Hide and Seek

January 28,2013

When I got to my mom and dad’s house on Thursday I could hear very loud counting as I approached the front door. Not the kind of counting that causes you to wince, like you’ve got it coming to you. It was well past three and had a pleasant tone.

“EIGHT….  NINE…”

Knock, knock.

“WHO’S HERE??? Look, it’s Aunt Ryo!”

I was rushed by a bunch of blondes, then told “You count, I hide!”

Hide and seek, a favorite game of my nephews and niece.  The littlest munchkin hid with me and gently put his farm baby finger over his lips as he signaled for me to keep quiet! We couldn’t let Bubby find us.

Then, there was Noah, the MOST excited to play.  He sprints to find a somewhat-less-than-obvious place to hunker down, then giggles incessantly, juts limbs out from his hiding place, and abruptly jumps out when he hears a hunting Bubby in the viscinity and yells “BUBBY! You count, I hide!” once again.

So hilarious.

So, when I decided to take my white beast, the Mean Betty White, out on a snowy Sunday morning/afternoon ride, I tried to be a little like Noah: giddy with excitement but a little less than discrete.  I made my white rig a little more obvious to traffic for the 9-miles of road to the park by slapping on my infamous “Ride.Crash.Repeat.” red wool sweater. I waved my arms and stood on the pedals to make myself “look big.”  Heck, sometimes I even road on the snow-covered shoulder just in case.  

Unfortunately, for every 10 cars that saw me, gave me 3+ feet and went about their merry way,  there was 1 that was not quite as considerate. We know all to well, it only takes one.

I was coming down a straight-away and I could hear a car approaching.  There was no one headed toward us in the other direction, but I just had this 6th sense kick in telling me to take the sludge-filled shoulder.  Good thing I did, because despite this move to “safety” on the berm, the white sedan came so close to me that I could have reached in the passenger-side window and grabbed a hot chocolate out of the cup holder.

Unbelievable. Sad. Frustrating. Unacceptable.

Other than that and one other close encounter of a similar nature, I had an AMAZING ride!  One of my best buds, MJ, met me at the park and we hit the trails after I defrosted my Camelbak in her car and took my first swig of funky water.  We got over 10 miles of slippery, frosty fun in and it reminded me, once again, why I love to bike so much.

Next time I ride on the road, I think I’ll have to wear some flashing lights and carry a billy-stick in case I run into some of my less-than-accommodating driver friends.

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