Lunch in Longmont

Today I went to meet Linda for a leisurely lunch on the other side of town. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but when riding my bicycle on the highway for several miles to even get into what is "really" considered town, it becomes quite an adventure. One of these days I'll learn that it doesn't actually take me two hours to go 10 miles, but I still seem to leave awfully early because I think it will take me forever to get there. I'm always fascinated by the lack of interest on the highway portion of the ride (which is most of it), so I thought I'd take some pictures today, to remind myself that it's a pretty incredible place to live. My first real sight to see is a bridge that always has water flowing (unless it's frozen).

I think it's such a beautiful spot with the river flowing, the houses behind, and even had a flock of birds that kept dipping by as well. There's also this really cool pond that sits right in front of a little neighborhood. It's just such a restful and peaceful place. One of those places you just want to sit up a lawn chair and hang out for awhile. At this particular stopping spot, you can also see the very edge of town and the mountains in the background.

It's easy to start taking the mountains for granted because we see them every day, but they pretty much stay snow covered until the end of August or so, and even though it was mid-70s today, it's kind of funny to know that snow is very close by. One of the luxuries of living on the Front Range of Colorado, I suppose.

I really just can't get enough of them. I'm thinking about doing some paintings.. not necessarily naturalistic or photo realistic work, but using these as a starting point. We shall see, as next week, I start my plan to have some sort of schedule for painting this summer. Anyway, so the ride at this point is getting to the edge of town, and I always think it's interesting how fast the cars move. You can see the edge of the 65 MPH sign on the right, but people speed past, easily going 70+ MPH. I suppose I should be wearing a helmet on these parts, but I still believe that if I do get hit, I'm not going to survive it, regardless of whether I have a helmet on or not.

I refocused and headed back on my mission to get to lunch with Lin. It's funny how easily I lose focus though, and even felt the need to try to capture a shot of me taking photos in my bicycle mirror.

I made it to our lunch meeting spot with about an hour to spare, even with all my reckless regard for time and constant photo taking. It was nice to have the camera on hand, but I also have to say that it was a pain to carry the extra weight, once I arrived at my destination, as I brought all the lenses with me, for some ungodly reason. I did finally make it to lunch though, and we had a nice long chat about everything you can pretty much think of, so by the time I was heading back home, it was nearing "getting off" time for the work folks. Always a joy to pass people in their cars as they just sit in traffic. Gotta love bicycles!