In the midst of the chaos and emotion of downsizing, our riding keeps us on an even keel, giving us time out of the house, providing beautiful sights and scenes, and imparting a wonderful sense of well-being from all the exercise.

For most of the year we’d been riding every other day, doing thirty-five miles, four days a week. In late August however, we decided to change up our system and increase to five days a week, in a row. We figured it would give us great practice for riding five days a week on the trip. To make up for getting up so early five days running, we shortened the length of each ride to twenty-five miles, allowing us time to get used to a new system.

We’ve also used the rides to do errands on route – bank deposits (our favorite errands), grocery shopping, trips to the post office, and everything else that needs doing.

The rides themselves are unfailingly gorgeous. We ride so often that we’ve seen many full moons come and go, and we’ve had mornings so dark, especially before the time change, that we’ve been star-gazing with our Google Sky app at six-thirty in the morning, overlooking the ocean in Manalapan.

We’ve taken a number of really beautiful sunrise photos and one perfect morning we took along the tripod and set up shots of the moon setting over the Intracoastal.

Some early mornings before dawn the streets glow with the spectral light of the full moon, the trees leaving deep lacy shadows on the streets as we wind in and out under the trees. Other mornings are so inky black we can barely see the roadway, especially since the time change in November.

One particularly dark morning in September, we were riding quietly along the beach at Manalapan, lost in our own thoughts, when I had my own personal John Travolta Wild Hogs moment. Out of nowhere something very big and very hard flew smack into my chin, knocking me sharply before bouncing off and disappearing into the dark.

It was definitely one of those “what the…” moments. I had a very sore bruise on my chin for a week where the beak of whatever-it-was hit me, and months later there’s still a slight discoloration.

After quite a few weeks, if not months, of riding the twenty-five mile route, we decided to increase our mileage to thirty-five from twenty-five, and cut back to four consecutive days. We loved it. The route up through Manalapan and on to Lake Worth is much prettier, and we had no difficulty with the increase in mileage. In fact, before long we were doing five days a week some weeks.

Our goal has been reaching fifty miles a day though, and finally on Christmas Eve Day we rode fifty-three miles, from our home in Delray up into West Palm Beach. It was absolutely beautiful despite, or perhaps because of, a light steady rain the entire ride.

The light rain created clear, fresh, sweet-smelling air, a gorgeous sunrise, and mists entwining through the trees. The sun provided a gorgeous light show by peeking in and out of the mists.

By the time we got to our planned stop for breakfast at John Gs in Manalapan with Chelsea’s dad and his wife, thirty-six miles into our ride, we were thoroughly wet and completely revitalized.

A week later we celebrated both New Year’s Eve Day and New Year’s Day with back-to-back fifty-two mile rides. They were both awesome.

Rain and rainbows

For several months in the fall and late summer we had consistent late evening or very early morning rains, resulting in cooler air temperatures and gorgeous mornings. Our favorite yellow-flowered vines running a half-mile along the cemetery were in full bloom week after week, thicker than we’ve ever seen them. On the full moon nights they reflected the moonlight, glowing like hundreds of luminescent fairy candles.

Each morning the skies, trees, bushes, and streets were cleansed by the constant and often heavy pre-dawn rains. As we headed home with the sunrise at our backs, the lawns were always a rich emerald green with water drops glistening like diamonds on the lawns and leaves.

For weeks we saw rainbows almost daily, long single rainbows extending horizon to horizon, with double rainbows faintly coming out next to the singles. One lucky morning we watched a spectacular double rainbow arch for a full hour as we rode. Often we’d see the rainbows all the way home. Be sure to see the photo of the rainbow over the Inlet, melting right into the trees.

Wildlife and marine life

Our wildlife and marine life sightings have been just as rich. We saw a baby fox one morning, and had two other sightings of foxes along our route over the next few weeks.

One week we saw a family of raccoons crossing the road in front of us off A1A up near Ocean Ridge Park. The babies stopped to stare curiously at us for a moment before slipping off into the underbrush.

Two days later we spotted a family of raccoons just down the street from us. The mother raccoon was very bristly, on high alert, guarding her little ones vigorously, but when we did nothing, she gradually ushered them away. One of the little guys stayed a bit longer to watch us watching him.

When the tides are rising we love stopping at the Boynton Inlet bridge to see what we can see. When winds are high, along with a rising tide, the pink moon-jellyfish come in by the hundreds, drifting quickly by on the tide, folding in and out, in and out, in and out. We made a game of seeing who could find the biggest one or the most unusual one.

Between Gulfstream Park and the Boynton Inlet, one of our favorite views over the months has been watching hundreds of vultures catching the thermals on the high wind days. They reliably arrive about twenty minutes before sunrise and float higher and higher, circling back down and starting over every few minutes. They are gone, though, by the time we come through on our way home, heading back from Lake Worth.

On our rides to West Palm Beach we pass a short section close to Southern Blvd. where the vultures hang out in the trees – perhaps it’s their settled roosting place. Hundreds of vultures are tucked into every available space in a half-block section of road, mostly in the trees and bushes, but they also perch on rooftops, chimneys, antennas, whatever is available. It’s very entertaining for us to see the sight, but I sure wouldn’t want to be a homeowner and deal with the mess they make…

Gulfstream Park has a bevy of osprey that frequent the area. Invariably we’ll have two floating around at once, but one record-breaking day we saw five osprey, all at the same time.

Another day we saw an osprey catch a fish right offshore from us and take off with the fish still thrashing wildly side to side. Chelsea had the camera shutter clicking rapidly as we watched the osprey gain altitude, gradually moving the thrashing fish from only one claw to a more secure hold in two claws. Finally successful, the osprey headed off to enjoy its meal.

Closer to home we have flocks of ibis that drift from lawn to lawn in big crowds. Occasionally, however, we see them on wires above the road, and what an hilarious sight it is to see their ungainly legs and feet, carefully balancing on the thin wires.

One morning we saw perhaps fifteen or twenty ibis tucked into branches near the top of a tree, with their little white heads sticking up out of the branches, looking for all the world like odd Christmas tree ornaments hung haphazardly on the tree.

We love our bird watching, and take photos when we can, so the day we caught sight of two loggerhead shrikes in the Delray Memorial Gardens was a day for celebration, and certainly called for stopping to catch a photo.