On a whim, I invited an entire email thread of approximately 22 women within our neighborhood to join me for lunch and shopping at Station on King’s in Lewes, a treat to plan for.
I didn’t know if I’d get any takers– general rule being that you don’t need to tell the poster “why” you can’t go. You just need to respond yes if interested. Surprisingly, I got TWO, even though the window was within the hour. I needed to buy a wedding gift and had a hankering for the Station’s outstanding carrot cake. Bikes, or walk?, I asked.
Bikes was the answer, so there we were, two with standard bikes, one with a fancy e-bike. Level terrain around here, so it didn’t matter. Or so I thought.
Delicious lunch and lots of serious getting-to-know-you discussion and laughter later, we noticed an impending storm and also realized that we had to bike back, going directly into the eye of the thunderstorm coming our way.
Somehow, we managed to pedal our way back, to-go container tucked away in the back of my bike and only three miles to go through almost blinding rain and wind. My allergic and dry eyes actually never felt better as we laughed and somehow managed to make our way back on our beloved Lewes-Georgetown paved trail. At one point, I swear there were pellets of hail.
“You there,?” I asked of the other standard biker. “Are you okay?”. Of course she was, giggling with me as the e-biker left us on a mission all her own.
I think we only passed one other idiot going the other way as we laughed (but did not complain) our way back. And of course, the girl with the e-bike and helmet and all kinds of other fancy gear got there first and thought it was funny to photograph us, fighting through the blinding rain as we finally arrived from our unexpected workout.
I felt like a kid. I really did. It was a ridiculous predicament to put myself into, but then again, it was pure fun, and fortunately, we missed the ensuing thunderstorm, and no one got hurt. Just soaked.
When the e-bike girl bade goodbye, I told her the only thing missing was a bottle of shampoo – could have used it – that’s how strong the rain was.
I’d do it all over again, except that in our rush, I ended up forgetting to get the luscious carrot cake to go and the wedding gift I wanted to look for originally.
Oh well. That’s what the internet is for, I guess.
