Summer has gone so fast, but then it didn't really seem to get started until late June when the pandemic restrictions were eased. There was a week of hot weather in August, several smoky, hazy days during the fire outbreaks, then some drenching rain and wind storms last week, and now we are back to the lovely, sunny, cooling autumn season.
After crashing out on my way home from my first day back at work I started riding the bus in whenever possible. Usually I work mid-day hours, but sometimes I work until closing at 8pm, and then I need my bike to ride home, and by now it's beginning to get dark by seven. I'm still a bit nervous on gravel and bad pavement and I don't like to lean in and go fast on big downhills like I used to. For some reason I'm more confident riding in the dark but I still ride Hwy. 99 to take advantage of the freeway lights.
At first I was riding on Northwest Drive, avoiding the roundabout on Hwy. 99 where I wiped out, but suddenly road closure signs appeared and Northwest was blocked off between Slater Road almost all the way to town. The #27 bus detoured on to Hwy. 99, and I when I rode my bike I had to go that way again. Luckily the road crews were nice enough to sweep up the loose gravel at the overpass. Then they started another paving project on Slater between the highway and Northwest Dr., and the bus had to find an alternate route for their detour. The project crews never give much warning when they close a road so I was never sure when I left home which route I could take by bicycle, and sometimes even the bus drivers got confused. Hovander Road was closed for a few days, cutting off one route out of Ferndale, until I began to think "THEY" were trying to cut the town off entirely from the modern, big city society of Bellingham. Pandemic paranoia.
The road projects are winding up with the end of summer now. There is a stretch of sweet, smooth new blacktop on Northwest, but they have already cut rumble strips in it. Best not complain, though.
