Two Wheel Blogs

Ah yeah, we got one awesome Monday here today. I can't say enough how nice it was out there. Middle 70's at ride time I would guess. Recovery / Tempo today. In all I rode about 1½ hours. That's 1½ hours' ride time. It doesn't count the stops to help a family out of a jam.

You see, it's mushroom hunting season around here. Morels are aplenty. Just about everywhere there are woods you might see one or more vehicles pulled off to the side, the driver nowhere to be found. They're off in the woods hunting 'shrooms.

I'm pedaling along today descending into a valley between a couple of medium sized climbs and a family of 4 carrying a couple of bags of mushrooms and looking distressed waves me down. They had come up out of the woods, conveniently at this low spot, and had no idea where they were. Not knowing where they were, they of course had no idea how to get back to their car. Do they go left? Right? Flip a coin and start walking.

They stopped me to ask if I'd seen their car.

I didn't remember seeing a car; but then I also don't remember what I had for lunch today. I asked if they'd parked it on this road.

They answered that they had not parked it on the road. They had parked it in a parking lot. I guess they figured cyclists make mental notes of all the cars we see in parking lots.

I told them I'd ride back up the hill in the direction they were walking on two conditions:

1. They would have to describe their car to me
2. I wanted to see their mushrooms

I didn't expect they'd try to negotiate. After all, the alternative was to walk up that hill themselves on a 50% chance they'd see their car. They described their car and showed me what must have been 5 pounds of beautiful White Morels. They'd had a great day getting lost in the woods.

Of course you know how this ends. I ended up climbing both hills. They had been headed in the wrong direction. Their luck had found them morels but it wasn't helping much getting them home.