Groovin' On a Sunday Afternoon

February 12, 2023

Groovin' On a Sunday Afternoon

"Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon

Really couldn't get away too soon

I can't imagine anything that's better..."

You know, there were three races this weekend, each within a forty minute drive. I could have picked one, or two, but decided on the only thing that seemed to make much sense - I went out and rode instead, both days. You know how long it has been since last I did that? Let's just say it has been quite a while.

Best yet, I was just going to let the groove guide me. Oh, I knew I would head into the Out There, but after that...

I'd just follow the breeze blowing through the trees, the clouds drifting in the air, the water running across the sands, the calling notes of music. I would turn my wheels on a dime and a whim, or stop and consider the choices while watching shadows move across the mountains, and the sun turn its spotlight on clusters of tiny white flowers dried last year.

I was surprised to find water flowing where it was - south of the dam, east of the channel, though still in the wash. I watched it eddy around a young yucca before spilling over rocks and down across the sands. I watched submerged grasses ripple and wave in the flow where willows in a thicket greedily soaked it in. While it lasts. It was the kind of day I might like to spend hours to move a single mile or two.

"...There's always lots of things that we can see

We can be anyone we like to be

And all those happy people we could meet just

Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon..."

Then the breeze took me out of the wash, along the Powerline and the Thompson Creek Trail, and down to the Village where the sounds of bubbling water were replaced by the sounds of bubbly music - the Happy Neighbor Club groovin' at the Farmers' Market, the scents of nature replaced with those of plates of food wafting from the patio of Bardot. Instead of birds chirping, there were people laughing, people talking, movement swirling round tents of vegetables and fruits, baked goods and crafts, flowers being carried in arms instead of waving on the ends of branches. Then there was a ride through the Farm, and the crack of ball hitting bat - it is baseball season again. Already. The Sagehens of Pomona College were in a tight battle with the Bearcats of Oregon's Willamette University. I watched that for a while too. Because I was...

Groovin' on a Sunday Afternoon.