just a little bike ride..

i'm not used to having random weekdays off, but with budget cuts at work as a reaction to the 'suffering economy', i have myself some newfound 'free time'. having no hours also means having no money, so finding cheap/free fulfilling things to do is the name of the game.

..and one of my most favourite free games to play, of course, is... Geocaching! my man is on the night shift so naturally he sleeps all day, which lends me opportunity to get some use out of his sweet ride. my bike was stolen out of a friend's backyard earlier this year, which may have proven to be a blessing in disguise. my bike was a cruiser from the eighties, white wall tires and all. not so bad for flat city streets, but not the kind of bike you would take on the path.

i rode around the city for a while, trying to decide where to go, scoping out some gardens, and i decided i should see how long it takes to get up to the canal from this end of town. turns out not as long as i thought, though it took me a while as i had to hunt for a few caches. i wasn't really expecting to be gone long so i didn't do much to prepare, once i decided i'd want to keep going i stopped at the grocery to pick up a snack.

it's been a while since i've ridden a bike just for the sake of riding, and i felt amazing. so free flying along the streets, a real switch-up from always walking everywhere. i got to see so much more of the city and the trail than i would have if i was on foot, and it made me wonder why i don't ride more often. also made me wish i had a motorbike.. maybe sometime.

before i knew it, i was up by bridge eleven, further than i had ever traveled along the Welland Canal trail before. i looked at the time, 11:11am, no way! i had left my house at nine expecting to take an hour long bike ride. i never realized how rugged and green it gets along the path once you get past the city, besides a few other cyclists and the canal itself, you'd never know there were other humans around. so quiet and peaceful, frogs and crickets making music with the breeze.

i felt great once i got out there, so i kept going. my success rate for finding caches was at about fifty percent, perhaps because the ones i decided i'd go for were in the most mosquito infested [yet beautiful!] locations along the trail. didn't matter much to me, the adventure [and the workout] is what i'm after. and the space and time to clear my mind and meditate on the things that matter in life, the fresh air and sunshine, and all the things [mostly people] i have gratitude for in my life. i ended up covering about fifty kilometers, and i can certainly feel it, especially from the way up the 'mountain'. i can't wait for the next random weekday off..