Intrepid but not foolhardy, cyclist defers to ice

Sorry – left yesterday’s morning snow pictures on hideout computer. Deleted from camera. No can insert from home. Did not go to hideout today because of ice risk. Though I am not defeated by snow, ice is another story. I won’t go near it. Nor will I go near cars traveling on ice.

However, I have last night’s snow pictures still on my camera – such as this beautiful snow-woman in the parking lot of my hideout, sculpted by Audrey who lives upstairs.

Snow still blanketed [see? there’s that stupid blanket again] industrial northwest Portland when I rode back through it on my way home at around 5:30, brightly illuminated by streetlights with nothing to do. No cars drove by at all, and only a few parked cars were around. Here’s a photo of a bunch of car-less people standing in the middle of a street where people never stand ordinarily. They were gathered there in a circle like cats under a full moon. They're small and far away -- you can hardly see them.

The pictures don’t show how it really was. I think I need lessons in night photography – my night pictures never come out. It was so eerily illuminated and here it all just looks dark.

The ride home last night wasn’t quite such a snap as the ride across town in the morning. Some slipperiness had developed. I had to get off and walk my bike up the ramp to the Broadway Bridge. The snow in the car lanes of the bridge were packed down, but the sidewalk/bike lanes not. My wheels periodically lost traction.

Here’s that poor fountain I photographed the other day, the beautiful cascading ice now all covered with snow, but the little squirt of water still gurgling away in the middle.