the wind in my hair

These outrageous gas prices have been good for my health lately. Unless it is absolutely necessary to drive the truck, I've been using bike to get my errands done. I'm actually starting to like it now that my tail bone is getting used to it. I always feel invigorated after a good ride, and I'm doing something about that gosh awful carbon footprint. Of course the dollar savings are pretty sweet too.

As many times as I've driven the roads of Lexington, Kentucky, there is so much I've never noticed before. For one thing, things look much crisper and detailed at fifteen miles an hour. You see more and notice more when you travel slow. Some of it is good. Some of it is not.

You smell things on an open bike that you don't in a closed up truck or car. Charcoal grills and blossoms and dog poop come to mind. And unless all your vehicle is geared down really low and all the windows are down you don't hear the kids in the park or the birds in the trees or the neighbor's on the porch.

It's like all of the senses that have been dulled by the radio and the air conditioning and the cell phone come alive again when you get out in the open spaces. The same old street looks a lot different.

The exercise is good. The quietness is good. The aromas and sounds and sights are marvelous. I think the thing I like most about parking the car and puttin' it on two wheels is the wind in my hair.