In Flight Across the Sun

There I was, riding along minding my own business, when all of a sudden the ground began to waver, move in a flow from left to right across my path. It was as if, after all these years and countless, fruitless attempts at chasing, I had finally caught a mirage. It was mesmerizing and psychedelic (he says as he sits listening to some Jefferson Airplane); surely I would have crashed if I had stared too long or deeply.

Then came the first collision, a plonk to the helmet, followed by a second, thud this time, to my left arm. In that instant the wavering pavement made sense - I had ridden into the midst of a million bees, a massive hive on the move, and in flight across the sun. Their many tiny shadows continued to cause the pavement to break apart into pieces of uncountable number, each constantly shifting while, somehow, retaining a solidness, and allowing me to roll along.

"Oh damn," I thought but there were no further collisions, the remainder of the hive, all 999,998 of the little aviators flew somewhere high enough above my head to avoid any more problems. I have seen large numbers of bees before, including a very angry hive whose members made us, obstacle course runners, know of their displeasure with our passing, but all of those moments paled in comparison of size and scope, to the sheer numbers I saw today. I've got to tell you, it was kind of scary at first, but then so very amazing after.

It may have been a solo ride for me, but I saw groups everywhere I looked. The bees, of course, but also this group of BoBIE's heading up into the canyon. I passed them up here, turned around at the canyon mouth, and passed each other again going in opposite directions. At that point someone said "Hi, Mike," but I didn't see who it was - Dean? A belated "hey" back at you.

Then came the groups of yuccas - some old dead ones, others blooming young ones.

Been a while since I last stopped in at this little park; in fact I thought it used to have a different name. Notice the fence in the background, lined with interpretive panels, about rocks, minerals, geology, and the local mining operations. Pretty cool, and informative, and not there at the time of my last visit.