Ooooo, Soft

Shaving day was still a couple nights away, I had not been to any fancy skin spa, and I certainly had not plastered duct tape to myself and given a good yank...

I had slapped my hand down on my leg in semi-frustration at yet another red light and, since I was sitting, it came down between the cuff of my bibs and my knee. Skin on skin. "Oh, what's this? Soooooft. And smooooth too." It was unexpected enough to be immediately noticeable. Convention made me shave that part of my anatomy when I decided bike racing was a pretty good hobby, a way back in 1989. Shaving might result in smooth, but I don't recall it ever resulting in soft as well. This was kind of mesmerizing, and I moved a couple fingertips up to the cuff and back to the knee. In a semi-trance-like state I must have done it a few times before I heard the "hey buddy, what the hell you doing in there?"

Immediately snapped out the my reverie, I looked over at the car in the next lane, the one from which the pointed question came. Simultaneously, I threw up my hands, the universal symbol of "what? Me? I'm not doing anything." I thought that, rather than said it, and wondered what exactly he thought was going on. Thankfully that is when the light turned green and put an end to uncomfortable suspicion. I rubbed my fingers together; they were dry. They were dusty. I put them back down to my knee. Dusty again. 

And that is how I stumbled upon a secret of the trade. I am not sure what trade, but I am pretty sure it used to be a secret.  A very fine coating of powder-like dust will make your skin both soft and smooth. You won't get it by riding Marshall Canyon, or anywhere else in the San Gabriel's, really. Riding up there will only coat you with gritty stuff, leaving your legs like sandpaper to the touch. The hills of Bonelli Park on the other hand are formed of different stuff, softer-sandstoney stuff. Have a big date in the evening? Go for a ride at Bonelli beforehand. Your date will be all, "ooo, baby, what's your secret?" 

The secret will be ours.

I had mistakenly believed that there was nothing new to discover in Bonelli, until today, when I noticed this big metal... something down in a little canyon. What is it? Since it is on a regular loop, I'll go down and find out next time.

What an autumn day!