Spring

Blue sky, hard rain, blue sky,  hail, blue sky, SNOW, more blue sky.  That's what today was.  Ah, Spring in the great Northwest!

       I had a bunch of "honey do's" to perform for my mom today.  I figured I would have time to ride a few hours, and my brother-in-law Dave had time to join in the fun.  He arrived shortly before noon, I wasn't ready yet.

      It took me nearly 45 minutes to get things wrapped up, change into bike clothes, and be ready to ride.  We had thought that a ride to Hagg Lake might be good (about a 70 mile round trip) but as we prepared to pedal out the sky was BLACK to the west, right where we'd be riding if we rode to Hagg Lake.  We took off randomly toward the West Hills of Portland instead, though farther west than Portland.



      We dodged around a bit trying to avoid the heavy rain showers that were in the area.  They especially seemed to be in the hills.  As we made our way up the hill we soon realized we weren't going to be able to out run the rain.  A few pellets of hail began to pelt us.  As the shower picked up intensity we ducked into a carport and waited it out.

       We made the turn at Shadybrook and headed south,  when we reached Pumpkin Ridge Road we turned up the hill. We eventually reached 1200 ft elevation, and there was snow/ice pellets falling. There was a skiff of white on the ground.  We reached the end of the pavement, and not feeling that it was a day for gravel road exploring we turned around and raced back down the hill.  I'm here to tell you that ice pellets at speed feel like getting shot with BB's!  The air temperature rose as we descended.

       We got through North Plains and had a good view of the surrounding country.  We could see another black cloud bearing down on us.  As the rain/hail mix starting pelting us we saw a sign telling us exactly where to go.

     We took refuge under a nut processing plant's roof.  After about 15 minutes of standing under the metal roof the owner came out to see what we were doing.  I explained that his sign was an invitation to guys like Dave and I.  He chuckled.  We talked filberts for a bit, then he went back to his shop and wished us well.   Before too long we pedaled off, but not before I donned my raingear that I had been carrying in my pack.

      I was glad I had it on.  We got hit by a pretty hard rain shower, but kept on pedaling.

      We had hoped to ride about 60 miles, but looking at the sky it was obvious that doing so would involve getting hit by some cold, hard rain, from time to time.  Discretion being the better part of valor, we turned toward "the barn" and finished our ride up with 35 miles.   We did get just over 2000 feet of elevation gain in the ride, so not too bad.

     The weather is predicted to get better for the weekend, as well as most of next week.  There should be plenty of opportunity to ride in drier weather.

Today.............35...............0.............0..........0.............35 Jan..................93..............0..............0.........0..............93 Feb................411..............0..............0.........0............411 March.............387..............0.............0.........0............387 Total..............894.............0...............0.........0............894