Yesterday was a gorgeous day at work so I decided to take a walk on a nearby path on my lunch break. This path also happened to be the same one that I rode bikes with my little sister on all summer long. As I was walking alone, thinking about what the heck I was going to post about today, a little memory came creeping back in. It was the day I rode my bike along this path by myself one summer about ten years ago. That day was the day Bambi turned Thumper and all the other little woodland creatures against me....
Let me preface this story by explaining that I'm terrible at riding bicycles. *Terrible*. I can barely stay balanced and I'm so afraid of crashing and burning that I don't go above an easy, rhythmic pedal pace. And, just like I can't cut straight lines, I also can't ride a straight line. I pray I never have to walk a straight line as a sobriety test because I will fail that with amazing flair. But I digress.
As I was riding along this path I came across a beautiful doe standing in the middle of the path. I stopped back a ways to watch her when she popped her head up and looked at me and trotted off. I rode on and came across a little chipmunk who happened to run in front of me, causing me to swerve into the gravel along the side of the path (see the picture above). Yeah I'm one of those people who brake for squirrels (and chipmunks, deer, pretty much everything), AND?
At this point I'm amazed I've seen two animals in one ride, so close to each other, and I continued on, thinking what great luck it was that I got a chance to see them both. Once I reached the end of the path there was this huge groundhog that I startled. This is where I think the animals decided to rally against me. I guess I disturbed one too may of them in one ride.
I turned around and started for the beginning of the path and I was about half way back. My exact location happened to be near a spot that to the right of me dropped down a steep, rocky embankment into the river below. They planned for this attack at this precise moment, I know it. All of a sudden a bird swooped down over my head, too close for comfort and distracted me long enough for a bunny to hop directly in front of me, which caused me to swerve into the embankment below. The only thing that stopped me from falling completely was my front wheel jamming itself into a formation of rocks at the top of the cliff. Yeah I said it. Cliff.
I look up to assess how the heck I was going to get out of this jam, my legs all cut and scraped up and my heart beating wildly in my throat, and I see Thumper laughing at me. Ok so maybe he wasn't laughing, maybe his nose was moving, but still its too much of a coincidence that the chipmunk saw my lack of bicycle skills and then the bird and bunny run me off the road. I got off the embankment and rode home, cleaned up my battle wounds, and vowed to exact my revenge....
Just kidding, I'm a klutz, everything really happened, but I was too busy ooohing at them to ride properly. But I still like to blame it on them, which in fairness, the bird really did swoop down near my head.