Cycling photo challenge #10 - Bike People keep me grounded

It is not too great an exaggeration to say that bicycling has saved my life.

It's not just the physical benefits, though that has certainly helped. Nor is it the mental benefits, though that, too, has been a boon not to be ignored.

The thing that has been key to my survival is the way bicycling has kept me connected, the way it has provided a grounding that is otherwise missing in my life.

 Baton Rouge bike people, October 2011

I've been on my own, more or less, since I was 13. That has had its ups and downs as you can probably imagine. Between then and now I've had a variety of relationships with a varying number of people. Some of those relationships still live, most do not. This past 16 years I've been living by myself but I haven't been alone.

It's bicycles and the people who ride them who have been my companions.

There are lots of hospitality exchange (HOSPEX) websites, the most famous of which is probably Couchsurfing. I learned about a community of people who tour on bicycles and people who host them. The organization is Warmshowers (it's not what it sounds like but I understand why you might think it's something else), a mutual hospitality exchange thing that is limited to bicycle tourists.

Kevan and I, October 2011

Alex, Bria, and Ben, December 2011

It is astonishing to me the array of people who bicycle tour. Age is not necessarily a limiting factor though things tend to skew younger than older, of course. Granted, most of my guests have been in their 20s but a number have been in their 60s with a few in their 70s. Encouraging, that.

Ross, January 2012

Being around younger people helps keep me open, flexible, learning. My worldview can be challenged and, on occasion, I manage to get through my own limitations to see what the view on offer may be.

Valeska, Phillip, and the Pancakes

The best part may well be being around energetic people who take risks and reap great rewards thereby. It encourages me to be more like them and to remain aware of my inertia. Better to move forward than fall back.

Another inspiration.

Two days of dental fun draw to a close. Film at 11!

Two days of dental fun draw to a close. Film at 11!

Just kidding. You'll have to read or skip this. :-)

Yesterday's cleaning became today's date to extract a failed molar implant. Seems my night grinding was sufficiently robust to move the implant. Implants don't like to be moved, can't adapt to moving, and just give up leading to infection of the socket and other unpleasantness. Yee-haw.

Two trips down Highland Road before 8 AM two days in a row is not how I prefer to start my day. It does reveal that being in a motor vehicle heading toward campus on that road is ill-advised, that is, sucks to be you if you try to get to or through campus at that hour from that direction.

The extraction, crown removal, various drillings and shapings went relatively well. Temp bridge in place we reached the point to fine tune the fit. In the process I managed to get my benumbed tongue in the wrong place during the "close and grind" portion of the program. The results must have been impressive as the doctor felt compelled to tell me, "You bit your tongue and I'm going to apply direct pressure to the wound." Please do imagine what that entails.

It was a beautiful day when I emerged two hours later, cotton wad in place to continue sopping up the blood from my tongue. Fortunately, my blood clots well.

Gauging the traffic on Highland, I opted to head to Lee Drive, turn right onto Brightside, and continue to River Bend and Farr Park. It was a beautiful day! So rare for us - cool and sunny with relatively low humidity. Glorious!

The DOTD has begun moving utilities at the intersection of Nicholson and Brightside for the upcoming "improvements" to the intersection. Doing this completely blocks the bike trail requiring riding on the shoulder of Nicholson, should one be so inclined.

Did I mention it was a stupendously beautiful day?

As I was at Farr Park I decided to go see if the eagles were at home. Turning onto the levee top I could see an SUV parked at the nest site. Arriving at the SUV it was clear that it was NOT an authorized vehicle. Two older birders with cameras, etc, had either backed down the levee from the Farr Park access point or driven up for a few miles from the downriver access. I was torn in my feelings about this and only made one snide remark.

Fortunately, as I was pulling up to the SUV I saw one of the adult eagles returning to a tree just upriver of the nest. As the eagle approached its chosen branch it made a sound I had not heard before, a kind of chittering call not at all like the one almost always serving as background for television commercials extolling the manly virtues of a truck or a deodorant or some other suitably manly product for suitably manly people. I've read somewhere that the supposed eagle call used in commercials is actually a much smaller bird, a hawk perhaps?

The second eagle was perched on a branch above and river-side of the nest. A moment later the lone nestling poked its head above the edge of the nest. It will only be a few weeks before it fledges, I imagine, and all three will disappear for other climes.

Riding home a few of the taller trees in the batture, still bare, drew my attention. Somehow the blue sky behind their bare branches seemed more intensely blue. It was still morning, the sun had not passed the meridian, and the trees were illuminated fully from what constituted "the front" as I rode along the levee top. I don't know if it was the lighting, the contrast between the color of the limbs and the sky behind, or what, but I was struck by the beauty of the day, again, and grateful for it.

It doesn't matter what I'm doing or what might have befallen me, the beauty of the world abides. Noticing it, appreciating it, allowing it to touch the ancient within, the wet-wiring, that's the trick.