361 Miles

Jim and I did a bike ride yesterday afternoon. Fields of goldernrod with blotches of intense purple from wild asters. All the plants were thick and tall and at their zenith, yet there were some leaves on the path telling you it's not going to last much longer. When the leaves cover the edges of the path, it looks like an ancient, half-forgotten Indian trail. You can hear nuts and things crunching under your tires, and there's often the smell of dead leaves in the air that - to me - is completely invigorating!

At one point, we rode past a field we go by all the time, which Jim says is a soybean field. You can see it through the trees, but it's usually nothing special to look at. This time, we must have caught it just right, because the plats were yellowed and the slanting sun was hitting them fairly strongly. The combination created this intense YELLOW that rolled over the hills into the distance with nothing but a few large, dark green trees splotched in there to break it up. The fields seemed to be glowing; like a Wolf Khan painting come to life!

Overall, it was pretty windy, and it's looking like this coming week will be rainy and down into the low 60s. I'm worried that this might have been the last ride of the season. It was a good ride though, and it's been a good season. Definitely had some muddy rides. See the pic, where you can see the mud splatters you sometimes get. I love getting all dirty when I ride! We saw snakes, frogs, deer, and even a turtle crossing the path at different times during the season. Anyway, I calculated the we've probably gone 361 miles since about May, so that's an average of about 18 miles a week. Not too bad!