28 Days of "What's Best?" ~ Day #14

5/16/2014

What’s Best? ~ Day #14: Another slow start in the morning, allowing Dolce to have her fill of chasing tennis balls, swimming in the river and rolling in the dirt…did I mention that I clean the RV 2x a day?

With Dolce satiated and unable to keep her eyes open while basking in the sun, I take the opportunity to go for a mountain bike ride on one of the endless red dirt trails I discovered yesterday. I pick Thunder Mountain mostly for its name…It feels bad-ass to ride a trail with that name. The ride is everything it’s name exacts. As I started up the trail a handful of guys were coming down from the opposite direction. One of them asked: “Are you going all the way up?” Having no idea what I was in for I replied “yeah…I’m riding the whole thing.” Eyebrows lifted and with that look of “hmmm, you go girl”, he made an affirmative comment that I don’t recall but do recall thinking “well now I have to ride it”. I did. It was burly (one of my new favorite words that I picked up from Annie). Burly can apply to anything…a tough MTB trail, a long day at the office, intense emotional feelings etc…I’m simply noticing that it’s not my word, not something I would have said in my past. I have other words like that. For example: “No worries” is from my several visits to Australia. It’s something I say all the time and have since 1997. There are others…I’m having a brain fade attempting to identify them and feeling resistance to acknowledging who may have left their mark on me. Thunder Mountain was a workout. At the end of the ride, I had the option of coasting back down the paved road. After seeing at least a dozen people riding the opposite direction, I inferred that it must be pretty fun and with significantly less climbing than the way I rode it (it would seem like a simple and logical assumption that if I am climbing one direction I am likely descending in the other…I was tired, logic was inaccessible).