The weather dodged me!

6-23-10 Day 19: Stayed in Lake City, Michigan: No mileage due to “weather”.

Well, on three previous rides I had felt I dodged the weather bullet. Today I decided to play it safe and not ride into severe weather……..and the weather dodged me! Yup, woke up this morning to all three of the major local TV weather stations predicting this horrific storm front that was moving in from the west across Lake Michigan. Got on my computer and same thing, and even looking at the hr by hr, the prediction was for 5-7 hrs of severe weather. So I kind of took my time while watching and looking at the continual updates. My last glance at my weather channel Doppler map, at 8:30 AM showed the front just 30 min away from Lake City. So I hung out. And sure enough at 9 AM the rain started, and it rained pretty hard for a bit. Enough to convince me that today would be a total wash, and maybe even dangerous with the severe weather warnings of high wind and hail. So I rebooked my little efficiency for another day and thought I’d done well to avoid dangerous weather.

Then, by 10 AM the rain stopped with just the wind blowing 20-25 mph out of the southwest. And I started second-guessing my decision to stay put. But again, weather reports warned of a second round coming through just behind the first front. Ok, I’ll hang. And be darned if by 1 PM the freaking sun didn’t come out for little bits and pieces between the thick cloud cover. Turns out that just south of where I’m at, at about the Rt 55 boundary, the weather was indeed severe, with heavy winds and strong rain. But up north of 55, just cloudy and windy. Matter of fact this same front hit Ohio around 3 or 4 PM today with some really bad weather.

There was this rain free zone about 50 or so miles from here north that really didn’t experience anything but about an hour of rain. By 3 PM I was just shaking my head in exasperation knowing that I could have made it to Petoskey with relative ease. Just goes to show that the weather people are NOT as on top of it as we’re led to think. So…….I’ll pick up again tomorrow and try to get an early start, and maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to do 100+ miles and make it to Mackinaw City from here. If I can get in that ride I’d be caught up with my itinerary. If not, oh well, that’s life on the road. Guess it’s better to be safe than sorry.

On the plus side, I got a ton of work done on the computer. On the minus side – I just HATE sitting around all day when I should be riding. This is truly boring! Can’t really stomach too many more of these kinds of days. Now if it were storming like hell, well, I’d at least feel vindicated. But being hoodwinked by all the weather hoopla, that sucks!

Had to hold back in a massive way with my eating, holding out until 3:30 PM before hitting Subway for my 2 footlongs. Seems as though the hungry gremlin hits much harder on an off day. Probably because there’s just so much idle time – time to think non-stop about food! Between working I managed to catch 2 episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies and 2 Andy Griffith Shows…….and a WHOLE lof of Weather Channel, the same folks who goosed me today!!! Hope to have something more substantial for you tomorrow than a day like today of sitting on my (*^*%$ in a motel room..........Pete