Make Way for (not Ryan) Goslings! And wolves. And Maybe a Man Cub.

We got to have breakfast with Eric Yocum and Traci Wiseman, this morning. They're friends of Jeff's since law school. Back in the day we traveled together, spending more than a few nights in Mexico and New Year's Eves hung over at each other's houses. 

But then we had kids and apparently the four-hour distance grew bigger. We are terrible friends to them and haven't worked hard enough to see them as often as we should.

But they were in town for legal training so we met for breakfast at Cafe Patachou where I again caved to the amazing cinnamon toast. Jeff had some kind of broken yolk sandwich, so we both waddled out of there.

I'd meant to go to the gym but got sidetracked in the yard. The sun kept breaking out so I suggested a bike ride. I meant to have a bike ride. You know, a pleasant pedal on the Monon Trail where we'd get a little sweat on, but nothing crazy. We are, afterall, old. 

We'd established that at breakfast when Jeff wore a Rods and Cones tee-shirt he'd unearthed last week. (I thought I'd hidden his old concert shirts better than that.) He and Eric had spent many a law school night at the Patio listening to that and other bands, so it was a fun flash back.

Five hours later, I was regretting the cinnamon toast and had decided to pedal some of it off. We decided to take the less traveled Fall Creek Trail instead of our usual path, the Monon. I'd been on the other trail with Karin a few weeks ago and wanted to show it to Jeff.

As you might suspect, the trail is much like the Monon except it winds alongside Fall Creek, a nice enough creek that we don't often pay much attention to. We pedaled upstream, and early into the ride, I noted to Jeff how high the creek was. We pedaled on. I noted the current was kind of strong. 

"Wow. Look at that. The water is almost up against the trail."

Then, up ahead, we noticed the duck swimming. On the trail.

At first it was easy to coast through the small puddles where the creek had overrun the trail.. Later, it got deeper and longer and reminded me of Eric and Traci's story of trying to drive their SUV through deep water on vacation in Gulf Shores. They were doing fine until the hit the dip in the driveway and stalled out their vehicle.

I was midway through the longest puddle when I started praying there wasn't a dip. It did get deep enough to soak my sneakers, but the bike held up fine. The water cleaned of some of the mud we'd slid through. Or so I hope.

We ended up taking the trail to its end near Shadeland Avenue. There seemed to be another trail across Fall Creek Parkway, which was almost in our friends, the Beaches, back yard. 

That trail led to a nature preserve and then ended at a padocked gate somewhere west of civilization. We squeezed through an opening in the fence and looked at each other, hoping the other knew the way home. Fun as it was to ride through water, I think we were both more chllled than excited about working our way through the goose ponds again.

It wasn't so much that we were lost. It was that we weren't exactly sure of the best way home. We decided to just go west, and happily, we got our beariings in Jon Larramore and Janet McCabe's old neighborhood. We found our way to Allisonville Road and home, soaked, muddy and tired. But it was a good ride. And might have nullified some of the extra calories from our breakfast.

Tomorrow is Alison's last performance in Jungle Book.  Jenna and Amy saw the debut and Aunt La will be there for the finale.

Alison had a tremendous Friday night with our friend Cheryl Gonzalez and Team Jurkiewicz in the audience.  That night, she was still wearing her Mother Wolf face paint as she put the flowers Nick had given her in a vast.  She looked up and said, "You know, 13's been a pretty good year so far."  

I stopped myself from reminding her she was only 11 days in and instead, just wished with all I have that she can maintain that spirit.

While her 13 has plenty of days left in it, her play does not, and I think she'll be sad to see it all end.

So will our local gas stations and few Mass Avenue bars. 

Getting her to and fro for all the practices and performances has been a bit of challenge. We've releived the stress with more than our usual number of visits to some fancy downtown cocktail establishments while we waited out the actress.

More reason to get back on the bikes. But first, we'll have to dry out.