Shortcut Discovery

We took a brisk ride this morning, thinking there wouldn't be many folks up yet. We'd traveled down the trail to the local library so many times that we'd almost taken the route for granted. It was always crowded, and seemed to get more so - almost daily. Last week we took the same path for a walk with the dogs, but today we planned to follow the trail farther down, just to see where it ended. What we discovered was the nicest surprise.

We pedaled down the path, watching numerous mallards, a blue heron, and a pair of mergansers forage around for their breakfast. The sound of splashing water accompanied us. There was not a cloud in the sky, and there was a little more water in the canal than usual, due to the small bit of rain we got last week. A turkey vulture perched on the overpass, watching us, waiting to see if we would leave a bit of something behind, like so many others. We just pedaled by, on our way to discover something, but we didn't know what.

Finally we reached the underpass that leads to the library. For the first time, we didn't stop, and we continued on our quest. We had reached the new part of the trail.  It was a wide paved underpass that boasted a brand new sidewalk, and lights on each pillar. The waterway flood drainage flowed in several different directions, and there were a couple of Canada geese that had stopped to rest during their migration. They looked peaceful, and I marveled at how adaptive nature can be. 

As we whooped and howled under the structure, it reminded me of a time when I was quite young, and my brother, sister, and I would ride our bikes underneath a different freeway underpass. That one seemed straight from a horror movie. I remember my first time being very scary. But this was different. It was truly enjoyable, and this passing made me think of our city and it's famous crossroads. We glided under the freeway cloverleaf and peddaled up the other side to discover that we had learned a shortcut to our gym! This opened up a whole new set of possibilities, and we can see ourselves using this new part of the trail for years to come.