16 miles Friday, 33 today, both in the early, early morning to get out ahead of the heat. It was still humid as all-get-out but only in the 80's and into the 90s by the time I made it home (and since when is that considered cool weather?). I discovered that I'm faster than the Saturday riders out at that time of the day. I'm used to being passed endlessly by the club riders out later on Saturdays!

One bit of weirdness that has me puzzled: yesterday I was riding along a road that runs beside a river and noticed all these little brown twig things on the road surface, all about three or four inches long. Hundreds and thousands of them. I thought at first it was something that had fallen out of trees, maybe odd seed pods or something, and then I realized they were dead earthworms. This went on for a half mile or so. Today, same general vicinity but a different road, same thing (but not so widespread--only a couple hundred feet of road surface covered with dead worms). I tried taking a picture with my phone, but it didn't really turn out. You can't see them in the road surface picture and the closeup is just a couple of dead worms so you don't get the full effect.

I googled it, of course, but didn't come up with much (except apparently Ohio was hit with this back in June, but much more widespread). I figure it must have something to do with the heat, but why just in that area and not anywhere else on my route? Other theories from Ohio are mating season (not the right season now), electrical currents, or acidic soil. Just weird. My theory is that an enormous robin has taken up residence in that area of the woods and it's driving the worms out, like the spiders fleeing from the basilisk in Harry Potter.