Creatures Along The Way

When you ride off-road—or even on roads or paths that cut through flora and fauna—you are bound to encounter creatures great and small.

Here in New York, if you ride through or near a park—or any place with more than a couple of trees—you’ll see squirrels.  Most of them will simply avoid you.  The same is true of chipmunks.  In fact, most creatures you might encounter in or around this city really don’t want to go anywhere near you.  They include the deer that have darted or loped across my path just on the other side of the George Washington Bridge and in the leafy parts of Westchester County.

In fact, most of the animals that venture near you are sick or otherwise impaired, or dying.  That includes the large rat that went “thwop” against the side of my Deep-V rim when I sliced through late-summer haze along the flat stretch on the east side of Prospect Park.  At that time—around 2001—there’d been a number of construction projects near that side of the park and, as someone explained to me, the excavations opened up various Pandora’s boxes.

Far more charming—and healthier—were the oak bark-colored mountain goats that seemed to line up along the side of the road up the Col du Portillon/ Coll de Portillo on the border between France and Spain.  I half-expected them to chuckle:  After all, they climbed that mountain every day.  And they didn’t have a 36X28 gear!

Handsome creatures they were. But for sheer cuteness, none beat the tiny green lizards that darted across my path during my last ride of my most recent trip to Florida.  You see them any warm day.  I’ve tried photographing them but they’re too quick.  That’s also the reason why I’ve never run any over.

I also saw a few armadillos.  However, they didn't try to come anywhere near me.  

Of course, anyone in any kind of vehicle—whether powered by one’s own feet or an internal combustion engine—runs the risk or has the opportunity to see, meet, dodge or bump into creatures of one kind or another.  It also doesn’t matter whether those vehicles are on land, in the air or on the water:

I actually came within a couple of feet of a manatee once.  I was swimming in Matanzas Inlet (which, to tell you the truth, I probably wasn’t supposed to do) on one of my first trips to the Sunshine State.   The creature, which looks something like a walrus without the mustache or the public relations, gave me a shy, quizzical look.  I liked it in the same way I like wrinkly dogs and shaggy cats. I assume other people feel the same way.

I wonder how it would have reacted to me if I’d been on my bike.

Freedom Rider

On this date in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was born.   His birthdate will be commemorated on Monday, five days from now. We also observe the births of Presidents Washington and Lincoln, as well as other holidays, on Mondays in this country.

I guess if you want to become famous enough to have a holiday dedicated to you, you have to be born on Monday.  Or, perhaps, being born on Monday will lead you to fame.

But I digress.  I don't often hear or see MLK and bicycling mentioned on the same page, let alone the same sentence.  The biographies I've seen tell us that he enjoyed riding his bike as a kid but make no mention of him cycling as an adult.

From Dan's Globe Bike

So why am I mentioning him on this blog?  Well, I believe that my cycling is one major reason why I began to think about issues of social justice long before I would be affected by them in the immediate and visceral ways I would experience them when I was transitioning from male to female.  Riding my bike through New York--where I have lived much of my life--and other cities, I have seen, close-up, the stark differences between neighboring communities.  Just minutes after spinning by the opulent townhouses and boutiques of Manhattan's Fifth and Park Avenues--which rival Rodeo Drive, Kensington Gardens and l'Avenue Montaigne--I descend the ramp from the Triboro Bridge to the southern tip of the Bronx.  It's part of the 16th Congressional district, the poorest in the entire nation. There, I am as likely as not to be the only woman on a bicycle within a radius of several miles.

In both neighborhoods, people sometimes compliment the bike I'm riding, or (on rarer occasions these days) my riding itself.  In either neighborhood, I am keenly aware of my privilege:  Even if I am riding to work or an appointment, I am riding my bike by choice.  And I am riding a bike I choose to ride.  Even if I have no money in my purse, I still occupy a higher rung on the social--and, yes, economic--ladder then those who are riding bikes that no one else wanted so they can deliver pizzas or get to an appointment with a case worker.

As long as I can ride, and choose to do so, I am privileged.

The Florida Tourism Board Won't Use This

Yesterday I got back from a few days in Florida.  I spent some time with Mom and Dad.  As usual, I ate too much:  How could I do otherwise when I'm surrounded by Mom's cooking.  (At least, it seems like there's food everywhere I turn when I'm there!) How does the saying go?  Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we can diet.  Or something like that.

Of course, we all know that, at this time of year, you go to Florida for the weather.  And indeed it was warmer there than it was in New York:  30F (-1C) when my flight landed in the Sunshine State.  It was 3F (-16C) that morning in New York.

As for the State's motto:  We did get sunshine, yesterday and the day before.  The two days before that looked more like this:

Hmm...The Atlantic Ocean at Painter's Hill might actually be even prettier under an overcast sky.

In such conditions, I am not the only one in Flagler Beach contemplating her existence:

We all know that the ocean is really an infinite road, perhaps the one not taken (Sorry, Robert!):

I'll blame the fact that I didn't ride further along this road than I did on the bike:  The rear wheel was literally falling apart.  I rode back to Mom's house as darkness was approaching.  I figured that the next day I could get the bike to the shop.  But Dad took me there the following morning.  By the time I changed the wheel, the sun was playing tag with the clouds and I followed more of that road--and A1A, along the ocean. 

I confess:  I was following this procession: