One of My Favorite Spots

It's getting warm during the day, so I decided to take my bike ride early. I took a different route, because I'm feeling more confident riding on the road - big trucks aren't as scary to me now. I still made loops, but they were 3 mile loops, rather than 1 mile loops. It's hard to trust people when I'm on my bike. They come up behind me, all roar-y and if they are very big, they sort of push me with a pocket of air. I take precautions, watch what I'm doing, wear a helmet, only use one of my earbuds so I can hear properly, but still anything could happen.

On one of the loops, I saw this guy pop through a hole in the fence and out onto the path with his mountain bike. He was far enough ahead that I couldn't see details, but he looked like a kid wearing black baggy clothes. He stopped at the light and as I rode along behind him, I saw his salt and pepper hair. I love salt and pepper hair. Not a kid. A man. Hhmmm. Interesting.

I'm trying to cut down on the amount of gas I use, so I will be riding to work from now on. On the way home, I swung by one of my favorite places in Chico - the bridge on the creek, near my house. (My favorite places are as follows; 1) In bed, sleeping with S, because I love to sleep and I sleep best when he is beside me, 2) the creek down at Hooker Oak, off of Centennial Dr. where I float with my raft, and 2) this spot.)

This is the view to the East-ish. One of my girls swears she saw a fairy in the bushes to the left before. I choose to believe her. It feels pretty magical there. This picture doesn't do it justice. Everyone that I take by there says, wow!, and it's just right there, about 20 steps from the road and a whole lot of offices. Chico has all these cool hidden spots all over the place. The longer I live here and the more areas I explore, the more I grow to love the town. I almost forgive it for not being in the mountains. Almost ;D

The bridge is metal and rusty and well, it's a bridge and I'm a fan of bridges. Here's what it looks like when you peek through the slates. It's a pretty cool spot - pretty hard to beat a Riparian Habitat. There was a small family of ducks, but if you could pick them out, it would be in the first picture.
I walked back to my bike and a squirrel came flying down from the tree and along the rail on the right. It took forever for my camera to boot back up, so by the time I got him, he was all the way at the other end. Can you see him there? He's tiny, right by that bolster.
When my family first moved to Northern California from Orange County, I couldn't believe that squirrels were right there with us all the time. Wow! Squirrels! Now, I see them everywhere, downtown, at work, in the parking lot of my apartments. Squirrels. Big whoop. I do enjoy watching them, I'm just joking about the "whoop". They are fearless, jumping from tree to fence, back to the tree, chasing another squirrel. It must be fun to be that light and agile.