Riding A Bike Is Fun To Do

Saturday afternoon at 2:00 was our ward picnic at the park. Since we live not too far from the park, and there are bike trails the whole way, we thought hey, why don't we ride our bikes? And just like that, we complicated our day way more than we could have imagined.

(At Big Dry Creek Park, where the picnic was scheduled to take place.)

Here we are arriving at the park, a full 30 minutes late. We are late for all the usual reasons, plus the readying of the "bike" that Tommy is riding. Let me back up 20 minutes. We are in the garage getting the bikes ready. Since Sid and Calvin have previous engagements and won't be accompanying us on this little family outing, we just have the three youngest and ourselves to worry about. We decide that Tommy will ride the hopper--something he has never attempted before but loved every second of, as it turned out--and wouldn't you know it, that hopper was giving us fits. I shan't bore you with all the details but I will say this: The garage was very humid and the children were anxious and the seat post wasn't fitting and there were several greasy (and squirrely!) nuts and bolts involved and we were late and Tommy was trying to convince us in his most shrill tones that he could fix the seat. While we all knew he could, we decided to let Dad fix it anyway. Since the only bike that fits the hopper is Sid's mountain bike, Pie has to swallow his pride and show up in public on a moderately crappy bike, instead of his own totally awesome one. We are finally underway a 1/2 hour late and ride the short distance to the park......

.....to discover the park is full of people we don't know. Sadly, the picnic has been moved to another park. One that is much farther away and on the opposite side of a very busy street. Momma Bear isn't exactly thrilled. And then my flip flop breaks. A total blowout. So we show up at the picnic and it starts to rain. And I am barefoot. Even given the gloomy weather and my complete lack of footwear, I manage to enjoy myself. Possibly this had something to do with the array of cookies, brownies, cheesecakes and rice krispie treats adorning the picnic tables. Oh, and the hot dogs and salads and chips and drinks. However, my main focus was the desserts. It was all so delicious. Oh Emily, how we loved your rice krispie treats. They were so utterly marshmellowy, just the way I like them.

At the end of the picnic, with the rain never letting up, we said our goodbyes, wiped the water from our drenched bike seats and pedaled off into the rain-- some of us barefoot-- looking like a family of morons.

It really was a very fun afternoon. And somehow riding home in the rain made it even more enjoyable.