We made a short trip to Houston this weekend. I was intending to participate in the Gator Ride, a 62 mile ride around parts of Baytown, TX. I was going to ride with Derrick, as both of us have been training for the purpose of riding in the MS150 next month. Though the weather forecast had been calling for rain, we were hopeful that the clouds would hold out until later in the afternoon, allowing us to participate in the morning ride.

As we headed out Saturday morning for Baytown, there were no raindrops on the windshield which kept us looking forward to the ride. However, as we drove into Baytown we started seeing a few sprinkles on the windshield, but nothing that required the use of the wipers. A few minutes later and it became torrential! The rain would not stop coming down and even the wipers running at full speed could not help visibility for Derrick who had stopped talking at that moment so he could concentrate on driving through the rain. In fact, we slowed to about 45 mph on the interstate at that point as it definitely wasn't safe to maintain the 65 mph highway speed.

At that point we figured our chances of riding today were super low but we kept going anyways since we were almost there. When we got there we found the parking lot was somewhat empty, and we did see some cars leaving with their bikes... a sign that other riders had already decided to pack up and leave. We pulled into the parking lot and waited for... something. Maybe we were hoping that the clouds would clear up right then and the sun would start poking through. Unlikely. We did see some cyclists getting their bikes ready and putting on their rain gear though. The ride wasn't cancelled but we made the decision to not ride partly out of safety concerns, and also because neither of us had brought raingear for the ride. We saw a group riding out as the ride began, but it was quite a smaller group than what was previously advertised for the ride. Those were certainly the hardcore riders amongst us. Disappointed, we headed back to Houston.

The next day in Houston the weather was amazing. Not a cloud in the blue sky at all. *Sigh*. I can't complain though, as we still had a good weekend in Houston. Carolyn's parents got a lot of facetime with their granddaughter, and we got to spend time with Derrick and Angela just catching up on life.