at my back. But that wind also brought something else:
gray clouds thickening ahead of me. The fact that I was riding about as fast as my body could move the ballon-tired beach cruiser under it meant that I could ride right into the rain.
Which is what happened after I turned left from the Flagler Beach pier onto the SR 100 bridge. After climbing away from the ocean and descending on the "mainland", a cascade dropped from the sky on me. There was no prelude of light showers gradually turning to rain; that storm dropped straight on me. It was like the "instant storms" that often soak this area, momentarily, late on summer afternoons. The difference was that this storm didn't include lightning and thunder. But it ended about halfway into the Lehigh Trail--about fifteen minutes before I got to my parents' house.
The rain that pattered the canal yesterday turned, for a time, into a barrage last night. When I woke this morning, raindrops were poking ephemeral pockmarks in the face of the water.
But, by the time Dr. Phil's show ended (Yes, I watched it with my mother and father.), the rain had stopped and the sun looked like it was trying to wedge itself between clouds. I got on the bike a while later, and the clouds closed ranks on the sun. Still, I managed to ride along some trails to the Palm Coast Parkway Bridge, where the scene changed just a bit.
Of course, when you see something on your left, you look to your right. Or is it the other way around? Who told me that, anyway?
In any event, I looked to my left and saw this:
I thought, for a moment, it was sea mist. After I descended the bridge and turned onto the Route A1A bike/pedestrian lane, it thickened faster than the makeup of a reality TV star.
The shrouded area is known as Painters Hill. It's a very lovely area where, on many a day, breezes skip across sea oats and other grasses and shrubs on the dunes that line the ocean. I would have loved to see how a painter might have rendered it in the light I saw today.
The Flagler Beach pier jutted out into water that dissolved into mist. The eponymous beach, about 10 kilometers south of Painter's Hill, was the only one open along A1A from Palm Coast to Ormond Beach. The area is still recovering from recent storm and the surf was rough. Nobody was swimming at Ormond, but of course, a few surfers flung themselves into the tides.
Finally, as I reached Ormond Beach, the fog began to dissipate and the sun that, earlier, had been trying to get a few waves in edgewise pushed some clouds aside--and shone through a light mist.
I must say, though, that I don't recall much, if any fog in my previous two dozen or so trips here. Certainly I had never before seen what I saw today.
So...where in the world is Justine Valinotti now?
OK, you know this isn't the Ponte Vecchio. Or the Pont Neuf. Or the Tower, Verrazano or Golden Gate Bridges.
For all I know, the local transportation authorities don't even classify it as a bridge. It doesn't connect countries, states or even two sides of a neighborhood. The houses on each side of this bridge are even considered part of the same development.
The body of water spanned by that structure looks like this:
Seeing that birthday party baloon floating in the effluvium surprised me more than seeing a creature that could have caused me harm would have--or, for that matter, almost anything else I might have encountered.
It's a canal, and from what I've gathered, it was used for irrigation, as it doesn't look terribly navigable. (Now tell me, who else uses phrases like "terribly navigable"?) It runs behind the house where I'm staying.
You've probably figured, by now, that I'm visiting my parents
in "The Sunshine State."
It sounds like a corollary of Murphy's Law: You escape from the cold only to run into the rain.
We might get more rain tomorrow. I might chance a ride, but if I don't, skies are supposed to clear--and the temperature drop--the day after. I wouldn't mind that.
Nor do I mind today which, so far, has included a leisurely lunch with my mother and one of her friends. It's fun, and part of my education!
Some of us have difficulty with authority figures. It might be the result of experiences with teachers, parents, clergy people or agents of the law. We might be scolded for talking back or other forms of defiance, but those who scold us sometimes tell themselves, and each other, that one day we will "grow up" and "grow out of" our distrust of people with power over us.
But some of us learn, as we get older, to be even more skeptical of anyone we're supposed to obey or "respect". I mean, how many--ahem--elected officials make you want to be a more compliant and amenable to those who have license--however they might have attained it--to make decisions that affect us? And, given the scandals we've seen everywhere from the church to the entertainment industry, what would persuade anyone to give more credence to someone just because he or she has a title, money or a reputation, however any of those things were acquired?
Of course, the question of who merits our obedience and respect has been around for as long as humans have organized themselves. Practically all philosophers, and more than a few poets, writers and artists have dealt with this issue, if obliquely. And past as well as recent events give us reason to wonder just who, exactly, should be obeyed, much less revered.
One such event occurred 75 years ago this month in Flagstaff, Arizona. The previous month, gasoline rationing had begun in the US. Interestingly, the reason was not that petrol was in short supply. Rather, rubber was, because the attack on Pearl Harbor a year earlier cut off most of the supply--and military needed whatever was available. Thus, it was believed that the best way to reduce rubber usage was to reduce driving. So was gas rationing begun.
Five different kinds of ration cards were issued. One, the C ration, was given to "essential war workers" (including police officers and letter carriers) and did not restrict the amount of gas they could use. In Flagstaff, one recipient of the C ration was a fellow named Reverend George Gooderham.
That didn't sit well with another Flagstaff denizen--one Perry Francis. But he wasn't just an ordinary citizen: He was the sheriff.
So how did Sheriff Francis express his resentment toward the Reverend? Get ready for this: He took the minister's bicycle.
A few hours later, the man of the cloth realized his wheels were gone and went to the local constabulary. The folks in the sheriff's office led him on for a while before "finding" his bicycle and returning it to him.
It's often said that there is honor among thieves. But what about cops who steal--from clergy members, no less?
