All Around

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All Around

Typically people think of places away from buildings and highways when they think of the outdoors. It may be because we spend so much time indoors in one of those places. Even in most cars, we're isolated from our surroundings in an enclosed, climate-controlled environment. Where we live was once a wilderness area. Some places in the Buffalo Wilderness area still have rusting cars and trucks left over from when it was penetrated with highways, houses and even businesses. It's always an experience to go along a road or even sit out on the porch with a tasty brew and try to visualize what it looked like before our impact was so obvious; to try to ignore the presence of the highways, strip malls and residences with the lot cleared and replanted with a few, small, non-native trees. In many places, as the Buffalo area mentioned above, nature can still be seen trying to flourish in places where our impact is not so great or constant. It may not be as it was before with many invasive species adapted to take advantage of vegeatation gaps, but it will flourish wherever the chance arises.
Being on a bike has allowed that to a much greater degree. Being out-of-doors, of cars as well as buildings, the surroundings have more of an effect on us. We can smell the plants, trees and waters we pass. We can feel the subtle changes in temperature as we pass over a stream. We feel alive as the exposure to the world around creates a greater sense of risk, reminding us of our mortality.

Note: I'm not in favor of paving routes through wilderness areas, or even in highly populated areas. Our impact through pavement is a tragedy.

Arkansas/Oklahoma border early in the morning on a bicycle ride from Fayetteville.