It's tough to pick highlights on my trips up North but this time it was kind of easy. All three Sundays were reserved for cycle rides. It had been a while since I'd been able to OD on it. Neighbor Tim signed on and our first ride/adventure was a little different from your usual ride to or from a place. It was nothing more than back-roading. Backroading was something you did in high school when you were able to procure a stash of beer or a date, or both. The object was to stay off the main roads - the more secluded the better. Now, several decades from school the object is the same without the beer or the date: out there are good country roads that wind through tree-covered copses, that better enhance the rider-cycle experience. Avoiding the traffic, the cities, and the that which one has already discovered. Now we discover the different, the new, the never seen. Tim said, "You lead, and just go where you want. If you see a side road that looks interesting, then take it." He had done a bit of this a month or so before and found it fun.
Nice place to stop and see-smell-appreciate the quiet and greenness of it all.
Wild flowers, weeds, underbrush and somewhere in it all a small creek. Yeah, even old bikers appreciate nature.
An old outbuilding and shhhh. The quiet!
We headed south and turned off somewhere around Maquon. From there, who knows. I headed west, then south, then east and at some point we ended up in Avon. There we discovered a coffee shop/bar on Main street. The "Open" sign was on so we went in and spent the next half hour and a beer listening to a barista from Seattle sell the joint and the bar across the street called the Storm Shelter.
We headed south and turned off somewhere around Maquon. From there, who knows. I headed west, then south, then east and at some point we ended up in Avon. There we discovered a coffee shop/bar on Main street. The "Open" sign was on so we went in and spent the next half hour and a beer listening to a barista from Seattle sell the joint and the bar across the street called the Storm Shelter.
The Storm Shelter in Avon.
She was a bit much so after that we went over to the Storm Shelter for a beer. Turns out three people, a guy his wife and his ex-wife (the barista) are trying to turn Avon into a destination spot. They have certainly poured a lot of money into the establishments and from what she said, they are trying to buy out the entire downtown area and make it all into shops and whatever. I admire their decorating and vision. But after a short thirst quencher we needed road so off to find them.
This was the first time I'd been on a bike in forever and it was good to just ride. We didn't uncover anything particularly exciting out there in the boonies. But we did have fun and found places we'd never seen before, towns we'd never ridden through and never got snarled in a traffic jam. Maybe we did find something after all. The most elemental of things. The joy of riding a motorcycle, comradeship and never a need to worry about time.
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