I’m often asked where I go on my bicycle, and why. Why I go is simple and complicated all at the same time. I go because I can... It’s a deeply felt imperative.  Today was typical.  I live on Camino Degrazia which leads out to but doesn’t cross Ulric Street.  Today as usual, approaching Ulric I hadn’t made up my mind if I would go left or right.  Mostly it’s an easy decision to take the downhill angle of the street to the left... Put off an uphill climb until later... Another decision at the bottom of the hill.  Unless I’m headed to a specific destination which takes me east on Friars, when I get to the bottom of the hill I usually go west if the traffic light is red as I approach it and if the light turns to green I do a mental coin flip to decide which way to turn... or sometimes I go west because I want to see and smell the ocean. That’s what I did this morning.  That route takes me alongside the San Diego River.  Usually I haven’t checked tide tables before hand... I like the anticipation of seeing in which direction the river is flowing. 

The San Diego River is really nothing more than a small stream most of the time.  In Virginia they would call it a run.  In Arkansas it would be a branch or a creek.  In San Diego it’s a river, and it actually looks like a river, a wide river, half a mile from the sea when the tide is rushing in and filling the basin.  That’s the way it was this morning at around eight-thirty.  The water birds were having a great time.  By the time I got to the bridge crossing the river just before the channel opens into the sea, the tidal flow had begun to turn. It’s a long bridge with a generous bike lane walled off from automobile traffic, a good place to stop and watch birds or just to gaze at the Pacific Ocean and think about what lies beyond the horizon.  I was alone in the bike lane riding east, so I set up my little camera in the middle of path, set the timer for ten seconds, and sat for the picture.  On the south side of the river I turned east and headed back toward home.  I got some other pictures along the way.  

I never stop being amazed that I can ride for hours in a city not bothered by traffic, except for the noise of it coming from nearby freeways.  Life it good.  

The only rant I feel like making today is being made by good people all over the country.  What in the world do these Tea Party ignoramuses in Washington think they will accomplish for American citizens and for the world by dismantling the government of the United States? They won’t succeed ultimately. They won’t be able to destroy our government, but they are going to heap an awful lot of misery onto people who are already suffering.  When the dust settles they will saunter back to their districts and states like bullies coming in from a playground fight.  Brighter, wiser people will eventually pick up the pieces and put us back together again. The American dream will survive. The Republican Party may not.