Ride last Wednesday

We've had a rainy week (T-storm right now) but there was a break in the weather Wednesday, so I decided to unmothball the bike for a couple hours. About time, too, because the mothballs had spiderwebs on them, and I saw several small birds hanging from the spiderwebs.  I've ridden rather less this winter than in past winters. Like winter before last, when I commuted to Dover every day, got a flat tire on the highway, and the bike got a ride in an enclosed, paneled, Harley trailer, but that's another story. Which, um, I'll post soon. Yes, Jack. Sir!

Anyway, Val was at work, so I got my gear on and headed for the bike shed. The bike fired up like I had ridden it only a few minutes before, and I backed out onto the apron, which has just enough slope to make it difficult to back a bike out onto, but I managed the not to start my ride with a misadventure, and headed out. On impulse I turned into the park entrance a few hundred yards down from our place. Now this park entrance is a long, narrow, winding road through the trees, and it crosses one really big low spot that must once have been the Grand Canyon of the East, and I didn't notice that the east branch of the Colorado River was flowing across it.

I saw the water about five feet before I hit it, so I knew what was happening to me and my decidedly non–off-road bike, though I didn't have time to react. I gritted my teeth and plowed though, shimmying back and forth on my mud-lubricated street tires. I got safely to the far side, but the bike seemed rather sluggish, which I figured was due somehow to the recent swim. When I checked the mirror, to discover that I was trailing a long grapevine or something, with a large blob at the end. I rode another hundred yards or so to get to a good spot to park the stand, and got off to check things out. The vine was twisted around the axle, but not too tightly to work off. When I investigated the lump at the end, it turned out to be a mermaid! (April fool) Okay, it was a snapping turtle. Nice size, too, little bigger than a dinner plate, and somewhat the worse for wear from his motorcycle-induced ride up the hill. I managed to apprehend him by the caudal appendage, and sequestered the creature in one of my appurtenances. That means I grabbed him by his tail and dumped him into a side carrier.

Now I had to decide what to do with him. I didn't think he'd survive the combination of the inadvertent street slide and a ride to the canal in a motorcycle luggage compartment, so I decided I'd do lunch with him. (Such a dilemma: ride or eat?) You regular readers all know what I do with goats. He was about as much work as a goat, but he made a fine soup. Val still doesn't know.