My bicycle is lagging at 16,334. However, I am about to enter another period of more bicycling than driving. The first couple weeks of this period will be on a different bicycle but I will be back to the LOOK with plenty of good weather remaining. 17,000 on the LOOK is definitely going to occur this year, it will be interesting to see how close I get to having the bicycle catch up to the car.
I went to work today. There were some light moments, for example this morning I made a point of parading around the entire Division wishing each and every employee that I encountered a "Happy Third Payday of the Month", which today was. But mostly I was "on" all day as lots of folks are desperately trying to extract some additional piece of the institutional memory that I am about to take into retirement. I did the best I could.
But it was hard, it used up a lot of energy. I got home and I wanted to ride my bike. I am astounded that all of this time I was able to go to work every day and still get in a two hour bicycle ride most days of the week. How did I do that? I got on my bicycle and somehow forced myself back into what was for so long my regular daily routine.
And? And I don't any more like riding when all of those cars are out there trying to get home. There are so many of them that are very, very angry. Cars deliberately take the pavement away from a bicycle, not because it speeds their journey, but only because they have a car and you in the spandex can just wait behind me.
OK, I wait. But what's the point?
In the face of the unexpected aggression I deviated from my more or less standard over to the river route and rode back past the cows.
The cows seem, as always, pretty calm. I like the lighting on this one, I wish I had had the time to wait for optimum lighting but Ansel Adams I am not.I've been back with the work force, with people I have known for a long time. Back with people I respect, whose opinions I have come to value, people who know lots of things about lots of things that I know only a little about, people who have always made the travel on this road interesting. Two more days and I will be gone for good. There are lots of things there that I will miss, mostly those people. But I know emphatically that I am ready now to begin finding out just exactly what it is that comes next.
1 comment:
I was a trifle aghast there for a minute. Okay, I get it, it's a little joke.
Once again the odd coincidence strikes -- I was going to post a photo of my odometer yesterday, if I had posted. I decided to put the photo on my sidebar, instead.
Love the cows. They do look calm.
I've been amazed for years that you could come home from work and ride. Work, and the energy it consumes, were a significant factor in the reduction in the number of rides I took in September and October. At least as big a factor as weather and loss of daylight. In fact, daylight will no longer be an issue now that you're retired. There is always some. Weather, on the other hand....
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