4:30 am. I was dreaming I was in a bar in Mexico, listening to a raven-haired singer crooning a song in her low, sultry voice. I was waiting for someone to join me. In fact, the name was spoken at one point.
Then I opened my eyes, and I realized it was my alarm clock going off, and I had incorporated a radio program called Voz Latina into my dream. Cool radio show, and a really nice way to wake up.
I looked out the window and saw that it wasn’t raining. This meant it was time to get ready for Bike The Drive.
With three bikes loaded on my car, I went inside to wake up the girls. A little bleary-eyed, we got downtown at about 6:15 and crossed the starting line at 6:30. Thousands of people were already out, so I suppose the hazy skies and the threat of storms from the weather dudes (for the past three days) didn’t deter most riders.
The scenery was great. And while we didn’t get to see the sunrise over the lake, it was pretty cool to see bikes on LSD instead of cars.
With the wind at our backs (remember this for later), we made the 8.5 miles from Grant Park to Hollywood Ave in about 45 minutes. At the turnaround, there were muffins, bagels, bananas, water, and some sort of dried fruit-leather thing. We enjoyed the break.
The return trip was a bit more challenging. With the wind at our faces, Emma started to tucker out. We walked part of the way, but we crossed the finish line almost two hours after we started, which was pretty respectable for a leisurely ride.
(Although I suppose I should say that we would have crossed the finish line, had there actually been one. There was just this mass of people in the park when we hit the end of the ride.)
We didn’t stay long for the after-ride festivities. There was very little free swag to be had this year, and while they were serving a pancake breakfast, we decided to head back to the car, load up the bikes, and head for home. Good thing, too: it started pouring as we were heading out on the Kennedy just 10 minutes after this photo was snapped.
An awesome event.
(And I apologize for the bad pun in the title. I didn’t get much sleep last night. 🙂