I coast down the long, gentle slope, happy for the respite from hard pedaling.
There’s not a car anywhere in sight and as I lean into the turn and cross the tiny bridge over the trickle of a creek branch the big creek that parallels my road comes into sight. The forest has been cut away here and the creekbanks mowed and the morning’s sun – too hot for my comfort – glistens and glares off the face of some wide, shallow pool.
As I start up the next hill, working to keep momentum, I re-enter the shade of the sycamores and oaks, as if I had stepped inside a tent. It’s cooler here and as I speed along my view of the stream below is clear now in windowlike flashes as the trees and brush allow.
In one pool a wave of long minnows sweeps in a J curve, their black shadows silently drifting over the rocks beneath and, further on, in another pool, my shadow falls over the surface and I see the glossy roil as the minnows scurry this way and that.
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