Out-of-shape 40-year-olds should NEVER accept an invitation to a “Family Bike Ride” around town in 90+ degree weather, ESPECIALLY when they have never ridden past the nearest busy street!
The newest fad for teens and pre-teens is Silly Bandz, theme-shaped rubber bands that they wear on their wrists. Morgan had been wanting a giraffe, and when I went to the mall on Saturday, I happened to find a package of the zoo theme. Being the nice mommy that I am, I picked them up, along with a package of sea creatures for Aidan. Well, now that she had the giraffe, she found out that there was a package of music-themed shapes available, and that Bunny’s in Sidney had them.
Well, yesterday she wanted to go down and get them. Of course, being a teen close to getting her driver’s license, she wanted to drive there. But her dad (I don’t know where his brain was, because this certainly wasn’t a normal suggestion) said we should all ride our bikes down. Now, sitting in our air conditioned house, on a comfy couch, this didn’t sound like too bad of an idea, so I agreed, since it’s like pulling teeth to get dad to do anything but a movie with the family. Then we realized it was getting close to lunch time, so he suggested we also stop at the Spot for lunch while we were down there. Again, not a bad idea, especially since Aidan has been asking for Old Fashioned Cream Pie for a couple of weeks.
As we were getting our bodies and our bikes ready, his mom called and asked if he would stop over and help her pull her table apart in preparation for her upcoming move. And so he decided we would just make a stop over there on our family outing.
So we embarked on our outing, me equipped with an always-necessary water bottle, given my history of heat problems.
We rode to her apartment, and when we stopped, my legs were like jelly, and I’m sure my face was extremely red as usual. I was so thankful I had brought my bottle, filled first with ice, then with filtered water. I chugged 3/4 of it there, sharing a few chugs with Aidan, and we visited for a little while to cool off in the air conditioning.
Back on the road, we rode down to the pharmacy. Now, mind you, the town of Sidney is in a valley. Almost all roads leading out of Sidney go up – way up. So going INTO town was the easy part.
We got to the pharmacy, and I said I would stay outside with the bikes while the rest went in to find the Silly Bandz. While they were in the store, I started to feel a bit light-headed, so I sat down on the sidewalk under the awning and got out my water bottle again. When they came out, I told them I still needed a couple of minutes.
When I felt like I could make it a couple of blocks, we headed to the Spot.
When we got there, we parked all the bikes next to a lamp post, and got out the bike lock. As we were just about to lock them up, I realized I didn’t have the key with me – I normally carry it in my purse, but didn’t have my purse with me. Locking them up without the key would’ve been really bad! So we decided to just get a seat near the window where we could keep an eye on them. Upon entering the Spot, we saw how packed it was. The only open seats were at the bar, on an opposite wall from where we could have seen the bikes. So Bob said he would move the bikes as we ordered the food. Finally, I got the food ordered, and he got the bikes moved and came inside. I was feeling quite bad by this time, so I asked him to carry the food for us while I sat down. He asked if he was going too fast, or if it was just the heat. With tears starting, I told him it was just me overestimating my capabilities.
We did have a nice lunch, complete with pie, and nobody stole our unlocked bikes.
By the end of lunch, I was somewhat cooled off and felt much better, so we started the trip home. When we got to the base of the hill, we all walked our bikes up, and from there it was a fairly short ride home, to the nice, cool leather couch, which I promptly flopped upon for the next hour or two, until it was time for Morgan’s ballgame.
