Thursday, June 02, 2016

Day #2: Steamy roads

It looked like this streak was going to be no streak at all. I left home at 6:10 this morning and returned home in the late afternoon after a torrential downpour that left rivers in the street. It was a heavy but short storm and the hot streets dried quickly so by 7:00, I could ride.

My EEH suggested I set a minimum mileage goal for any ride to qualify for this streak. I decided that 5 miles was a decent distance. That's a little less than a half hour of easy cycling so I should be able to at least do that every day, right!

After a half mile or so this evening, the rain began to fall again, very intermittently. Just a drop here and there. I heard it on my helmet more than I felt it. Plink ... plink ... ... ... plink. Then it fell more steadily. As the pattering rain wet the roads, the steam began to rise from the still warm asphalt. Why does seeing this make me feel like a kid? Is it the bicycle and the way I can lean into a downhill curve and coast through the mist?

I'm home now, a little sweaty, a little wet from the rain. It is an early summer evening, the heat of the day subsided, the humidity heavy. Lightning bugs blink out by the trees, a mockingbird sings from the top of a roof. I will make a cup of tea and sit on the porch swing and breathe the damp, heavy, evening scent of the Confederate jasmine that covers the lattice below the screen porch. A cardinal will flit across the backyard, bright red. The darkness will come and maybe the barred owls will call.

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