I’ll bet if you plotted the route as a line on a map it would tie up like a ribbon on a birthday gift, marking the lovely lagniappe that was last night’s ride, a southerly meander along Seattle’s original waterway highlighted by a Whack-A-Mole freeway viewing during which, fortunately, no moles were whacked.
Even without Fancy Fred leading the way, we were able to split the group within two blocks of leaving Westlake, but happily, there was reunion at the car wash minimart which featured, to my cannabis-induced consternation and indecisiveness, way more different types of Reese’s Peanut Butter snacks than is parseable by a mind under the influence of such-and-such and so-and-so.
I had originally predicted that our riverside jaunt was headed all the way to the bottom of the lake, but instead, we eschewed the full riparian version for a curlicue back around the dreaded Family “Fun” Center and a mass of pitch pedaling not particularly endorsed by a lone spectator in a speeding pickup truck.
If you’ve never stood on a platform of dirt with your head poking out between four lanes of freeway—to have cars and trucks blowing by your ears at eye level—you’re surely missing out on something and not just the opportunity to ingest mass quantities of grit traveling sixty miles an hour.
Consider it a new perspective on automobile culture; viewing vehicles from below reveals their soft underbellies; they’re like careless dragons lounging in their caves on mounds of bejeweled baubles, and you feel a renewed compassion for those poor drivers strapped in metal cages missing out on the opportunity to glide alongside Old Man River for mile upon looping mile on a cool but dry spring evening to the tune of spinning cranks, puttering chains, and beer cans being opened and chugged.
He, like we, just keeps flowing, that Old Man River: mile after mile, week after week, Thursday night after Thursday night, just keeps flowing along.
Even without Fancy Fred leading the way, we were able to split the group within two blocks of leaving Westlake, but happily, there was reunion at the car wash minimart which featured, to my cannabis-induced consternation and indecisiveness, way more different types of Reese’s Peanut Butter snacks than is parseable by a mind under the influence of such-and-such and so-and-so.
I had originally predicted that our riverside jaunt was headed all the way to the bottom of the lake, but instead, we eschewed the full riparian version for a curlicue back around the dreaded Family “Fun” Center and a mass of pitch pedaling not particularly endorsed by a lone spectator in a speeding pickup truck.
If you’ve never stood on a platform of dirt with your head poking out between four lanes of freeway—to have cars and trucks blowing by your ears at eye level—you’re surely missing out on something and not just the opportunity to ingest mass quantities of grit traveling sixty miles an hour.
Consider it a new perspective on automobile culture; viewing vehicles from below reveals their soft underbellies; they’re like careless dragons lounging in their caves on mounds of bejeweled baubles, and you feel a renewed compassion for those poor drivers strapped in metal cages missing out on the opportunity to glide alongside Old Man River for mile upon looping mile on a cool but dry spring evening to the tune of spinning cranks, puttering chains, and beer cans being opened and chugged.
He, like we, just keeps flowing, that Old Man River: mile after mile, week after week, Thursday night after Thursday night, just keeps flowing along.
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