This was my view commuting in. What was yours?
Some rides into work are simply more memorable than others. Today’s was one of those rides.
The temperature was a perfect 57 degrees. Light pants, a t-shirt, and a light windbreaker were all I needed. While the sun the last couple of weeks as I headed due east was a bit vexing – so bright and intense, and right on the horizon – today, as we move deeper into October, it was a breathtaking spectacle of pinks, yellows, silvers, and deep ash. I had to be careful not to get too distracted by it!
If I had not been on my bike I wouldn’t have heard or seen the baby excitedly coo and point, alerting her mom that a dog was coming. I wouldn’t have seen the fashionable young woman, rush from her car toward a traditional Catholic church that holds a Latin Mass every morning, and pull a long white veil from her bag and fit it onto her head.
If I had been in a car it might have been easy to ignore the man asleep on a park bench, or another, walking slowly, just waking up, wrapped in a blanket.
I was able to cut down Chestnut where it’s closed to traffic in preparation for Pedal the Cause this weekend. Amazingly, the staff person I had been meaning to call was there, directing people as they constructed Ride Village. I was even able to conduct a bit of business on my way in this morning.
And as a lifelong believer in lucky pennies, I was as surprised and delighted this morning as I am every morning and evening I ride to and from work. My route seems to be sprinkled with pennies, leading me home or to my second home, reminding me just how good it is to be on my bike.
