wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
I had planned several days ago to visit my brother in Pensacola yesterday. Looking at the weather forecast when I got up, I see the storm's a-comin', but I've got plenty of time. I mean after all, it's still in western Louisiana, fer cryin' out loud!
So I hit the road for P'cola. We were gonna ride over to Mobile and see the battleship and the other things in the museum there. When I got to my brother's house, he said I could go if I wanted to, but he wasn't going. The TV was full of reports of Mobile being under water, blown away, on fire from lightning, blah blah blah.
It occurred to me at that point that the weather was a little ahead of what I thought of as the schedule, but I was hungry, so we went to Arby's and grabbed some grub. Here's Steve and his pre-ride checkout of his VTR1000 before we left for lunch.
Getting back to the house, we parked our butts in front of the Xbox360 for a couple hours, arguing about the best ways through levels in Portal. As it clouded up, I decided I should go ahead and skip town while still ahead of the storm, as it wasn't raining yet at his house. A quick check of the radar on the PC, and WTF?!?!??! We're smack in the middle of it! Look outside, it's overcast, but not stormy. Look at the PC, we see yellow, orange and red all over the place, and green all the way home! Shows what good it does to look out the window for a weather report!
So I gear up and don the rain suit, as well as the big waterproof gloves, and head out for home. Not so bad, getting my face wet because if I seal the faceshield it fogs up. Open just a crack, and it leaks at the top. Oh, well. Then I get on the interstate, and find the magic windshield position that blows my face clear, and I'm cruisin'! Rain gear is working, feet are dry, hands are dry, face is dry, now, too.
I take I-10 to SR85, which is the only 4-lane that goes south from I-10 in these parts, and I don't want the adjacent lane to be head-on tonight. I turn left onto SR20 at Niceville and get through town OK. SR20 through here is usually a nice ride, Choctawhatchee bay on one side, woods on the other, not much traffic, just a couple little towns, otherwise pretty open. I get out of Niceville, and I see the bay. . . .
WHAM!!!!! Crosswind gust!! Helmet feels like it's coming off. Bike moves way left, and I correct, just in time to head for the shoulder because the wind is gone again. Well, that was fun! I'm riding just left of the center of the lane now, leaning to the right to go straight. When the wind drops, I'm headed for the shoulder. When it comes up, I'm headed for the next lane.
Eventually, I get past the section that's against the water and back into the woods, so the wind isn't so bad - until I get near open fields. At one point I pass a development with a wall, and flags mounted on the wall. The flags aren't even flapping; they're stretched straight out by the wind, 90 degrees to my direction.
Below is the Accuweather map of Sunday's Florida 24-hour precipitation map. The yellow is over 3 inches, the next darker yellow is 4 inches, then 5, then 6 for the orange. The black line is my route home from Pensacola.
Other than the damp face and the crosswind, it really wasn't that bad. I was dry in my gear until I got to a light in Lynn Haven, three miles from home. At that point I encountered the heaviest rain I'd had to stop in, and my gloves became buckets. When I got home, my feet got wet as I walked up to the house, so the soles of my boots are cracked as I'd suspected. My feet were dry up till then. My hands were soaked but not wrinkly-soaked, since they'd only been wet for five minutes or so, and my gloves were really heavy with the soaked lining, and I'm not sure what they're gonna be like when they dry. My rain jacket has a hood that goes up under my helmet, and that hood wicked some water onto the back of my head, but my shirt was dry except at the very top of my back. Strangely, the shell of my mesh jacket, under the rain jacket, was damp, but it didn't come through to my arms. Very minor crotch dampness, nothing like JB's famous incident. Not too shabby for a hundred miles of monsoon. Sucks that stopping at the light is where I got soaked, though.
So I hit the road for P'cola. We were gonna ride over to Mobile and see the battleship and the other things in the museum there. When I got to my brother's house, he said I could go if I wanted to, but he wasn't going. The TV was full of reports of Mobile being under water, blown away, on fire from lightning, blah blah blah.
It occurred to me at that point that the weather was a little ahead of what I thought of as the schedule, but I was hungry, so we went to Arby's and grabbed some grub. Here's Steve and his pre-ride checkout of his VTR1000 before we left for lunch.
Getting back to the house, we parked our butts in front of the Xbox360 for a couple hours, arguing about the best ways through levels in Portal. As it clouded up, I decided I should go ahead and skip town while still ahead of the storm, as it wasn't raining yet at his house. A quick check of the radar on the PC, and WTF?!?!??! We're smack in the middle of it! Look outside, it's overcast, but not stormy. Look at the PC, we see yellow, orange and red all over the place, and green all the way home! Shows what good it does to look out the window for a weather report!
So I gear up and don the rain suit, as well as the big waterproof gloves, and head out for home. Not so bad, getting my face wet because if I seal the faceshield it fogs up. Open just a crack, and it leaks at the top. Oh, well. Then I get on the interstate, and find the magic windshield position that blows my face clear, and I'm cruisin'! Rain gear is working, feet are dry, hands are dry, face is dry, now, too.
I take I-10 to SR85, which is the only 4-lane that goes south from I-10 in these parts, and I don't want the adjacent lane to be head-on tonight. I turn left onto SR20 at Niceville and get through town OK. SR20 through here is usually a nice ride, Choctawhatchee bay on one side, woods on the other, not much traffic, just a couple little towns, otherwise pretty open. I get out of Niceville, and I see the bay. . . .
WHAM!!!!! Crosswind gust!! Helmet feels like it's coming off. Bike moves way left, and I correct, just in time to head for the shoulder because the wind is gone again. Well, that was fun! I'm riding just left of the center of the lane now, leaning to the right to go straight. When the wind drops, I'm headed for the shoulder. When it comes up, I'm headed for the next lane.
Eventually, I get past the section that's against the water and back into the woods, so the wind isn't so bad - until I get near open fields. At one point I pass a development with a wall, and flags mounted on the wall. The flags aren't even flapping; they're stretched straight out by the wind, 90 degrees to my direction.
Below is the Accuweather map of Sunday's Florida 24-hour precipitation map. The yellow is over 3 inches, the next darker yellow is 4 inches, then 5, then 6 for the orange. The black line is my route home from Pensacola.
Other than the damp face and the crosswind, it really wasn't that bad. I was dry in my gear until I got to a light in Lynn Haven, three miles from home. At that point I encountered the heaviest rain I'd had to stop in, and my gloves became buckets. When I got home, my feet got wet as I walked up to the house, so the soles of my boots are cracked as I'd suspected. My feet were dry up till then. My hands were soaked but not wrinkly-soaked, since they'd only been wet for five minutes or so, and my gloves were really heavy with the soaked lining, and I'm not sure what they're gonna be like when they dry. My rain jacket has a hood that goes up under my helmet, and that hood wicked some water onto the back of my head, but my shirt was dry except at the very top of my back. Strangely, the shell of my mesh jacket, under the rain jacket, was damp, but it didn't come through to my arms. Very minor crotch dampness, nothing like JB's famous incident. Not too shabby for a hundred miles of monsoon. Sucks that stopping at the light is where I got soaked, though.
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