Backroad, Winters to Vacaville

Riding my bike along the country road near the end of the day of another long bike ride I allow myself to imagine what it would be like to live in a world where it's just me and some trees--a Norfolk pine or two, California coastal redwoods for shade, the great oaks, some orange groves, and peach trees in their season.

I only get this sort of new idea when I'm riding my bike somewhere in the countryside near the end of a long day and there are as few cars as possible to worry about.

Toward the end of a long bike ride in the countryside it seems like it's always hot and dusty or cold and windy, or a combination of each. I know conditions really aren't like this, but just seem like this.

If it isn't pain I feel toward the end, then it's tedium, which is even worse than pain. And very often it's both, pain and tedium.

Then, my bike doesn't seem to care how I feel. It travels along the road like it would be fine either way, with me or without me. At such a time all I can do is cling to its energy or stop altogether, having none of my own.

If I do keep going I always seem to come to the place where I see that I do live in a world where it's just me and some trees, and that my bike's taken me there.