Flag me down

Yesterday, Saturday, I worked all morning on a proposal for my final project in one of my classes, and when I finally finished it I felt like celebrating, so I went on a bike ride. There is this road called Lake Mary Rd. and so I of course assumed that I would be riding by a lake, and that sounded like a very picturesque ride. So I started on my ride, and towards the beginning of my ride not three inches from my tire I saw this:

In case you aren't aware, I do NOT do spiders. They are the bane of my existence.

Anyway, I was fortunately able to forget about the spider because as I got out onto Lake Mary Rd. the view was beautiful. I've never consciously decided that pine trees were beautiful trees, but they are everywhere here and I have developed a deep affinity towards them.


Well next on my ride I got to lower Lake Mary, and this is what I saw: ***

Pretty sad excuse for a lake right? Apparently there is occasionally water at Upper Lake Mary, but as I wasn't prepared for a 40 mile ride I had to turn around. Maybe next time I'll get to verify whether there actually is a legitimate source of water out there. I'll keep you posted.

After turning around to head home, I glanced down and noticed this perched on my leg:

I continued checking on my new little friend for the remainder of my ride and Lady, as I like to call her, stayed on my leg regardless of me being in or out of the saddle and even against high speeds of 30 mph Lady hung on to my spandex clad leg. I don't know if the spandex helped her cling on to my leg tighter, but she stayed with my for approximately 10 miles. Unfortunately I lost her when I was only about 2 miles from my house. I was sad to see my new friend leave so abruptly, but glad that i could transport her to a new environment, the NAU campus. Hopefully the next person she attaches to treats her kindly.

Anyway, that is an accounting of my eventful bike ride. Hopefully the next ride will be as eventful...

***Disclaimer: All footage and pictures are taken with my phone, and as such the quality may not be excellent. Hopefully you can look past any such inadequacies and find an appreciation for the pictures.