Rose-colored glasses

Saturday, 20 January

The temperature at ride time this morning was 36 degrees. The forecast was for a damp, grey day. The last item in my preride bundling-up process was my sweet pair of brand new Axley Ozone glasses. They transformed a cold, miserable ride into a tropical adventure: sunshine, beach, roasty toasty temperatures, huge expanses of white sand. Who would have thought that seeing the world through rose-colored glasses was enough to transform it?

Oh. Wait. Sunshine? It really was sunny all day today in Seattle. The beach? That would be the inch-deep sand across the road all the way down the back side of Hollywood Hill and heaps and piles of it everywhere else. The balmy temperatures? That's what the low 40s feel like when it's been in the 20s and 30s for so long--and I was waaaaay overdressed. The white sand? That was beautiful snow, out on the Woods Creek Road north of Monroe. There was still 3-4 inches of it everywhere out there--in the fields, under the trees, right up to the fog line (and across the road at just one point). It was riding a bike in a winter wonderland, which for me was having my cake and eating it too.

It was pretty much an idyllic January ride today, thanks to my new rose-colored glasses. And only once did I hear my mom telling me that I shouldn't ride by myself out in the boonies.