Wind and water

As I paddled away from the dock Tuesday morning I found myself paddling into a stronger-than-usual south wind.  I felt sure it had to be over 20 knots.  Approaching the mouth of the harbor, I was curious to see what conditions I might find out on the Mississippi.  What I found was some sure-enough downwind.  It wasn't the Miller's Run or anything, but there were definitely some organized swells out there.

Unfortunately, downwind conditions are so rare around here that I'm usually not prepared when they do happen.  On Tuesday I was dressed for the air temperature (72 degrees Fahrenheit and rising) rather than the water temperature (no more than 50 degrees).  I was paddling the least-stable ski I own with a small rudder.  I had no leash.  So I was sort of timid as I attempted to get something going out on the river.  I flailed around out there for maybe a half-hour before heading back in.

This week I've got a lot going on in my non-athletic life, and I'm just trying to maintain a modicum of general fitness until I start ramping the training back up a couple of weeks from now.  My current project in the workshop includes a lot of strenuous labor-- not exactly organized training, but if nothing else I'm burning calories and falling asleep quickly at night.

I worked hard in the shop all day yesterday.  Late in the day a storm front moved through that brought us a huge amount of rain.  As of this writing I haven't seen the total, but my guess is that it was more than three inches.  The storms moved on across the Tennessee and Cumberland and Ohio watersheds, and as a result the Mississippi is expected to rise from yesterday's level of 17.5 feet on the Memphis gauge to 24.7 feet by next Wednesday.

This morning I did a bike ride.  I decided to head out east on the Greenline because I was curious to see what the Wolf River looked like after all that rain.  The Wolf is normally a sleepy little stream that you can't hear flowing, but as I crossed the bridge over it today I heard that ever-so-soothing sound of rushing water.

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