It’s the end of September, but Baltimore feels like early summer. It hit 80 degrees this weekend, and it was nothing but blue skies, perfect for a bike ride. I hadn’t been on the B&A all season and the ladyfriend was up for anything, so we strapped our bikes to her car, stopped at the bike shoppe for a new tire for her (her tube was bubbling right through the old one! gasp!) before lunch, and then we were off. I never drive, so I got us lost finding a good place to park to get on the ol’ greenway, but eventually were were there, pedaling along at a fast clip, saying our hellos to the rest of Anne Arundel County–everybody was out on Saturday. We followed the planets to the visitor’s center, and then it was time for a rest. I forgot that when you’re new to biking, a longer ride makes your neck hurt, so we stopped for a stretch and reminder to change positions regularly, and flex those elbows. We went a bit further before turning back. Once we were on the part of the trail that goes through one shopping mall’s back yard after the next, N. wondered aloud if there was ice cream anywhere, and took a right through a parking lot to see if that was an ice cream hut over there. And indeed it was. She got a shiver or a blaster or whatever they call their candy milkshake, and I went with a double scoop and we found a bench and marveled at what passes for “small” at an ice cream hut these days. Out of control, this ice cream, and we both felt it on the rest of the ride, the glug-glug-glug of too much milkfat on a hot day–worth it, but also not. And then we were back at the car, strapped on and off to home. Thank you, Baltimore, for this long stretch of early autumn.