the kindness of strangers

I had a lot of fun in Philadelphia this weekend. I decided my family motto should be: "always dramatic, but always fun." I saw all of my family and even some of my in laws and just generally relaxed. My favorite part was probably coloring with my 5 year old cousin (mini me) in a restaurant after putting together strawberry shortcake puzzles. It's fun to act like a little kid once in awhile. The more I spend time with mini me though, the more I feel bad for all that I put my parents through as a little kid.

Today I went on another bike ride with my mom and her friend. These rides have not been uneventful. The first ride I fell and the second ride I lost my contact midway. This time I went off on my own ahead of them just to push myself and see what I could do. I got to the halfway point about 10 minutes before they did, and then on the way back my chain got all messed up. I couldn't fix it myself and I spent a decent amount of time waiting for my mom to catch up with me to help but they never did. It turns out that they had stayed on the path instead of riding along the road like we had been doing for that part.

Luckily, another cyclist saw me looking dazed and confused and stopped to help me. He put my chain back on and I went off again. It was really nice of him to stop and it's just another example of how good cyclists are to each other (in my limited experience so far). I have to say, I like being able to use the "new to cycling" line to get lots of help but I'm looking forward to being the one to help others once I learn how to do stuff.

Tomorrow I'm going to get prescription sunglasses and then I think Wednesday I am going to do the bike ride my mom and I do but I'm going to try to do the whole path (round trip about 34 miles) and maybe some more depending on how I feel. Apparently the trail takes you under the wilson bridge and through an apartment building but hopefully I can find my way. Or perhaps there will be other cyclists who can point me in the right direction.