Riding home after the big storm

We had a crazy storm on Thursday afternoon.  Killed power, took out some major trees, traffic was terrible.

Fortunately I took my bike to work.  It was really kind of cool in a 'end of the world, major catastrophe movie' kind of way.  Wish I had my video camera.

There were more cars that usual trying to avoid the main roads and taking my favorite back roads.  I had to take it easy, because everytime I got some speed up, I'd find a tree laying half across the road. 

One time I went through a closed road and found the tree across the road, but about 6 feet up - I rode under it.  Another time, I had to get off my bike and climb over a fallen tree.  I've done that plenty off road - not used to it on my road bike.

There was debris all over the road, making it slippery and nerve wracking.  Having recently crashed, I really wasn't in the mood to go down again... and fortunately didn't.

When I did get to the main roads, many of the traffic lights were out.  That sucks for everybody, but especially cyclists.  Fortunately, the drivers were mostly being pretty cool  (except for that one moron lady that nearly hit me while she chatted on her cell phone). 

Strange ride, but pretty cool experience.