Keeping an Eye on the Trail

It was the morning of Halloween. Normally, around these parts, I can hope to be riding in pleasantly cool weather. This morning was downright cold.  There was definitely frost on my pumpkin, if you know what I mean (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  The frost was accompanied by a creepy fog, very appropriate for the day.

Big Nellie doesn't like frost. Big Nellie has about 75 percent of her loaded weight on the back wheel.  One little slip and Big Nellie takes a dive.  Having already hit the pavement once this month, I decided to be extra careful when I hit the Mount Vernon Trail this morning.  This is the long wooden bridge at Dyke Marsh. It's a lovely 200 yard stretch of the trail but the thin coating of rime made it very slick today. In fact, when I stopped to take this picture on a slight incline, Big Nellie started to slide backward. No worries. I gained a good footing and was soon off to work. I have about a dozen of these wooden bridges between home and work so I was a little late getting to the office.

On the way home I came upon some grafitti. It has been on the trail for a few days. Big Nellie doesn't like grafitti..Big Nellie especially doesn't like grafitti that is extracted from a pop song that she's never heard before. Why doesn't the grafitti say something useful like "Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles."  Big Nellie would like that.  Her odometer is closing in on 29,000 miles.  Once she gets there, she goes down into the basement for the winter. She can use the rest.

Gotta run. The little urchins failed to eat all the candy. So much chocolate. So little time.