Bike rides and high fives.
I’ve been trying my hand at biking lately. I spent the past month in Illinois, taking care of my mother-in-law while she beats the shit out of breast cancer. Except that she is one tough broad, so she doesn’t need much caring. So mostly I was stuck in a small town outside of my much larger home town, without a car. So I started taking her bike out, and eventually realized that there was a bike trail two blocks from her house. And it went all the way to Springfield! The first time I went, I trucked it all the way to the end and back, nearly eighteen miles, with barely a break. The second time I went I brought my camera and took it a little easier, stopping to take pictures of interesting points.
The trail ends in the gigantic chain store shopping area, behind Old Navy and next to a car wash. There’s no place to sit down and I doubt they’d let me walk my bike through the car wash, so the second time I opted to just stop at this park about a half mile from the end.
On the way back from the park is basically an alley between two streets. Some people have gardens, but this is the only one that was really worth stopping and taking a picture of. After this, the bike path goes along a main road and past a Sonic, which is nice because you can stop and sit at their covered tables and relax a bit. It’s bad because Somic smells like funnel cake and depression.
Most of the bike path is smooth, flat, and tree lined so you get a light breeze. But then you get to the part where they’re doing construction on the overpass and it’s a bit of a pain. A bumpy, crotch numbing, dusty pain. And hell no I did not get off of my bike and walk through a cloud of dust.
This is fairly close to the beginning, at this point my labia are pretty much begging me to let them take a break and the wind is going the wrong way. So I stopped at a bench and took this picture, the trail used to be a railroad. Now it’s situated between a lake and a creek, with the new Amtrak rail on the other side of the creek. Then I heard shouting and realized that I was in the perfect setting for an axe murderer movie, and despite protests from my crotch, jumped back on the bike and headed home.
And now that i’m back in Tennessee, i’m trying to keep up with biking, but it’s a lot harder here. Not just because I don’t have easy access to a bike trail, but because, well…this is what Clarksville looks like:
It’s hilly, there are no sidewalks which I know I shouldn’t be riding on anyway, but everyone here zips around like there’s no one on the road but them. So I actually rode these streets today to get comics, and I road through the grass down the street on the right. It’s kind of fun to zip down hills, but that’s overshadowed by the fact that i’m constantly praying that some asshole in his sweet tricked out ride doesn’t come roaring over the hill and mow me over.
So while i’m very happy to be at home with my husband and animals (and garden and Xbox and all of that other material crap), I really miss that bike trail. Smooth, cool, and I could wear my headphones because I didn’t have to worry about diving out of the way of a car if I heard it coming up behind me.
posted: 09 June 4
under: Uncategorized
