Two Fools

The Coho has been crazy the past week. To most people (in cars) it's a minor annoyance - unless it results in this:

The truck had Virginia plates. Nothing says "Welcome to Oregon" like a tree dropped in your pickup bed. Hey, we've already got this guy, these, and our beloved tree-slaying rodent. I say tie it down, stick a "Wide Load" flag on it, and haul it back to Virginia as firewood.

Anyway, since my normal morning commute points me at the mouth of the Columbia gorge for ten miles, I've become somewhat of an east wind aficionado. Most winters we get maybe half a dozen spells of one-to-three days of blow. Wind speed is kind of irrelevant, so I use the Velomann wind scale, where a blow of 1 is mildly annoying and means I get a shorter shower at work, a 5 means, like a sailor in a storm, I could go down in a crosswind, and a 9-10 howler brings flying debris and downed power lines. It's been in the 5 range for several days, with a good 24 hours in the 9's in east county (fortunately that was over the weekend and I didn't have to ride.) I know math is not my strength, but I was calculating that at an average riding speed of 15 MPH into a headwind of 25 MPH, I'd get to work quicker riding backwards.

Occasionally I find myself thinking that if I could ride into the wind like a Zen archer, I could learn to slip between the currents, untouched and tranquil. I'll work on that.

On the plus side, I got this Baiku - I call it "Two Fools"

Crow flies by laughing

at me cursing the east wind

to him it's all play