Who'll stop the rain?

Still I wonder...

Have I mentioned that I hate the rain? Truly. As in I'm-about-to-pull-up-stakes-and-move-to-Mercury hate. Though the U-Haul rental might be a bit steep. Maybe the Sahara would be cheaper.

The unfortunate upshot of my Christmas/New Year break from the daily grind was that -- while we had some beautiful (to look at) days, they were very cold, and due to the water left over from the rain (grrr), very icy -- I got one outdoor ride. On my last day of work before the break, when we traditionally get an early dismissal, my plan to do a trail ride was quickly thwarted due to the mix of weather: light rain, heavy rain, rain and wind, rain and snow, and more rain. Combined with the low temperatures (yeah, that mixed snow), this made for hypothermia by 45 minutes. I threw the bike back in the car and headed home for an hour on the stationary trainer. It took several hours for my feet to warm up.

Even with the dry summer we had this year, the tale of the rain gauge says we took it in the soggies for the entirety of 2015:

    Annual Average rainfall -- 36.85 in    2015 -- 44.83 in

But it seemed to really hit in December.

    December    Avg Precip -- 5.62 in    2015 -- 11.21 in

                       Avg Precip days -- 19  2015 -- 26

I was seeing standing water in places I've never seen it before. So my lunchtime off-road rides became exercises in spray management. Some days I just gave up and reveled in the inanity of it. Most days I avoided the REALLY wet trails until the final 10 minutes, knowing that a warm shower was waiting for me at the end of it. There were days where a pontoon bike would have been a better choice.

My logs tell me that I spent more time on the trainer in December than any month this year, and likely more than any month in the last several years. And then I catch wind of flywheel failures on Computrainers and some older Minoura models, with shrapnel causing some rather grisly injuries (I'll leave it up to you to Google those -- my stomach is still queasy from the details). Oh, yeah, my trainer is a Minoura that I've had since about 1992. Time to replace that puppy. But in any case, I've watched more bad movies on Netflix than I can count. And a few series. All on the trainer.

And so far January isn't any better.

I've known I'm a desert dweller at heart for a long time. I love the warm weather. Low- to mid-80's is awesome. And sun. Like that old (and short-lived) TV series The Phoenix, I seem to get energy from warm sunlight.

We always seem to get a teaser week in February. Temps will inch up to near 60, and college campuses will be rife with shorts and tank tops (and WHITE appendages), then it'll be dark and wet again until May, nothing reliable until mid-July.

Maybe I can make til then... Or maybe a warm-and-dry destination road trip is in order.