ENOUGH RAIN ALREADY!!!!

I haven't had a chance to post about the rain that we suffered on the way to Atapuerca (rain, hell, we got all kinds of precipitation that day) Well, we got it again today.

There's a big cold front that's blown in off the Atlantic and which is playing hell with the entire peninsula; Sevilla's famous Feria de Abril has been all but washed out, people in coastal Galicia are up to their armpits in overflowing rivers, and the poor farmers here in La Mancha desperately need the rain but it's not coming down in a way that would be useful - consistent, without wind and in large enough quantities that it would actually help the farmers. We didn't get it today. Riding down through Villacañas, grey curtains of rain would blow in and beat the hell out of us for an hour or so; then we'd get lovely blue skies. And then it would start all over again, never letting us get dry and warm enough to recover from one bout of precipitiation before we had to buckle down and get ready for the next one.

I can deal with rain but I am NOT good with wind. Never have been. And the weather predicition was for blasts of wind going up to 90 km/h. It never got quite that bad, but it was still bad enough for me to lose my temper and for Randy's wool cap, which he wears under his helmet, to get totally soaked.

Thing was, the route itself was actually pretty good today. Randy ended up getting applause from a couple of members of the gitano community in Villacañas, the surfaces of most of the trails weren't all that bad (save for a couple of muddy spots - but no clay, thank God) and the drivers were respectful and gave us lots of space.

I know how badly the farmers and people who live off the land in Ciudad Real must need the water. But damn, I am SO fed up with rain and wind that I feel like I might slap the next person who says that it's going to last for two more days.....