Even in Its Longest Days

Holy mackanoli, that is as close as I want to ever get to a rampaging deer. Startled at my approach he charged out of the nearby brush hitting with a boom that sounded like thunder, his antler caught and broke off on my saddle bag... 

Something like that might have made a more interesting story; the actual story was much more run of the mill stuff: While hike-a-biking the wash I turn and discover an antler lying among the rocks. See, nothing to it.

hiking about, with my bike at my side, i noticed the circular clearing in the lee of a rather large shrub; a deer had found a nice place for a nap; then...

turning about i noticed an antler lying among the rocks...

not much of a story, but it will make a nice souvenir.

You know, ever since the days of Jack and Diane I have been a John Mellencamp fan; he's got so many of those nostalgia songs that bring up memories of days of our youth:

"It seems like once upon a time ago

I was where I was supposed to be

My vision was true and my heart was too

There was no end to what I could dream...

But nothing lasts forever

Your best efforts don't always pay...

So you pretend not to notice

That everything has changed

The way that you look

And the friends you once had

So you just keep on acting the same...

But nothing last forever

Your best efforts don't always pay

Sometimes you get sick

And you won't get better

That's when life is short

Even in its longest days..."

(Mellencamp)

I have come to realize something about bicycling, something that sets it apart from so many other activities that we could choose to do in our lives. There is so much variety in it, so many unique turns that, if we so choose, we can spend a lifetime reinventing ourselves without straying from the one all-encompassing word- cyclist. When we are younger and fearless, maybe full of bravado, speed is the thing and we race. We race everywhere. We race in actual races. We race on the weekly training rides. We race along the bike path when someone has the nerve to pass us. We start on the road, maybe try the track, or even saddle up on the mountain bike. Perhaps, at some point, we develop an awareness and start commuting by bike, running errands by bike. Then we discover adventure by bike; we can actually use the things to camp. They can take us to the same places we go afoot, but enable us to go even further along the same trails. We transition from speed to something called adventure; using the bike to take us places, allow us to see things we likely would not otherwise see. 

Maybe we toggle back and forth between fast and slow. One moment winning is everything, the next it is all about the experience. There, and back again - I think a Hobbit wrote that once. Anyway...

Good ol' Johnny M might sing about "when life is short," but when cycling is in your blood it can be hard to see any end to it.

there are so many of these low-growing yellow flowers out there it makes it hard to walk...

but, as far as I can tell, only a lone ceanothus blooming in this part of the wash

found another water control device...

with a very narrow gate

and a long, nicely formed gabion wall stretching away, from the gate, to the east