A Ride for Ice Cream - Not!

A welcomed surprise at church today…a special poem written just for me along with a check toward my 60 for Hope ride! Someone else believes I can do this! Thank you God for early believers/supporters!

Lunch with friends.
An afternoon of relaxation talking to my adult children, reading & falling asleep on the couch.

No body aches from yesterday’s work so in the late afternoon sun Harley and I begin our bike ride. Up the hill from our house and toward Quarryville we go for some soft ice cream at Dottie’s, a local favorite.

It’s a rolling ride, but without major climbs. Nearly an hour later we arrive at Dottie’s to a mile long line. While we wait, Harley shared an athlete’s wisdom – “ice cream was strictly forbidden from soccer player’s diet. In fact, if a player on his college team was found eating it they were made to run extra laps. Ice cream makes an active body sluggish,” he said. Knowing we have another 10 miles home, I agreed to forego this longed-for treat. We head to the Turkey Hill for a refreshing drink instead.

Ride goal lost in weeds!

Here’s my day’s plan:

1. Weed Lily of the Valley bed.
2. Landscape around the recently reinstated outhouse in our backyard.
3. Get a pick-up load of mulch and begin spreading to protect my weeding efforts.
4. Do 2 loads of wash and hang out to dry
5. Take a 10 mile evening bike ride with husband, Harley

Results of my plan:

1. Lily of the Valley bed weeded & mulched after 6 tedious hours! Enough already!!
2. Landscape around outhouse – it’s ready for planting!
3. ¾ of the mulch load is spread.
4. Bike ride – cancelled!

My body is fried – literally! This 60-year-old body is having a hard time adjusting to temperatures that jumped from freezing to 90 degrees in two short days! A full day in the sun, mostly bending over, simply did me in! I have a pounding headache. And I never get headaches. What kind of fool am I to think I can ride 60 miles at the end of July?

Writing poetry while riding

Eight Mile Morning

Nearly noon
Bright sky-high sun
Beams down as pedals pump
Cool April breeze pulse my skin
Though two jacket layers it pierces right in.
Which route to ride, I daily decide
To the right and down a slight incline,
Or left, toward the killer ½ mile climb
Oh, to mount it would be sublime.

With sun-confident joy toward the long hill I turn;
Surely with weeks of training, I’ll conquer this hill in a blur.
Amish children dot my path; black hats bobbing and school bags dragging toward farmhouses they race, for to be outpaced by the helmet-head lady would a disgrace.
Onward I pedal, past peach tree blossoms, little girls on a mulch pile mountain, raspberry bushes trimmed to perfection and tied to their posts without a picker of contention.

Past school house two; a baseball game in full force.
Bat contacts ball with a boom, pounding more energy into my bike rider’s soul,
For the ½ mile climb just around the bend!

To the rising hill I push. I puff to a lower gear to manage my pace.
A speeding trunk on decline, swerves, breaks and nearly crosses into my line.
Shaken by what might have been, I gasp, I sigh.
My energy sapped for reaching the top, “I think I can” delayed for another day’s plot.

Back in the seat, I rev up my gears
For smooth fast pedaling to mile number five.
Past goat kids grazing and lawn art lazing along this high ridge
I double my efforts for the hill on ahead remembering what’s up comes down again.
Sailing downward at a speed of 28, eyes intently peeled to avoid a pothole mistake.
My mind idly wonders to the birds in the air and I ask,
Mr. Blackbird, are there potholes up there?

On this eight mile morning, home I go;
Gratified!