1,000 miles!

At some point yesterday I broke 1,000 miles on my seat. YAY ME! Nick woke me up early and we first went up 15 to Del Dios highway, which is a windy road back in the hills that takes you across to the ocean. He told me the time when we were in Del Mar, and I realized I wouldn't have time to go home and change before teatime. So I went to tea in biker gear!

I take teatime very seriously, and I'm always nicely dressed and I ALWAYS have a hat on. Well, I had boots, jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and helmet hair this time. They all were entertained by it and were very amused by the idea of a "costume change". "From badass biker to sedate tea drinker!" So all was well.

When I pulled up to a parking spot outside of my tea shop there was a man wearing a Harley Davidson jacket. He stopped to talk and ask where we had been, that sort of thing. I observed that it was a beautiful day in a beautiful city, and I felt pretty sure that everyone in their cars, looking stressed and zoned out as they drove, was missing how amazing the city is. On a bike you can feel the air cool as you ride into a shadow, smell the salt from the ocean or the citrus or the eucalytus from the trees, or get a sense of just how high and fast you are when you go over Mission Valley on the 805 bridge. In a car you miss all of those things.

Then I did the drive home from tea all by myself. Nick volunteered to come be my wingman, but since it's a drive I've done hundreds of times and it's only 3 exits on the freeway I said I would try it myself. It was quiet and easy and...blah. I made it just fine, no mishaps or anything, but there was none of the sense of being powerful and "out on the road" without Nick behind me. It was just...transportation. I infinitely prefer riding with him. Maybe it was too mundane a drive, but the magic of it was diminished. So even the things you can notice on a bike that you miss in a car were kind of lackluster. I think the difference is being out with a partner, and the experience of feeling like you're doing this together.

Or maybe I just like having a big all-black tough biker behind me? There is that... ;)