Waking Up to All of This

I woke up early this morning, right at sunrise, and the first thought through my head was I'm so lucky to wake up to all of this. I could hear the mourning doves cooing, the finches singing, and other birds joining in to welcome the morning. No car noise. No people noise. Just birds.

After getting in my morning walk with Ado, and after feeding him, I jumped on the bike. The wind the first few days this week was awful. 20-30 mph with gusts to 40. Not much fun to cycle in, so this morning, with the wind out of the west at 9 mph, I decided a ride was in order. Thirty hot and sweaty miles later, I rolled into the driveway. I had to laugh when I looked at my stats. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to go 15 miles out. It took me 45 minutes to go the fifteen miles back. The whole time I'm cycling into the wind I keep telling myself it'll be worth it when I turn around. And it is so worth it. 

I'm averaging 30 miles each ride at this point. Not bad for only having a good week and a day of riding under my belt so far this season. My plan is to add a few miles each ride now, working my way to 40 over the next week or so. I told a friend the only number that really matters to me after each ride is the calories spent. My goal is 1000+ calories a ride, which means no less than 20 miles. Today's ride gave me 1400 calories spent, which means I can indulge in that Neapolitan ice cream bar I have tucked away in the freezer.

A few nights ago, awake at 2 am per the usual, I wandered to the back bedroom to look out the window. There's a beautiful field behind my house, and when I looked out, the number of fireflies blinking was incredible. I really wanted to capture a photo of the magic, so last night before going to bed, I put my camera on the tripod and played for awhile to see what would happen. While I'm not thrilled with the light spilling into the image from the street lamps, it's still fun to see the green dots that are the fireflies.