Saturday morning
It has been a long week. I have been struggling with stress and depression, and I decided to do one thing that has always helped – get some exercise. So I got my bicycle, a Giant OCR 27 speed road bike, and hit the road.
It has been months since I went bicycling. The first thing I realized was that my jersey and bike shorts must have shrunk. But I could still wear them, although they were a little tight. The second thing I realized was that both of my tires were almost flat, and I could not find the adapter for the little presta valves to use with the air compressor. Nor could I find the full sized hand pump I usually use with my bike tires, as we had recently moved and are re-tiling the house we moved in to. So I was forced to use a mini frame pump to pump up my tires, not fun. But I got enough air into them and I was off.
As soon as I started out I remembered why I wanted to move back here to the Marana area, even though it is about 40 miles from where I work. It was wonderful. I was riding along, through the old neighborhood, and thinking how it really hasn’t changed all that much, still 1 house per acre for the most part, still a lot of manufactured homes, some old, some newer. I rode down the road, over the brige over the Oro Blanco wash where I used to hike and ride my horse when I was a teen-ager. I kept riding, down to Green Acres, which I first saw almost thirty years ago. I used to ride my bike down this route a lot when I was a teen ager. Again, it hadn’t changed much; this neighborhood is all manufactured homes, some old, some newer, some well taken care of, others – well, you wonder how people could actually live like that.
I enjoyed the fact there was little traffic. Riding in Tucson, there is so much traffic; you are breathing exhaust, and some people cut way too close. But out here there is a car only every so often. And the roads are paved, and actually smoother on the shoulders than a lot of the roads I rode on in Tucson.
Anyway, riding down through Green Acres was a ride through memory lane. Here is the road my friend Tami lived on. There is the road my 4H leader Karen lived on. And I remember we had a “shortcut” from the end of the road Karen lived on through the Oro Blanco wash to our neighborhood. And I remember almost getting thrown from my horse once because a snake under a bush in that shortcut startled her.
After Green Acres, I turned onto Silverbell road. When I was a teenager I always had to turn around at the end of Green Acres when I was on my bike because Silverbell was not paved then. It is now. So I rode down Silverbell, and over an old one lane bridge, which went across the Oro Blanco wash again. I remember once when I was riding my horse down the wash I got to the bridge, and I inadvertantly gave my horse the signal to kneel. At that time, I did not know she could kneel on command, nor did I know how to get her up. I was afraid she was going to decide to roll over with me on her back! But I got her back up. And now, upon approaching the bridge on my bike, I stopped for a few minutes, thought about what was, and got a drink of water. While I was getting a drink, a SUV approached, and since the bridge was so narrow, I had to let him by.
After the bridge, there was just desert for a little while, very beautiful. My front tire was getting low, so I had to stop and put air in it. I was starting to get tired by this time, but I knew I was only a few miles from home. So I just rode, enjoyed the desert, noticed there was, again, a few more houses than there was when I was a teenager, but over here there was a house, a ranch, and then a house, not the one house per acre. I could also see the tails of the aircraft at Pinal Air Park to the Northeast.
I got back to the road I live on, only about a mile from my house, and realized my front tire was flat. I put more air in it, but I need a new tube. So I went the rest of the way home. Upon getting home, I did not put my bike back in the shed; I put it in my bedroom. I think I will get back into riding regularly. This was a very beautiful, very enjoyable way to spend the morning. I thought of a lot of what was while riding, but I was also very much in the beauty of the present, and the promise of the future. I love it out here.
