Wednesday Gravel: The Best of It

"Whooooop!" The call came twice, ecstatic, affirmative, rising clear and above the calls of hundreds of birds that call these acres of sage and chaparral home. Someone was clearly getting a kick out of their gravel ride. There was talking too; I couldn't make out what was being said, but the voices seemed to be clustered right where the regroup should have been coming together.

Lying in wait further along the trail, swatting at flies, watching the shadows grow, the time pass - six-forty, 6:45, seven o'clock, seven-o-five. A lone walker passed along where the riders should have been. Still I waited; it was a good spot for a photo, and I was going to take it. What's going on; where are they? Using my fingers to keep count, I ticked off the number of times the thought crossed my mind - once, twice, three times. The fourth time I said it out loud, "where are they?" The gathering spot had grown quiet, and at that point I realized that something had changed this week, and whoever had been talking, whether the group, or someone else, would not be passing by tonight.

I may not have made the shot I was hoping for, but in the end it really did not matter, making the best of it turned out to be irrelevant, I doubt the evening ride could have gone any better anyway. The sky, the evening light, the rocks, the birds, the shadows, mountains, the flowering rhus (at least I think it was rhus), things I had not seen before, like sand, deep real sand, and trees all clustered together - a pine with cones, and a small stand of eucalyptus, somehow surviving where no others have. Not sure why the idea of adding this loop to the Cross Town Loop never crossed my mind before; maybe it was the waiting, the time to think, that brought on the realization. Whatever the case, it is perfect, another dirt section (and a pretty big one at that) added to Powerline, the dirt Thompson Creek Trail, the Farm loops, and help balance out the pavement.