That's what a bicyclist in South Florida sees as he or she is riding along, and, for 15 wonderful years that's what I saw, too.
You might think that this doesn't sound like much to talk about, but, it's not always what you're looking at but what you find that counts.
In my early days with the EBC, I'd be in the classic pose for a young inexperienced cyclist - my head in a downward position, counting the oolite pebbles and the famous South Florida "buttons" that you'd find just about anywhere there wasn't a sidewalk, which was just about everywhere else.
But, as the months and years passed, true to our club's name, I began to look more and more at what we passed (or what was overhead), and here's what I found:
A family of otters swimming after us in a roadside canal;
Friendly dogs running with us;
Hearing the first distant rumble of thunder in Everglades National Park on a quiet summer afternoon;
Seeing the Milky Way directly overhead on a dark winter's night in the Everglades;
Seeing a field of bright yellow, large-faced sun flowers;
Seeing a pregnant 18-foot alligator resting in the morning sunlight;
Coming upon a Miccosukee family on a Sunday outing deep in the Everglades.
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And the other joys of cycling in rural South Florida:
The smells of the Earth on a humid morning;
The cold rush of wind just before a thunderstorm;
The deep blue of a early summer sky;
The sweet smell of mango blossoms;
The sound of the wind in austrailian pines;
The soft scent of lime groves on a late spring morning;
The evening scents of night-blooming Jasmine in quiet neighborhoods;
The silence of the sawgrass wilderness.
Earth and sky - what a beautiful combination and how fortunate we all were to have it for our own to enjoy in those early days of the Everglades Bicycle Club!
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