I know I’m a broken record, but I just love riding my bike. I love it. There is nothing like the steady rhythm, rolling along outside, today under this brilliant blue sky, temps in the 70s. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found the bike. Enough gushing. I didn’t ride anywhere yesterday–I took the day off of everything, went to bed early, and woke up after nine full hours of sleep. I felt like a different person, but the same person insofar as I really felt like taking a bike ride. I hopped on the Surly and headed down to the Marigny to do some tabling at the Marigny Green Fest and then over to the Treme to catch the second half of the football game. After getting some lunch and grading some papers, I headed out on the St. Claude bike lane, over the Industrial Canal, and through the Lower Ninth Ward until it turned into E. St. Bernard Hwy across the parish line. I just kept going, through Chalmette and Meraux and then over to Judge Perez Drive, which I took back home. Much of the ride looked like this picture–traveling alongside oil refineries. I was only about ten miles from home, and the landscape was pretty much dominated by oil refineries, and the scent of it was definitely on the air. People live out here, and this is their view. We need to stop needing so much oil, because this isn’t good for any of us. But tooling around here on the bike, I could instantly see how schizophrenic we are–we rightly abhor the oil spill while also being completely reliant on that same oil industry to move our cars, power our lights, and give us jobs. Something’s got to give. I rode home, happy as always to be on my bike and thinking about the world I’m in instead of being locked up in one of those tin can cars. What a perfect Sunday afternoon.