Is it possible to ride while sleeping?
I may have done just that on at least one occasion. In particular, I recall a time I picked up a small package on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and delivered it to an office in the Wall Street area--a distance of about 8 kilometers, in traffic. When I arrived at that office, I opened my eyes and had no idea of how I got there. And, when I stepped out of the building, my bike was locked to a parking meter.
When you are a messenger, nobody much cares about whether you slept or about anything else you might've done on your bike, as long as the document or package is delivered in a timely fashion, as they say.
It also helps not to have outstanding arrest warrants. That is what Angela Yates is learning as I write.
Police officers found the 43-year-old sitting on a bicycle, passed out, in a Middlesboro, Kentucky gas station. They woke her up and found that, in addition to her arrest warrants, she had a criminal summons.
During her arrest, the police searched her property and found a syringe containing a clear substance they believe to be crystal meth. They also found eight other syringes and other drug paraphernalia.
Yates was then taken to the Bell County Detention Center, where she was strip-searched. A quart-size bag containing what officials believe to be marijuana, along with another liquid-filled syringe, were found in her possession.
She faces a number of charges.
If she is using those substances, I can't help but to wonder how she even got on a bicycle!
Every year, there's a moment when I realize I'm on a fall ride. It usually has nothing to do with the calendar, for--as we know--the seasons neither begin nor end on the "official" date. The Autumnal Equinox comes on the 21st of September, or some date one or two days on either side of it, but the weather may be no different from that of August--or December. Similarly, the arrival of the seasons has much to do where you are, geographically. Autumn, or any other season, is not going to arrive or manifest itself on the eastern plains of Montana on the same day, or in the same way, as along the coast of Florida.
Although we've had some cooler weather during the last couple of days, today felt like autumn for the first time. It had to do with what I saw while riding today:
Picasso had his "blue period;" today I took my Yellow Shot. Although our trees are nowhere near peak, and they're not in Vermont, they are lovely.
I took the shot in Ozone Park, on a street called Aroine Road. That road dead-ends into a place called Rocket Park. Perhaps it has something to do with the how quickly the seasons go by. (That's what you have to look forward to as you get older!)
Rain, rain and more rain.
That's been the story of this week. The only variable has been the temperature: Up to midday yesterday, the air felt tropically humid and dense.
Since then, the raindrops have been needles of the chilly wind. I don't mind the sensation; it is a sign that autumn has begun.
Being an educator has meant giving up something I used to enjoy: the fall cycling vacation. Since I've begun to teach, I've taken weekend trips in the fall. One of my more memorable ones was a Columbus Day weekend in Vermont. The foliage was just slightly past its peak, and save for some rain on the second afternoon and a sudden drop from 54 to 15 degrees F that evening, the weather was great.
In some odd way, cycling in Vermont reminded me of cycling in Europe. Perhaps it had to do with being in the countryside, but within an hour or two (by bike) from a town where I could, if I wanted to, stop in a friendly cafe and enjoy a cup of coffee or some other beverage with local people. Plus, I found that even when the drivers left cyclists little more than elbow room when they passed, they were never really a threat or danger because they seemed to understand bikes and cyclists on the road. Some of those drivers, I'm sure, rode bikes at least sometimes.
I don't plan on doing a trip like that this year, mainly because I'm still nowhere near the kind of shape I used to be in. Some of the steepest climbs I ever pedalled were in the Green Moumtains. It seems that the roads there are older than, say, the ones in the Alps or the Rocky Mountains. The older roads aren't as well-graded as the newer ones and so can be even more difficult than the more modern thoroughfares.
Perhaps I'll take a trip to Vermont, or some other place, next fall. Meantime, I hope to take a miltiday trip this coming summer. And, I'd like to take the kind of trip I took for three weeks one September, from Italy into France, when I was working for American Youth Hostels. If I had taken the same trip in the summer, some of the roads would have been all but impassible with traffic and everything would have cost a good bit more. To be more precise, they would have cost then what they cost now.
Perhaps I'll do a trip lke that next year, or even sooner. Meantime, I'll enjoy some fall cycling here.
Yesterday I biked to work after pulling an all-nighter. Then I came home, and not long after downing a wonderful chicken and rice platter from The King of Falafel and Shawarma, I fell asleep.
In a way, it's upsetting to know that I had fallen asleep after a mere commute on my bike. Yes, I stayed up all of the night before and I'm not as young as I used to be. But, still...I'm supposed to fall asleep after riding up and down mountains or a hundred-mile day on a bike laden with panniers and camping equipment--not from a mere commute.
I guess I haven't given up the notion that it's somehow more noble, or at least more fun, to fall into a long, deep sleep after an adventure or some eclat than it is to drift into (and out, and possibly into again) subconsciousness after mere routine.
Then again, last night's sleep was very restful and restorative. And, when I got home last night, I was so tired that I wasn't thinking about the fact that I had what was basically a very routine day and ride. It was thinking about the circumstances, and wanting to be in better shape than I'm in now, caused me berate myself today for falling asleep immediately after dinner last night.
Have you ever fallen asleep immediately after riding your bike? What was that like?
