Rain sucks... but we need the rain... they say

With the precipitation saturation anticipation that saw to it that The Whole Enchilada would be canceled/postponed, I had no idea what I would wake up to Saturday morning.  Many shitty potential plans on the table, all pending some ill-informed decision based on predicted weather systems and trail closures and whatnot.

Wake up, my yard's wet, assume the worst...  but loads of trails open in Charlotte... somehow.

I beg Todd to decide where we need to be. 

"Sherman Branch?"

Odd.  I was just talking to Dr Mike the week before about the fact that I haven't ridden there in... months?  Years?

Good enough.

What followed was the muddiest local ride I'd been on... ever?

Thoroughly mud caked after 22 miles of rolling around in the woods and some occasional drizzle.

Come home, knock out chores, find out that I had a cameo in Dylan Johnson's video about alcohol and its affect on bike cycle race performance.

Probably my second best podium moment ever, so obvs an example of the upside of beer and bike cycling.

Stare at the radar and weather forecast for the evening.  I wanna head to The Spoke Easy to see Renelvis perform.  So many threats of thunderstorms coming our way.

Get there dry.  Keep watching the radar.  Set a timer to leave at 8:56 PM, hoping to dodge the incoming reds and yellows. 

Drinking my last beer, clock is ticking.... head to the bathroom to drain the main vein, as they say.

I pay no mind to the fact that the humidity has put a nice sheen on the freshly painted concrete floor.  Me and my SIDIs have no chance.  I bust my ass hard, spilling most of my beer and landing on my elbow.

Try and finish what's left of my beer, but I'm perplexed looking at my arm.  My elbow's wet.  There are no tears in my GORE Shakedry jacket (huzzah), so how am I so moist?

Pull off my jacket... and the inside of the sleeve is covered in blood. 

Dammit.

I give some folks a little time to clean me up proper like, and I leave late later than planned...

and get caught in a huge dumping thunderstorm ten minutes from my house.

Dammit.

It's like a sack of Jello there, sore wiggling Jello.

Next day, wake up... head to the Winter Shart Tarck work day.  We gotta build a giant bridge.

But before too long, we have more hands than jobs, so I mighta disappeared myself for a bit and rebuilt a tiny (and very pointless) step up option that had fallen victim to time and negligence.

And then I got roped into some drainage work that accidentally found me where I could help rebuild the notch line option that was mysteriously dismantled since the last time I looked at it.

I was left unattended once again, so I decided to smash my fingers moving a rock for no reason.

Dammit.

Once I had done enough damage across the board, I returned back to help finish the gigantic bridge over the problem drainage we've been dealing with for... fifteen years?

I don't think any twenty five feet of the shart tarck ever saw this much effort, time, or money.

One week until Winter Shart Tarck starts, and I've done a fair job handicapping myself with a busted finger and a swollen elbow.

Much excite.