Thanks, in part, to the demise, in the last second of the fourth quarter, of your favorite football team, and no doubt, to a week of work that involved more hand-holding and back-patting of colleagues and students than you’re used to after the recent months of relative leisure, the undeniable appeals of alcohol and fraternity fail to fully appeal.
You wander the bar a bit, impressed that, contrary to history, the assembled have yet to be 86’ed, and then decide it’s time to pedal home.
The route back’s not nearly so amusing as the route there; it doesn’t even involve a walk across the much-loved Ballard Locks, a place where miscreants and scofflaws turn into surprisingly good citizens, merely wondering aloud what constitutes cycling while still doing pretty much exactly what the signs say one must.
Moreover, you realize that even though you’ve left the ride, it still remains with you: every time you see a bike lamp blinking towards you, there’s that little frisson of hope you feel whenever there’s that chance of running across cyclists you know.
Occasionally, you even consider turning back, but the road unfolds too quickly and before you know it, you’re climbing past Convention Centers and hipster bars and then over the topmost top of the last big hill.
There are still stars visible, a phenomenon the weather prognosticators tell us will be in short supply soon, so you dawdle over the vista before plummeting down towards your final destination.
The last few blocks fly by and then you’re putting the rig away and locking it up. You stand in your backyard while, noticing it’s the earliest you’ve done so on a Thursday in over a month—not bad for an old guy and thus, you can turn in and drop off soothed by the knowledge that there are others still out there, pedaling the night away.
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