The radar Monday a.m. showed storms coming up from the Gulf and surrounding the
City, moving northeast on the west side of town, and moving northwest on the east side of town converging north of where I live, and storms still out in the Gulf, moving due north. I saw a clear area running from my house in a suburb northwest of town, straight south on the west side of town. With the storms moving the way they were, I figured I could drive south for about 15 miles and then head west for about 20 miles to get out of traffic/suburbs and still miss the storms heading that way by turning back south and riding directly south for another 30 miles or so through the little towns on the outskirts of the city. Then I would be able to either a) come directly back the same route and miss the storms completely, or b) head west if the storm had stalled out and then ride around it. That is eventually what happened…………. But not without some excitement along the way. Here’s a couple of photos to give you an idea of what I was dodging all day long.
Here is a short slide show of photos taken on the bike while I was trying to out run the
Apocalyptic storms! 3†of rain were dumped in areas where I was riding between the clouds. I managed to travel about 250 miles (round about traveling to avoid storms) and only ended up in heavy rain for about 9 miles and light sprinkles for about 4 miles. That’s some pretty good navigating and dodging, if I may say so – especially on roads I did not know.
Click on the link or the slide below to start a short slide show of the forming storms I dodged
http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p319 ... 76f1f3.pbr
As if storm dodging wasn’t enough of adventure:
I stopped at a small convenience store in the little town where I finally found shelter and waited for about 30 minutes for a break in the rain to get back on the road. I made it to the shelter about 3 minutes before the clouds started dumping buckets of rain. I had parked under the shelter at the gas pumps. Soon the wind started blowing pretty hard and so I tucked my bike up close to the store front, in front of a car. It wasn’t the best neighborhood for me to be in, but it was the only shelter I could find. People were periodically coming and going. I sat for a while and then decided to go in and get some Nutter Butter cookies and milk and use the facilities while I waited out the storm. I went back outside to stay near my bike and was just sort of hanging out near the bike when all of a sudden an old beat up car speeds into the area to get gas. Out jumps a guy who is talking loud to………… no one, that I could see. He went in the store then came out still talking. I just sat there eating my cookies, kind of keeping an eye on things since I was already feeling uneasy about the situation. I’m not sure if it was his erratic behavior, fast and loud talking, or the fact that his pants kept falling down which made me the most uneasy. Nevertheless, I stayed with my bike and kept alert.
I was trying to understand what he was talking about because I thought possibly he was talking to me since no one else was around. But he was so hyped up on something that I was having a hard time. Maybe it bugged him that I didn’t say anything because all of a sudden he was in my face yelling about “cops.†I won’t quote him directly, because it was pretty offensive, but apparently he was really mad about the fact that the police would not do anything about he guy who just shot him with a .45 pistol. He thinks it was because he had just gotten out of prison and so instead of going after the guy who shot him they just wanted to know where his gun was.
At this point, I’m getting uneasy and I’m pretty much backed into a corner with this guy in my face. He’s ‘just been shot†and he’s ‘just gotten out of prison’ and he is in a really big hurry and pretty mad. And of course, at this point there is no one else coming into the store and no attendant in the store coming outside. There were some people sitting in vehicles who could have been watching the scene. I don’t know, I kept my eyes on him.
The next thing I know, he jerks his shirt up and sure enough – I’m starring at a pretty fresh bullet wound right under his lowest rib just to the right of center. But he has obviously been treated because he has a drainage bag attached and it is filling with blood. I started to get faint. He just kept pointing at it and yelling about the cops and the guy who shot him and he didn’t think very kindly of either.
I’ve led an exciting, but pretty sheltered life for the most part. I’ve not seen bullet wounds before or hung around people who get in that kind of gun fight or spent time with ex-cons (as far as I know), so the most I could muster up to say with half of a Nutter Butter in my mouth was, “Whoa, that’s bad!†He agreed, and then jerked his shirt down as quickly as he had jerked it up. Then he yelled something else, hiked up his pants, ran to his car and sped away.
I went back to eating my cookies and looking for the first opportunity to get out of that town as soon as the rain let up.
The strangest things happen when I go out riding.
..in the end I had to just leave while it was pissing down. 
