Writing Friday’s blog post is usually the hardest day of the week for me to write.  Primarily, this is because by the end of the work week, I have run out of things to write about.  Last weekend’s stories have already been told and this next weekend’s stories have not yet occurred.  So I typically start by trolling through the photo catalog, looking for worthy pictures that have not yet been published.  I’ve chosen three pictures from our recent visit to the Cabin on the shores of Gitchee Goomee.  Today’s offering includes a trio of sandpipers that were caught dancing with the waves, a Sandhill crane in a field of flowers and finally a pair of mergansers that were just floating by.

Last weekend, Labor Day weekend, the weather in Saint Louis was gorgeous, cool, clear and most importantly not humid.  Flash forward to this coming weekend’s forecast and our future is not so clear.  The remnants of Hurricane Hermine came to town on Thursday.  A local weatherman wag took to calling the storm Hurricane Hermione, because he liked that name better.  I’m guessing that he was a Harry Potter fan too.  Anyway, I point out this bit of weather news, because Anne and I are riding in this year’s MS-150 bicycle ride, this coming weekend too.  Soggy bike riding is no fun at all.

I know, because I’ve done it in the past.  Back before the MS-150 bike ride moved to Columbia, MO, it use to begin in Troy, MO and Warrington before that.  The ride back then was from Troy to Mexico, MO and then back again.  On the last year, that the society ran the ride that way one of these played out hurricanes came through, except this one came through on a Saturday night.  So you had two-thousand plus riders stranded seventy-five miles from their cars and a drenching rain in-between the two.  This must have been a TWA ride, because we had dry hotel rooms to wake up in.  I had also camped through a similar experience in earlier years.  Don and I tried to outride this storm, but try as we might, we could never reach the leading edge of the front.  I was reminded of George Clooney and his crew in the movie, The Perfect Wave, when after battling the storm for hours; they catch a glimpse of the setting sun only to be drawn back into the gathering storm.  We experienced a similar moment on that ride.   Mother nature was unrelenting on that day.

When we hit the lunch stop, which was in a school cafeteria, it looked like a refugee camp.  There were a thousand riders that had had enough and wanted to be sagged home.  This was too much for the MS-150 sag wagon system to bear and it broke.  The next year, the MS-150 moved to Columbia.  Now the ride is structured as two individual day out and back rides, instead of as it was a two-day out and then back ride.  Now no one will venture out into a hurricane without knowing.  Bikers are not quite as crazy as surfers.  I think?  😉