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May 01, 2005
The trillium ride
One of the highlights of my life has been cycling with Martha. From 1991 until I moved to Texas in 1997, she and I put in thousands of miles together on the upstate New York highways and byways, riding as much as 100 miles a week in the summer months, riding in bitter winter despite the snow and cold, riding side by side and talking, talking, talking. On weekdays we'd ride 15 miles together before work: Martha would start out in the dark from her house in Hamilton and stop at my house in Earlville; then we'd ride back to her house; and then I'd solo home.
Martha and I are cycling soulmates, and when I went to see her in Seattle (she's now at UW) last spring, we of course rented a bike for me, so that Martha and I, with her partner Ted, could spend a day cycling the Burke & Gilmore Trail, stopping for lunch at the Red Hook Brewery. Along the way (this was on May 9, 2004) we saw herons, killdeer, redwings, geese & goslings, ducks & ducklings, white-crowned sparrows, gulls, robins, and wild chickens & chicks. The dandelions were blooming, and so were the rugosa roses and Scotch broom. Cottonwood seeds drifted through the air and accumulated along the edge of the trail.
Back when Martha and I cycled together in New York, we had names for a lot of our standard rides. This part of the state is veined with hundreds of wonderful little roads, some flat, some hilly. One of our favorite rides was the "trillium ride," a very tough 16-miler that went through woods that were literally filled with trillium in early May.
I'm no longer tough enough for that ride, so each year now BP and I make sure we drive that route in May to see the trillium. And behold, they were in bloom today: white, red, and yellow. (No purple today; I suppose they must open a day or two later than the others.) And every year, when I see the trillium, I remember stopping with Martha at the top of that hill to admire these gorgeous, reclusive woodland flowers. Those were definitely the good old days.
Posted by senioritis at May 1, 2005 03:17 PM