With the scorn that Linda showed over me not having returned with any of
my bounty of ripe Saskatoons there was no doubt about the destination of
our Saturday morning ride.
Sometimes a bike can be a means of escape or exploration, but today it
was a beast of burden. With buckets secured to every point on the bike
to which they could be (thank God for bungy cords) we headed out. Owing
to me having spoken about the wildflowers Linda also brought along her
camera.
Now for the few of you that have ridden with me, and the others that may
have a realistic sense of what my pace is imagine going even slower!
Sometimes no more than a dozen turns of the crank would pass before I
would hear from behind me "OOOoooooohhhh! STOP!!!!". Already in the
doghouse I was not one to make any comments about our pace. I quietly
waited until I heard the "click" of the shutter and the "snap" of the
lense cap before I clipped back in and started rolling again... never
certain of how long I'd be riding and when or where my flow would be
interrupted.
As we rolled along through the tall grass just before the warm-up hut
Linda asked if I wanted my picture taken? "God No!" Came my instant
reply. "In this Red riding jersey I'd look just like an International
Harvester Swather going through a Hay field!". We finished the section
of trail without further comments from either of us.
At the warm-up hut she saw the berries and immediately started feasting,
apparently making up for lost time. After the first few handfuls she was
willing to entertain the idea of riding the whole next section of trail
before deciding where we wanted to pick. Well, as it turns out, we rode
the length of the patch, but returned to the start where the berries
seemed the most plentiful/easiest to pick.
While I picked at a good section along the edge of the trail Linda went
crashing through the bush like a rampaging Bear (at least it sounded
like that). She managed to pick three containers to my two, but I
maintain that my containers had more "premium" berries <grin>.
As I was picking a number of riders came by. All were friendly enough.
Although most commented on what we were doing none seemed to have any
interest in the berries themselves. All except for one pair of riders.
The one guys seemed to be showing his buddy around, and introduced him
to the flavour of Saskatoons. They stood around eating for a short time,
and then got on with the rest of their ride. Like I said though, the
other people that were out just kept on riding right by. More for us I
guess!
Cargo lashed every so securely we rode our way back to the car, opting
for the short cut-out to the access road so as to not punish the berries
by exposing them to Roots & Oaks. It was any easy spin back to the
parking lot from there.
At the trailhead Linda opted to go ride a short downhill section that
wasn't too far away. In the meantime I loaded up the gear, put a water
bottle in the front of the car, ensure that everything was secure and
drove off to meet her at the bottom of the run.
No sooner did I pull of the road than she appeared out of the woods.
Lots of "Posey Pic's", a ton of fresh Saskatoons and a nice little
section of downhill cruising managed to put one heck of a big grin on
her face. Over the course of the morning I seemed to redeemed myself for
not having brought her back any berries from my previous ride.
After each of the previous rides I treated myself to a nice cold Honey
Brown Lager. Mmmmmmm...
Good riding to ya folks!!!
--
- Rog
http://www.wpcusrgrp.org/~rogerbuchanan/index.html
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