My Morning Walk

It wasn't a walk this morning. It was a bike ride. Last summer and fall I rode my bike almost every day but I haven't really gotten back into the rhythm of doing that again this season. That is partly the fault of my experiencing hay fever for the first time this year. It is hard to want to go for a bike ride as a mouth breather with itchy eyes and brain obliterating sneezes. I was inspired to get back on the bike (mouth breathing and all) by the STP bike tour that passed through town yesterday and today. It is a 2 day bike ride from Seattle to Portland with 9500 registered riders. About 7000 of the riders do it in 2 days and the remaining riders power through in one.

Winlock is the halfway point so there is a waystation here and bikers often overnight here and in the surrounding towns. The ride affects one main highway on my mail route. Thankfully I am on that road in the southbound direction on the first half of the route so I wasn't too affected by the bikers. At that point in the day there was a smattering of the power riders in ones, twos and groups. I had to jockey in and out between them to get to the boxes. On the northbound portion of the route I was thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to deliver in the flood of bikers pouring south. It was crazy busy.

But back to my bike ride this morning, I saw some tiny, tiny ponies that were so cute and precious they could have easily been mistaken for My Little Ponies if they had pink manes.

Also, as I crested a hill on the road behind our house I saw a doe and her new fawn standing on the double yellow lines. I guess the clicking of my bike was more quiet than I thought because they didn't hear me. I was getting pretty close and I didn't want to scare the crap out of them so I hollered out "Hello". The mother turned to look at me and then bolted toward the bushes on the roadside. Unfortunately the fawn hadn't yet learned that particular survival tactic and bolted straight on down the road. I swear its legs were no thicker than spider webs and it wobbled and jumped as it fled. The mother, realizing that her fawn was not following her but following its own mad escape route turned and hopped down the road after it. No pics. Biking and photography don't mix for me. I don't have the stamina to get back on the bike once I have stopped to examine something.