Summer arrived today, and along with the heat and humidity it brought summer school with it, so most of today was spent prepping for class and then holding it in a chilled room on the ground floor of an otherwise empty building up on campus. I got home tired and feeling lazy, but I hadn’t been on the bike since Sunday; that just won’t do. I changed into my favorite summer riding skirt and a tank top, tossed my personal music player in my bag, and clipped in for a ride over to Druid Hill Park, because tonight all I wanted to do was listen to songs and pedal mindlessly with all the other folks out enjoying the turn of the seasons. The park folks were out in full effect tonight, lending out bikes for their weekly ride-around-the-reservoir series. It was great to see so many people out for a ride. I noticed two main things from watching the changing crowds in the hour or so I spun around: riding in a straight line is an acquired skill, and everybody looks pretty happy riding a bike in the park. I’m guessing I looked pretty happy too, because I was, turn after turn, leaning into it, just spinning and dancing in my head to songs. Nope, no deep thoughts on this ride, just the pleasure part* of riding a bike.The bike never fails to cheer me up, and it also makes good cheer even cheerier. I stopped on one of my last laps–I wasn’t counting–to snap this picture of the crumbled remains of a house. I’ve been watching this house come down since I moved here, and I was told back in October that it was just going to be left to decay on its own, but today it’s nothing but a pile of rubble between a greened empty lot and occupied houses. I wonder what forces had to align to get this job done, and if everybody thought it was a good idea. I haven’t done laps around the reservoir in awhile, and tonight it felt good to be on that familiar path.

* Well, there wasn’t much pleasure when I rode through the thick clouds of gnats blowing off the reservoir at dusk–that part was pretty terrible, if I’m being honest.