My New Bike

Today I took the brand new bike I got for Christmas out for a lovely spin. (This is the great thing about living in Texas; it's a sunny 78 degrees F. I think I even got a bit of a tan.) First I did some errands, using turn signals and everything. I rode my bike over to Walmart to buy a lock for my bike, then to a specialty shop to buy incense for my 1st Grade Sunday School class tomorrow. We're doing the story of the Wise Men, and I actually found a stick called Frankincense & Myrrh. Cool! The kids are going to be in such awe.

Then, I rode over to the city's bike trail, which is quite nice, and rode around for a while amid lots of other cyclists (and just plain cyclers, like my self), all of us with our cool helmets on. "On your left." I'd say, whizzing past dog-walkers, speed-walkers, runners, and regular walkers. The dog park was packed with Frisbee-toting twenty-somethings and sun hat-wearing older couples. Every park I rode past was filled with whole families: Moms chatting and Dads swinging their young ones to their hearts' delight.

There's no room to store my bike in the garage, so it stays in the dining room next to the kitchen table. I'm pretty sure I have the coolest mom of anyone -- she puts up with a lot. On my way here, I rode through neighborhoods that my brother and I rode our bikes through as kids. My memory was swarmed with images of all our neighborhood friends riding in a pack to the park or to nowhere, and I was thinking, "I don't remember it being this difficult." I'm typing this at the library right now, and am getting ready to ride home. I may have to sit on ice packs for the next few days, but it was definitely worth it on this splendid January afternoon.