It’s been a little warm.  Until the last week or so, it has seemed like the really hot weather took its time getting to us, but now it’s definitely here.

This image is from yesterday afternoon. Then, this morning on my way to work it was already hot, not as high in terms of ambient temperature, but just incredibly muggy.

As I’ve alluded to in a few recent posts, I’ve been taking a different route to work. It’s a little shorter and significantly flatter, but with the heat and humidity like this, I’m still very sweaty by the time I get to work. Kind of annoying, but I can deal with it.

The new route is very pleasant; it starts with a bit of a climb, but then there’s a long downhill. There’s a stoplight halfway down, but if my timing is right, I can fly all the way down the hill without stopping.

Then I turn onto a rail-trail, which I take most of the way to work. Part is paved, and part isn’t. There’s a lot of variety, in terms of scenery, even though the trail is flat and mostly straight. I travel through woods, by a creek, through open fields with grasses and wildflowers, industrial zones, and part of downtown.

I don’t take the same route home. The nice long downhill that I start with in the morning, turns into a traffic-laden climb on my way home. Really, the traffic is the worry, not the climb.

Plus, I like to take a hillier route home, so I get more of a workout out of it.

Overall, it’s good to have options. I’ve been fairly critical of Bloomington’s rail-trail and B Line trail, and a lot of those feelings haven’t changed, but now they’re finally turning into something useful. Right now, there’s a long section that I have practically to myself, as it’s not officially open yet, but I wonder how busy it will be once more people discover it.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve had a lot of rain this spring. So much so now that some areas are experiencing flooding. In particular, Lake Monroe reached nearly 20 feet above normal pool level, setting a new all-time record. Normal pool is 538 feet; the lake level went as high as 557.28 feet. Despite widening the floodgates, the lake overflowed the emergency dam and flooded Valley Mission Road (among others), which is a common cycling road. According to the local newspaper, Valley Mission Road is being washed away by the flooding.

I headed out late last week for a ride and decided to check out the flooding, though not in the area described above. I thought I’d check a couple of other spots.

On my way there, I saw a pond that is normally fairly small. It’s noticeably bigger than usual.

A closer look showed quite a few turtles sunning themselves on logs, including a couple of rather large snapping turtles (though I was not able to get a good shot of them).

After a while, I was at Moore’s Creek State Recreation Area, on Lake Monroe. Below you can see a lamp post that’s partially under water.

This little road normally goes through to a picnic shelter and a popular fishing area.

Here’s the picnic shelter.

This sign gives you a good idea of how much higher the water is than usual. The sign reads “Road ends in water” 300-700 feet, but yet the water is just a few feet behind the sign. This is at a boat ramp.

This next shot is not relevant to the flooding, but I was inspired by Alfred Stieglitz’s “Equivalents” series, which we studied in my photography class.

I rode a bit more …

And eventually made my way over to Moore’s Creek Road, where I expected to see some more flooding.

I thought I would be able to make my way over to Swartz Ridge road and climb up that way, but I hit flooding sooner than I expected. I couldn’t even make it to Swartz Ridge.

I thought about trying to cross the water, but it looked like it was at least knee deep, probably deeper than that. I decided to turn back.

I’ve seen this barn several times but never got a satisfactory photo of it before.

The trees and grass look so lush and green.

For the most part, the creeks didn’t seem overly deep. I guess most of the water had already rushed down to the lake by this time.

Sometime after my visit, the lake levels began to get lower. Hopefully the flooding will subside soon. I’ve read about a number of other roads being underwater. I haven’t heard about much or any damage to homes yet, but newspaper coverage has been a bit spotty. I do know that many local cycling routes are affected.

It’s been raining every day for — I don’t know, the past week? We’ve had some strong storms and inches upon inches of rain. It’s getting really old. Our basement almost flooded on a couple of different occasions. No fun.

Yesterday was actually pretty nice most of the day, and today is good so far. But, I’ve been taking the bus a lot in the past week or so. Actually, now that I think about it, I guess the longest riding gap was two rainy days on the bus, surrounding a weekend with no riding. But, four days felt like a long time off the bike.

In my classes, I’m mired in final projects right now, and next week I have finals. Actually I think this week will be the worst, though, and it’s halfway over, so I’m really looking forward to getting these projects done.

Hopefully, I’ll have time to write some more posts soon. I’ve got a lot more photos I’d like to share, as well as something a bit different.

Maybe I’ll even ride my bike this weekend?!? I can only hope!