Decided to go run a 10 mile loop after work to warm the oil for an oil change. Hey, I thought it was a good excuse. The 10 mile loop turned into a 70 mile loop, not sure how that happened. One of the more interesting rides I have had for some time. Pretty uneventful to start and I got to a point I needed to decide to take the long or short route, chose the long one, glad I did. It goes across this bridge and this is the first time I have been there when no one was fishing. Interesting bridge in that it is in the middle of a light turn, paved on one end of the bridge and gravel on the other.
There is quite a bit of water and it looks fishy. View off the side.
Proceeded on across and kept seeing deer everywhere. One of the good things about late evening rides, lots of wildlife out. One of the bad things about late evening rides, lots of wildlife out. Poking along at 45 or so and a LARGE wild hog ran across the road about 50 yards ahead of me. Stopped to try to get a photo but it was gone. So shot a photo of the bike and road.
Proceeded on and just got around a bend not a 1/4 mile later and here these guys were going across the road. They were into the pasture before I got a photo. I think there were 7 or 8 of them that I saw.
Cool, lots of deer and pigs too. Headed on down the road and came around a corner and saw the sunset starting to look pretty good. Just happened to be a windmill there so grabbed another image.
Nice. I didn't make it to much further until I noticed in my mirror that the sunset had improved quite a bit so...
This had turned into a memorable ride. Another 10 miles and had to stop again and shoot this image. I love the sunsets around here.
So now I am only about 5 or 6 miles from home and on some small backroads. Running along about 25 mph with a mini van in front of me. All of a sudden something hits me in the chest, scared the daylights out of me. At this point I have been on high alert watching for critters for quite a while as it is almost dark. Looking down I see a female cardinal on the tank, not looking so good. I reached down and picked her up so she would not fall off and get ran over. So now I have a cardinal in my left hand throttle in my right, mini van in front of me and a pickup behind. No place to pull over and not sure I could if there was. Looking down at the bird again she is now looking around fairly lively acting. Raised my hand up and out and opened it and she appeared to jump out and take off. Hopefully she was okay and makes it.
You just never know what you will find on that next ride, just need to get out there and see. Now I need to change that oil.