Monday, August 13, 2012

Mule and Deer

After a Sunday completely off the bike, I awoke to what could be the best biking morning in weeks.  Low humidity with temperatures around 75 degrees.  Despite some residual fatigue from Saturday's proceedings, the ride in was effortless. 

At lunch I did a short ride to a bank in Georgetown.  It's hard to call riding on M Street enjoyable, but the weather made it less than its usual maddening experience.

The muggies began creeping back in on the ride home.  After a mile or so, I forgot about the weather as I came upon two fawns munching grass along the Mount Vernon Trail.  A couple of weeks ago I saw two very young fawns in the same area.  For days afterward only one fawn could be found. I read online about a small deer carcass being eaten by a vulture.  I assumed that one of the fawns was dead. So today's sighting was uplifting.  One thing that I have a hard time with is the fact that the deer around here are oblivious to people.
 
Click to see two deer under the willow tree on the right

The rest of the ride home was automatic.  Just my mule and me spinning effortlessly along the river.  I am so lucky to have such a great ride home. I wonder if the people who voted against federal funding for bicycling infrastructure have ever biked to work along the Potomac.  Beautiful monuments, airplanes taking off and landing just overhead, sailboats playing bumper cars near Daingerfield Island, the quaint oldness of Old Town Alexandria, the massive faux arches of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Canada geese in Belle Haven Park, the boardwalk through the swamp grass on Dyke Marsh, the Return of the Jedi weaving through trees to the stone bridge. Probably not. They probably live in Ashburn where a car is synonymous with living in a endless maze of exurban concrete. Or maybe they drive to work on the beltway or I 395.  When I rode above 16 lanes of highway on the beltway near Tysons Corner on Saturday, my brain said, "When will we learn?" 


Well done, Mule
About a mile from home I looked down and saw something that made my day. The odometer on the Mule read 31,000 miles.  Dang.  Well, done Mule.

1 comment:

  1. Love the picture of the fawns! :) :) I never saw any fawns when I commuted along there. Lucky you! :)

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