This past Saturday morning,\u00a0the boys and I\u00a0decided to take a bike ride to Baldwin Park. It’s a long trip, about\u00a0thirteen\u00a0miles each way,\u00a0but it’s all on bike paths and we were in the mood for an adventure.<\/p>\n
Adventures being what they are, we didn’t end up at\u00a0Baldwin Park. Instead, we rode three\u00a0miles past it, to the Fashion Square Mall.\u00a0I hadn’t been there in about ten years, and the boys had never been. We wandered the mall, had lunch at the food court, and checked out a comic book store.<\/p>\n
Then, as we were walking back to the bikes, the skies opened up and rain poured\u00a0down. We\u00a0retreated back into the mall.<\/p>\n
“So. . .” I said. “This is going to be rough.”\u00a0We were fifteen miles from home, with no rain gear of any sort.<\/p>\n
The boys laughed.<\/p>\n
“Phones in Ziploc’s,” I said. For some reason, I had thought to bring Ziploc baggies but not rain jackets.<\/p>\n
“Are we really going out in that?” my youngest asked.<\/p>\n
The rain was\u00a0falling in blinding sheets,\u00a0so heavy that visibility\u00a0had to be measured in feet instead of yards.<\/p>\n
“Not much choice,” I said. “Mom’s in Daytona. Even if we could reach her, she wouldn’t be here for at least\u00a0two hours.”<\/p>\n
“At least there’s no lightning,” my oldest son said. “Then we’d be stuck here.”<\/p>\n
We strode into the deluge, unlocked our bikes, and\u00a0put on our helmets.<\/p>\n
“We walk the bikes until we’re out of the parking lot,” I shouted over the rain. “Stay close. When we start to ride, be careful with your brakes. They probably won’t work.”<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the parking lot was mostly empty of traffic. We jogged our bikes to the trail, then mounted up and started riding.<\/p>\n
About a mile later,\u00a0the thunder and lightning\u00a0arrived,\u00a0making the kind of dramatic entrance that only thunder and lightning can.<\/p>\n
There was nothing to do but ride. There were no shelters or buildings around, just fifteen miles of trail stretching ahead of us. We could have turned back to the mall, but\u00a0I didn’t want to go back into that big empty parking lot. The trail, at least, had tree cover, and the trees were substantially taller than us.<\/p>\n
“You guys okay?” I shouted back.<\/p>\n
My\u00a0youngest son laughed and started singing:<\/p>\n
“We are insane.<\/em>
\nWe are insane.<\/em>
\nRiding metal objects<\/em>
\nin the thunder and rain”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n“We’re on rubber tires,” I pointed out feebly.<\/p>\n
His brother laughed and joined in, adding an echo to each line:<\/p>\n
“We are insane.<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 (we are insane)<\/em>
\nWe are insane.\u00a0 \u00a0 (we are insane)<\/em><\/em>
\nRiding metal objects\u00a0 \u00a0 (riding metal objects)<\/em><\/em>
\nIn the thunder and rain.
\nIn the thunder and ra-ain!”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n“Okay then.”<\/p>\n
“We need another verse,” they said.<\/p>\n
What else could I do? I joined in. Soon, we had a\u00a0song for three voices: one lead, one echo, and one person doing the beat and background music. \u00a0The last line, of course, is\u00a0sung together, long and drawn out, with jazz hands (if you’re not riding a bicycle through a Florida downpour).<\/p>\n
“We are insane.\u00a0 \u00a0 (we are insane)<\/em>
\nWe are insane.\u00a0 \u00a0 (we are insane)<\/em>
\nRiding metal objects\u00a0 \u00a0 (riding metal objects)<\/em>
\nIn the thunder and rain.\u00a0 \u00a0In the thunder and ra-ain!<\/em><\/p>\nWe are insane. (we are insane)<\/em>
\n We’d be safer on a train. (we’d be safer on a train!)<\/em>
\n But we’re riding our bikes. (yes\u00a0riding our bikes)<\/em>
\n in the thunder and rain.
\nIn the thunder and rain!”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n… cause that’s how we roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This adventure started out normal enough. Then it turned dangerous, and then it entered the Twilight Zone. Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[118,122,120,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-c","category-daddytales-n","category-daddytales-embarassing","category-daddytales-funny"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-GD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}