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photo (still) by Joeball

 

Sometimes, it's just too beautiful for words.

Howl

Worst.  Route.  Ever.

Right?

Wrong!

All it takes is a posse of some two dozen cyclists to turn even the worst of roads into the best of all possible worlds, with views you would never see otherwise, descents you would normally miss out on, and a unique opportunity for commemorating an almost full moon among spirits and their tree guardians where for once, no treads are feared and both angels and fools rush in together.

Color me skeptical, at first, I’ll admit it.  

The promise of a northward sprint along Seattle’s most nowhere of geographies initially left me cold, even on such a warm summer evening, but the enthusiasm with which the plan was pitched—and has been, for a while—encouraged me to give it a shot, and by the time the perfect Seattle analogue of Monet’s Le Grand Canal displayed itself to the west while crossing the scariest but most panoramic of our fair city’s decaying infrastructure, I was sold.

Woo-hoo.

Efficiency is not the only virtue, of course, but it is a virtue, nevertheless; and reminds you that if it weren’t for so many fucking cars and trucks on the roads, all the roads would be grand.  We await the inevitable demise of happy motoring with impatience and glee.

And speaking of death, how about all those interred families who welcomed us to their bardo for snacks and conversation beneath the communal sequoia whose girth required nine humans for one shared hug?

If you had to pick between the horizontal tranquility of the departed in their graves and the vertical ravenousness of those poor souls plying their trade on the boulevard, which would you choose?

Maybe both, if you could then snake through the woods to the water and wash away every so-called sin in liquid absolution turned golden by visually full lunacy.

Never say never, or always say all ways; the only route you’ll ever really regret is the one not taken.

Woo-hoo!

Smooth

 I’m sure that Noodles is correct and from an objective, scientific standpoint, there’s nothing molecularly aberrant about the water in Haller Lake compared to the H2O in Lake Washington or Lake Union, but I’ll nevertheless maintain that from the perspective of subjective experience, it really does feel different.

It’s smoother, I swear.  

You simply have to get in and breastroke with your eyes just above water level like an alligator and you can tell: you glide a little faster; the ripples ripple off you with softer undulations; every kick of your legs and pull of your arms propels you a tiny bit faster than normal.

It makes no sense, but there’s no denying it—as long as you’re willing to fully immerse yourself.

Which is, of course, generally true of many things in life, including Thursday night bike rides with plenty of the usual (and somewhat unusual) suspects.

I had a hankering for a two-lake evening, so after completing step one in the wake of the converted ferry party boat disgorging and engorging rich people at SLU, I was delighted to have a neighborhood guide for the northeastern reaches of our fair city to that once-a-year-or-so body of fresh water I knew was up there somewhere but certainly couldn’t have located on my own—at least not via such a pleasant route.

It turns out swimmers and fishermen can coexist happily since, as we’ve learned, it’s not the creatures in the water that are bothered by the shouts and murmurs of excitable humans, but rather, the beings living on the land surrounding it, especially those who wonder how long the noise is going to last.

The answer to that, we know, is: as long as it can!  Which is why a change in scenery is reasonably called for.

And once again, there’s surely no objective, scientific reason upon which to make this determination, but again again, there’s no denying what our feelings really feel.

Town

 It’s probably time for me to get a smartphone with GPS on it; as it is now, I tend to get lost on group rides into the woods fairly easily, especially in unknown parts under the influence of Farmer Ito Brand weed cookies.  This requires me to ask strangers how to get to places that mostly only bikes go to, which means they typically have no idea where I’m asking about.  The cashier at the gas station in Maple Valley was fairly helpful, though, although the second time I showed up asking about the same place made her kind of mad, in spite of it being sort of humorous if you think about it.

Thanks to old-fashioned address sharing, however, I managed to reunite with those I’d left with, as well as the slower-moving early-starters for the final push to Joevidtown, which turned out to be a remarkably pleasant riverside community populated with about three dozen familiar faces, including, at the time or eventually, the titular Shaddup Joe himself, Erin & Brian, Stephen & Rachel, Lauren, Langston, tehSchkott & Moira, Ross, Tictoc, Shahan, Tom, TooTall, Nurse, Rob, Wolfgang, Trino, Zach, Rez, Deja, Larry, Amanda, Aidan, Dan, Em & her pal whose name I forget, Jenelle, Fancy Fred, Gunny, Mark, Kaitlyn, Dada, Salt, and certainly a few others who are slipping my slippery mind as I write.

The weather was perfect; the route delightful, and the company superb.  I laughed a lot and went to sleep before 11:00 to the sound of the rushing river and cries of joy from assembled night owls.

On my solitary way home I realized I’d gotten off the trail Saturday just before the really nicest part of it, through the Maple Valley arboretum, so that piece was a special gift.

It seemed like the time on the Cedar River trail was a lot longer heading back; chalk that up to Farmer Ito and the diverting joy of riding to Joevidtown with so many friends.