April 20 -- cold and rainy

Here's hoping that this weather is going to be over before the ride ...

Today started out cloudy and we could see dark rain clouds over the mountain where Idyllwild is located. The elevation difference between Hemet and Idyllwild is over 4,000 feet so the plan was originally to climb up -- a ride that I've done before, some years ago.

However, climbing in the rain did not appeal to me so I stalled -- worked on the computer in the kitchen cleaning up a bunch of Adware and Spyware, de-installing a few levels of Norton and installing Kaspersky anti-virus. Arlene got the kids up and ready for school. I semi-helped by a) staying out of the way and b) unpacking a robotic dinosaur that Daniel had gotten for his birthday and was taking into school today.

Later in the morning I decided to go out, rain or no rain since it was only drizzling. The temperature was a little over 50 degrees. I put on my rain jacket, but since it seemed warm enough, just my normal cycling gloves and shorts and headed out on the Ramona Expressway (a major artery, not a highway). My intent was to ride for a couple of hours on the flat.

When I got to the intersection of the RE and SR 79, I could see 79 stretching out and climbing up the canyon -- 79 is the route that we took in from Beaumont and I10. So ... I decided to do some climbing. That was a mistake ... added onto the way that I was underdressed for colder weather.

The road was good on the way up. Beaumont is at a higher elevation, perhaps 1500 feet higher and SR 79's shoulder is wide. There was a series of oversized load trucks that were not going much faster than me -- perhaps 12 mph to my 10 -- up the steepest parts, so I felt quite safe and warm due to the climbing. Once I got to the top, however, the drizzle increased and when I got into Beaumont proper, which is then city streets, it was raining. I was getting a little cold and was already wet, so I turned around at about the 12 mile mark.

Heading back towards I10, which was about the 10 mile mark, the rain increased, and as I climbed the small hill to the crest of the hill that leads back down to the valley where Hemet is located, the rain increased and I was cold. My legs were stiff and my hands were freezing. I'm now around mile 9 and the valley is around mile 3. The descent is fairly steep, and now the roads are quite wet -- muddy on the shoulders -- and the winds are whipping around me coming up from the valley.

I descended carefully, but I was not having a good time, as you might imagine. Part way the road levels out and there is a traffic light with a road running off to the right going to a trash dump of some sorts. The light was red, so I stopped. A couple of trucks coming down the road came through their green light and everyone sat waiting for the light to turn.

You know that I'm building up to something, but don't worry all's well. I started across the intersection before it turned green and headed down the road. A couple of minutes later I heard a loudspeaker behind me saying "please pull over, I want to talk to you for a minute". I looked back and it was a California Highway Patrol, so I stopped -- it was raining, I was freezing.

Well, ahem, the CHP was a very nice guy who said that:

a) the rules of the road apply to me as well because the bike is a vehicle (since I had "run the red light") -- he could give me a citation
b) he understood that I was freezing and wet, but he had to pull me over because "what would everyone else think if he didn't"
c) perhaps on a day like today I should dress properly and/or take a car
d) this was not really a safe road to ride a bike on

We talked about where I was going etc.

Ahem -- perhaps I should have looked behind me to see who else was sitting at the red light before I headed out ? Perhaps I should have waited for the green light ?! The rules are pretty clear that bicycles are to be treated as vehicles, and of course even pedestrians are supposed to wait for signals to change -- but in most states they are pretty lenient with cyclists, having better things to do than pull cyclists over. I remember Aaron telling me that in California the police are pretty strict -- and I've been with groups of people walking back from late night dinners in CA who have waited an entire light cycle for a green light even though there are no cars coming in either direction -- because the Los Angeles police will give tickets to Pedestrians for jaywalking.

Anyway, I headed off, finished the ride -- it was appreciably warmer in the valley -- and spent the next 1/2 hour cleaning my muddy bike. Then I cleaned up, showered in the hottest water that I could stand to warm up, and had lunch. At this point it was around 1pm.

So ... the plan was to go up to Idyllwild via car to do a little shopping. It is a cute touristy town in the San Bernardino National Forest with little shops, restaurants, activities such as hiking etc. As we got to the top of the climb (in the car) the rain turned to snow. Yes, it's snowing -- lightly though. We are not really dressed for snow.

We looked through some shops, found some neat things (Sandy is looking for a few items for our Florida home) -- but didn't buy anything. In the meantime the snow is getting heavier ... and it's cold walking around ... so we headed back to the car around 3:30 to go back to Arlene's. The temperature is now 32 degrees, according to the car thermometer -- but while the snow is accumulating on the grass and trees, nothing is sticking to the road.

Part way back down, probably around elevation 3500 (Idyllwild is over 5000), the temperature outside is up to 35 and the snow turns to rain. By the time we're in the valley, the temperature is in the low 40's and we got back to Arlene's around 4:30.

Arlene had already picked up the kids and they were watching TV and playing. I finished off what I had been doing with Arlene's kitchen computer and showed the kids Google Earth, looking at their house in San Jacinto (Hemet) as well as their school and the place in San Felipe. Daniel took over the computer and played some games while I went upstairs and did some indentical work on the old computer of my Dad's, so that it too was in good shape for Arlene and the kids to use.

When I came back downstairs, I asked Daniel if he had noticed any difference in the computer -- and Arlene said that he had already commented about how much faster the games ran without any prompting from anyone-- great ! I did a few things on that computer later on and noticed the difference too.

We had supper around 7:30, barbecued Salmon with me doing the barbecuing honors. Ernie got home around 8:30 -- he had a very long day with meetings in one site and then having to go back to the Post Office because they were installing new software. He also has to work tomorrow (Saturday) since the second-in-command is off. He's pretty wiped when he gets home -- he's had it with the Post Office but cannot afford to retire yet.

It's 9:30 and we head off to bed ... it's been a busy day.