The Great and Amazing Bike Ride of 2010

Last Saturday was QUITE A DAY, my friends. Maybe the most eventful day of this year since the one where I spoke in church, played the organ, gave a lesson, and ate ice cream. There were ups and downs, there were pliers and chainsaws, there was crying and laughing and screaming and breathing. Lots of breathing.

It all began with a curious itching of mine to go for a bike ride with my new dashing boyfriend, whom I shall refer to hereafter as any one of several names beginning in M. Mitch and I set off bright and early, after packing our bags and eating some waffles and making fun of each other's helmets. We also checked our tires briefly for any potential "flats," but that didn't stop Matthias from getting a puncture when we were about half-way to our destination. Fortunately, Mordecai was proficient and experienced in the mechanics of bike repair, a fact which I surmised immediately when he refrained from cursing or throwing rocks and instead detached from his bike a repair kit that had been invisible to my eyes until this point:

Being the supportive and loving girlfriend I am, I stood well away from the grunting, sweaty display of manliness before me and offered encouragement along the lines of "Now what are you doing?" and "I don't see anything small and black - what are you talking about?"

I also got out the camera and took pictures.



When I showed these to Mortimer for the first time, he said in surprise, "I actually look buff!" Such is my skill with the camera, folks.

Now, naturally I already believe my Maxwell is already the epitomy of hotness, but can I just say that there is something incredibly, undefinably attractive about a guy who can fix a flat tire? I think I sort of swooned while taking the next picture.

After around fifteen minutes of this, Michael fixed his tire and we took off again, chatting and teasing each other in between huffing and puffing as we went up the path into the Provo Canyon. It was a gorgeous day for biking - sunny but cool and breezy - and there were a lot of people taking advantage of the weather and giving us many interesting things to talk about (e.g. "Can you believe how many people are walking dogs?" "Hey, that person isn't wearing a helmet!") as we focused on other interesting pastimes, which included me trying to steal his pen from his back pocket (so it wouldn't poke him when he fell off! Honest!), me threatening to kick over his bike (I'm not really a violent person, I'm not), me laughing at him for signaling on the bike path when he passed ME (he claims he was just waving his arm, but YEAH RIGHT), and of course, our mutual quest to discover a means of holding hands while biking uphill. Downhill was much easier.

We soon arrived at Bridal Veil Falls and, after locking our bikes, stayed for several minutes under the falls to shiver and thus have an excuse to get warm by cuddling. The sun was not touching this part of the mountain at all and it was still pretty breezy, so we were getting cold by the time we decided to go back down the path to a park to have the rest of our breakfast.

Then tragedy/fate struck. My bike lock WOULD NOT WORK. The numbers had previously slipped on me before, but I tried every possible combination I could think of, and still had no luck.

While I fought the cold and my increasing panic over not being able to free my bike, Mickey resorted to taking humorous pictures to cheer me up:

In the end, despite Mark's valiant efforts to break the lock with his bare hands, I had to give up. Red and tearful, I turned to Merlin, blubbering through chattering teeth, "I don't know what else to do!" He gave me a hug and assured me everything would be fine, and then suggested that he call one of his family members to bring something to cut through the chain. I helpfully sniffed in agreement and wiped my nose on his shirt.

Since I had brashly managed to convince Methuselah beforehand that jackets would be unnecessary ("It's still October! We're young and hot-blooded! This is Utah, not Alaska!" etc), both of us were trapped in short-sleeved shirts at the still-shaded, now-freezing Bridal Veil Falls. We didn't want to move out of sight of the bikes, so we went to the nearest bench under a shaded pavilion and clung to each other for warmth. Fortunately, Micah had had the presence of mind to bring a small gray blanket that barely covered both of us. Armed with that and the natural hotness that exuded from Martin, we endured the next twenty minutes together in a fairly stoic fashion. At first I was quite miserable, being depressed and embarrassed about the ordeal; however, Malcolm was very sweet and cheerful throughout the whole thing, explaining that now we had something to remember the outing by and even going so far as to tease me that I must have arranged the whole thing on purpose just to extend the length of the time we spent together. He also pointed out that all the people passing by must think we were super cute, and I had to agree after seeing a sweet-looking older lady give us a huge fond smile. By the time Malvolio's handsome older brother arrived (I'll just refer to him here as "Hero"), I was feeling considerably better.

Hero was carrying a humongous set of plier-ish looking thingies, which he used to make a very satisfying crunching sound on the detestable chain which held my bike prisoner. We cheered, then made him repeat for the camera:

Then Hero insisted that I too take a crack at the bike chain, which I was happy to do (though slightly less happy when I realized that I had lost all feeling in my arms and the pliers turned out to weigh more than my bike):

Now thoroughly happy, we bid farewell to Hero and pedaled to the nearest sunniest spot we could find with a table, where we enjoyed a delicious breakfast/lunch of grapes, cheese, peanut butter, bananas, dirt (silly Manfred kept dropping things on the ground and then eating them!), and water. We also played Catchphrase, I stole his pen again (and "let" him get it back) and we experimented again with the camera:

Aw. Notice we still have the blanket on our backs.

As you can see, Monty ended up keeping his pen. But I will get it from him one of these days :)

We biked by Miles's workplace at Ancestry.com to get home and he showed me a neat little bike path that takes you through a more gradual incline to get from Provo to Orem. Plus lots of cute houses and fenced-in neighborhoods, which I love.We arrived home in time for Marshall to get to choir practice and for me to get in some GRE studying before I went that night to my very first haunted house ever (that's where the screaming and chainsaws come in). But more on THAT experience later. It was already a full and perfect day in my book.