It was a fall-chilled sunny and breezy day in Baltimore, a perfect day for a bike ride, but I had so much work to catch up on I had to stay inside and work. Bah. Fortunately my latest project required an evening trip over to Waverly to help R. assemble our carnival-style popcorn machine (don’t ask– come out to the corner of 31st and Greenmount tomorrow to find out), and the last thing I’m going to do for a quick trip under 2 miles is drive a car. I flipped on my front life, strapped on my reflective triangle, and pedaled my way over there. The chill was mild, but I had visceral memories of last winter’s bicycling, and the winter before’s, too, and oh, I love the open streets of winter riding when everybody else seems to be hibernating. We put our machine together, I pet all the cats, and then it was time to head home. I stopped at the grocery store for a thing or two, and snapped this picture of the almost-empty lot, the moon in the far background, the street light lighting up the tree they’ve put here to make it look like something other than a parking lot; it kind of is more than a parking lot–most of us are using it as a through-way from that side of Waverly to this one. I left behind these last couple of cars and zipped home, looking forward to more empty streets and chilly breezes in my immediate future.