What we did today :-)

19 Observations from a day of mountain biking at Belle Isle with my son

1.  Sergey is 15 years old.

2.  I am not 15 years old, nor have I been for quite some time.

3.  Sergey is a fearless 15 year old.

4.  In the time since I, too, was a fearless 15 year old, apparently I have picked up one or two fears, including plummeting to my death over the side of a trail on a mountain bike.

5.  When you are a fearless 15 year old, everything fun is even more fun when you go faster.  And without hands.  Even if you've never really spent much time (any time???) on a bike before.

6.  The statement: "You go first. I will FOLLOW you," to try to work on the English word "follow" may not have been the wisest thing I've ever said.

7.  I have forgotten what it feels like when something is probably beyond your physical capability, but you do it anyway.  I forgot how fun it is :-).

8.  There is a fearless 15 year old who still lives somewhere deep inside of me (most of you have never met her).  She is the one who jumped off of a bridge hundreds of feet in the air, headfirst into a river in New Zealand, with only a rope tied around her ankles.  And then did it backwards because that is even more fun. That girl? She had a REALLY good time today.

9.  Seeing your son look over his shoulder every few minutes as you are riding along, to flash you that smile? Yes. It's awesome.

10.  Despite being strong, coordinated and athletic (Sergey, not me :-), there are certain things that simple physical laws declare you unable to do.

11.  When these laws assert themselves, a few timely wipe-outs are actually a good reminder to a 15 year old that he is in fact mortal. And that falling actually hurts.  Not that it stopped him for one second, but I think that one fall in particular took a few years off of my life.

12.  Riding on a path when you have no idea where you are going and two sketchy guys pass you is a lot less frightening when you are with someone who outweighs you by 15 pounds and is about ten times stronger than you.  And did I mention that he is also fearless? ;-)

13.  Never race against someone who is more than 25 years younger than you.

14.  It's very nice to have someone to catch you when you are careening down towards the swollen and raging river after you slipped on the rocks because you were dumb enough to wear flip-flops on a hike (it's me wearing the flip-flops, in case you couldn't guess).

15.  It's also very nice to have someone who insists on running back and getting your bike for you after you hiked further down the trail a bit.

16.  Falling off of a bike hurts.

17.  Richmond is a very cool city with lots of interesting people who almost always smile back at you when you smile at them.  :-).

18.  Riding home exhausted, sweaty, incredibly dirty, a little bloodied (both of us) and probably completely covered with poison ivy and God-knows-what-else, with all the windows down and your new son next to you, handing you a strawberry each time he takes one for himself (from his very dirty fingers to your even dirtier fingers), while blaring "Turn Down for What" on the radio?  It's pretty much a perfect thing to do.

19.  Last observation - he might be the one who is 15, but only one of us had to nap this afternoon. And it wasn't me.  And please look at the last picture we took below and TELL ME who looks more tired.  Boom.

I only wish you could somehow see how fast he was going.  Oh my.

I took this ...

And then he insisted on taking this :-).