Our bikes waiting for us
Today was a beautiful day and we finally got our bikes out to go on a ride. It was the first one of the year and we will need to kick it up a notch because Ragbrai will come fast. We didn’t want to go real far, so we rode around 25 miles out in the country. The weather was perfect and so was the ride. My favorite place to ride the bike is the S curves by Waucoma. It’s not a very big stretch and I don’t think it can even count as a stretch at all. But when you go by there you can smell the river and the wild flowers really well. For just that instant you forget that you are about to go into town and it is really nice. Just as we were riding by it today, I saw a Crane bird that had scooped up a fish from the water and was flying away. How cool is that! If you were in a car you would have sure missed it. Today the air was filled with sweet clover and farmers cutting their hay and I realized that there is nothing that I love more than to ride my bike.
I remember as a kid my most favorite possession was a white banana seat bike with high handle bars. The handle bars has long tassels hanging from them and the coolest part of the bike was a white wicker basket on it. The basket had yellow and pink flowers on the front of it and it could hold anything from stuff you needed to keep or a farm cat that you just dressed up with your younger brothers’ clothes on it. It’s funny that I can hardly remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember that bike from 45 years ago! I remember riding the bike all over the farm. I had the worst feet for shoes and I was always bare foot riding it. So I was on my bike down by the milk barn one day and Dad wanted me to get something from the tool shop. Well I got on my bike and was going to get it. I remember him saying “If God wanted everyone to ride bikes all the time that he would have made us with wheels on our feet” Well being the very smart and intelligent young child that I was – I said “God made the bicycles so we could ride them all the time! ” Now I’m thinking that this was a very smart and excellent reply back to Dad especially since I was maybe only 5 or 6 years old . But when I looked at him I remember thinking – OK maybe he didn’t think that this was a good answer at all. But I rode my bike to the tool shop and got whatever he was looking for and put it in the basket to deliver it to him. Dad never said anything again to me about me riding the coolest bike in the county – my white banana seat bike with the wicker basket and flowers on it.