I haven’t blogged in three days, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been riding around! Thursday caught me driving around to recover from Wednesday’s long ride. Friday’s evening post-downpour ride to Mid-City left me remembering why I bike (Jazz Fest parking) and why I should finally get a flipping rear fender (fifteen minutes in the restaurant bathroom wiping the mud off my legs). I decided to forego biking in the tornado conditions on Saturday, but I was rewarded for a weekend of buzzkill weather with a positively perfect day today. The sun was out, the sky was ridiculously blue, and the air smelled like jasmine and sweat and summertime. I rode out to the bayou to see if I could find some ducklings (nope–they’ve gone all teenaged on me) and then spent the afternoon wandering around the Quarter, hanging by the Mississippi before walking with S.’s houseguests to get some gelato. One of them asked me if there was much of a biking culture in New Orleans. I noticed this bike locked up outside La Divina, old spoke cards stuck in there. I’m guessing that rider’s in some kind of bike culture. Me? Sort of, sometimes, but today I was just happy to be part of the culture that gets to be outside on a day like this.