Parked Bike Quotes

And in a small house five miles away was a man who held my mud-encrusted charm bracelet out to his wife. Look what I found at the old industrial park," he said. "A construction guy said they were bulldozing the whole lot. They're afraid of sink holes like that one that swallowed the cars." His wife poured him some water from the sink as he fingered the tiny bike and the ballet shoe, the flower basket and the thimble. He held out the muddy bracelet as she set down his glass. This little girl's grown up by now," she said. Almost. Not quite. I wish you all a long and happy life.

I tell you this not as aimless revelation but because I want you to know, as you read me, precisely who I am and where I am and what is on my mind. I want you to understand exactly what you are getting: you are getting a woman who for some time now has felt radically separated from most of the ideas that seem to interest people. You are getting a woman who somewhere along the line misplaced whatever slight faith she ever had in the social contract, in the meliorative principle, in the whole grand pattern of human endeavor. Quite often during the past several years I have felt myself a sleepwalker, moving through the world unconscious of the moment’s high issues, oblivious to its data, alert only to the stuff of bad dreams, the children burning in the locked car in the supermarket parking lot, the bike boys stripping down stolen cars on the captive cripple’s ranch, the freeway sniper who feels “real bad” about picking off the family of five, the hustlers, the insane, the cunning Okie faces that turn up in military investigations, the sullen lurkers in doorways, the lost children, all the ignorant armies jostling in the night. Acquaintances read The New York Times, and try to tell me the news of the world. I listen to call-in shows.

We parked our bikes on verges so they could graze.

Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos. There are 7 people in my house. We each have different genders. I cut my hair over the bathroom sink and everything I own has a hole in it. There is a banner in our living room that says “Love Cats Hate Capitalism.” We sit around the kitchen table and argue about the compost pile and Karl Marx and the necessity of violence when The Rev comes. Whatever the fuck The Rev means. Every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout “Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth!” I want us to spend the next 80 years together eating Doritos and riding bikes. I want to be Oscar the Grouch. I want him and his girlfriend to be Bert and Ernie. I want us to live on Sesame Street and I will park my trash can on their front stoop and we will be friends every day. If I ever seem grouchy it’s just because I am a little afraid of all that fun. There is a river running through this city I know as well as my own name. It’s the first place I’ve ever called home. I don’t think its poetry to say I’m in love with the water. I don’t think it’s poetry to say I’m in love with the train tracks. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to say I see God in the skyline. There is always cold beer asking to be slurped on back porches. There are always crushed packs of Marlboro’s in my back pockets. I have been wearing the same patched-up shorts for 10 days. Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.

I keep telling you, nobody wants legs like a stick insect. They want a bottom they can park in a bike in and balance a pint of beer on.

I walked a block on rubbery knees, feeling the way I did the time a van clipped my bike and sent me reeling into a line of parked cars. Ella had dropped her cigarette and jumped on the fallen bike, screaming at the top of her lungs as she sped after the car. Bleeding in three places, I watched her go, glad she knew I'd rather have retribution than comfort.

Try to roll with the punches. Keep your chin up. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Vote Democrat in every election. Ride your bike in the park. Dream about my perfect, golden body. Take your vitamins. Drink eight glasses of water a day. Pull for the Mets. Watch a lot of movies. Don’t work too hard at your job. Take a trip to Paris with me. Come to the hospital when Rachel has her baby and hold my grandchild in your arms. Brush your teeth after every meal. Don’t cross the street on a red light. Defend the little guy. Stick up for yourself. Remember how beautiful you are. Remember how much I love you. Drink one Scotch on the rocks every day. Breathe deeply. Keep your eyes open. Stay away from fatty foods. Sleep the sleep of the just. Remember how much I love you.

A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport. It is where the rich walk and where they use bikes. We should create cities where rich and poor meet as equals: in parks, on the sidewalks, on public transport.

I keep telling you nobody wants legs like a stick insect. They want a bottom they can park a bike in and balance a pint of beer on.

Oh, Oliver, I said to myself on my way to the kitchen for a quick bite to eat, I’ll do anything for you. I’ll ride up the hill with you, and I’ll race you up the road to town, and won’t point out the sea when we reach the berm, and I’ll wait at the bar in the piazzetta while you meet with your translator, and I’ll touch the memorial to the unknown soldier who died on the Piave, and I won’t utter a word, I’ll show you the way to the bookstore, and we’ll park our bikes outside the shop and go in together and leave together, and I promise, I promise, I promise, there’ll be no hint of Shelley, or Monet, nor will I ever stoop to tell you that two nights ago you added an annual ring to my soul.

Before she leaves, my new friend tells me to look out of the big picture window at the parking lot. "See that purple Harley out there—that big gorgeous one? That's mine. I used to ride behind my husband, and never took the road on my own. Then after the kids were grown, I put my foot down. It was hard, but we finally got to be partners. Now he says he likes it better this way. He doesn't have to worry about his bike breaking down or getting a heart attach and totaling us both. I even put 'Ms.' on my license plate—and you should see my grandkids' faces when Grandma rides up on her purple Harley!" On my own again, I look out at the barren sand and tortured rocks of the Badlands, stretching for miles. I've walked there, and I know that, close up, the barren sand reveals layers of pale rose and beige and cream, and the rocks turn out to have intricate womblike openings. Even in the distant cliffs, caves of rescue appear. What seems to be one thing from a distance is very different close up. I tell you this story because it's the kind of lesson that can be learned only on the road. And also because I've come to believe that, inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle. We have only to discover it—and ride.

Back at the office, Woodward went to the rear of the newsroom to call Deep Throat. Bernstein wished he had a source like that. The only source he knew who had such comprehensive knowledge in any field was Mike Schwering, who owned Georgetown Cycle Sport Shop. There was nothing about bikes - and, more important, bike thieves - that Schwering didn't know. Bernstein knew something about bike thieves: the night of the Watergate indictments, somebody had stolen his 10-speed Raleigh from a parking garage. That was the difference between him and Woodward. Woodward went into a garage to find a source who could tell him what Nixon's men were up to. Bernstein walked into a garage to find an eight-pound chain cut neatly in two and his bike gone. -- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

In 1955, one sign—on the façade of a secondhand bookshop on Oudezijds Achterburgwal—read: BICYCLES PARKED HERE WILL BE DESTROYED.

Walking with my doggy is so much fun! And she makes me laugh, she makes me run. Licking she likes to make some good new friends, Kindly enough with cyclists who spin with no end.

I also hate cyclists posing in sunglasses and all the pro gear, thinking they’re cool when they couldn’t even pedal up the modest slope of Yang-teh Boulevard. You know the type: guy with a bulging gut who parks his expensive bike by the side of the road to show it off. Whenever I see a guy like that, I hope his chain falls off. Or that he gets a flat or a broken spoke.

To separate from love is to live a risk-free life. What’s the point of that sort of life? As I wheeled my electric bike through the park on the way to my writing shed, my hands had turned blue from the cold. I had given up wearing gloves because I was always grappling in the dark for keys. I stopped by the fountain, only to find it had been switched off. A sign from the council read, This fountain has been winterized. I reckoned that is what had happened to me too.

So he does what a kid has to do: He smells the cedar chest in his parents’ bedroom, he decapitates dandelions, seesaws at the park, licks the mixing bowl, rides his bike, counts railroad cars, holds his breath, clucks his tongue, tastes tofu, touches moss, daydreams, looks back, looks ahead, wishes, wonders… and before he knows it, miraculously, the summer is over.” (p. 163).

Converting car parking to bike parking is one of the cheapest, easiest, and most effective ways for any city to make a sizeable dent in the bad economics of our current transportation system.

And yet often when I was out in the park or the woods, say, with my own little girls, I'd seen something and think to myself, That's just like the such-and-such scene, where we found the eight-year-old. As fearful as I was for their safety, seeing the things I saw, I also found it difficult to get emotionally involved in the minor, but important, scrapes and hurts of childhood. When I would come home and Pam would tell me that one of the girl had fallen off her bike and needed stitches, I'd flash to the autopsy of some child her age and think of all the stitches it had taken the medical examiner to close her wounds for burial.

Likewise—now don’t laugh—cars and trucks should view the bike lanes as if they are sacrosanct. A driver would never think of riding up on a sidewalk. Most drivers, anyway. Hell, there are strollers and little old ladies up there! It would be unthinkable, except in action movies. A driver would get a serious fine or maybe even get locked up. Everyone around would wonder who that asshole was. Well, bike lanes should be treated the same way. You wouldn’t park your car or pull over for a stop on the sidewalk, would you? Well then, don’t park in the bike lanes either—that forces cyclists into traffic where poor little meat puppets don’t stand a chance.

And we're not just talking high school students; this practice of hovering often begins before they've learned how to write. Kids used to grow up in a neighborhood-- on the block or in the parks, playing games with other kids. These games had rules, but the kids themselves determined them, flexing their imaginations. Social scientists called these activities -- capture the flag, bike races, pickup baseball games -- "free play, " and it's been steadily decreasing since the 1950s. Scientists have also noted a correlation between the decreasing amount of childhood free play—any play not directed by adults—and the increasing rates of anxiety and depression among kids. As free play decreases, anxiety increases.

I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen. I could still see her—sitting on her bike outside the chain-link fence surrounding the school parking lot as she watched my friends and me on our skateboards that summer.

Kingsley could ‘do’ the sound of a brass band approaching on a foggy day. He could become the Metropolitan line train entering Edgware Road station. He could be four wrecked tramps coughing in a bus shelter (this was very demanding and once led to heart palpitations). To create the hiss and crackle of a wartime radio broadcast delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt was for him scant problem (a tape of it, indeed, was played at his memorial meeting, where I was hugely honored to be among the speakers). The pièce de résistance, an attempt by British soldiers to start up a frozen two-ton truck on a windy morning ‘somewhere in Germany,’ was for special occasions only. One held one's breath as Kingsley emitted the first screech of the busted starting-key. His only slightly lesser vocal achievement—of a motor-bike yelling in mechanical agony—once caused a man who had just parked his own machine in the street to turn back anxiously and take a look. The old boy's imitation of an angry dog barking the words 'fuck off' was note-perfect.

I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen. I could still see her—sitting on her bike outside the chain-link fence surrounding the school parking lot as she watched my friends and me on our skateboards that summer. From that moment on, it seemed I was always aware of her, and everything I did, I did it with it in mind that she was watching. Every joke in class. Every strut into the lunchroom. Every new haircut and every new pair of jeans. Even the Raptor. My first thought when my parents bought it was how she’d look in it.

Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine -- four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the Coast Highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that I decided to ride it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit ... my insurance had already been canceled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread. So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head ... but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz ... not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.

What if you should forget yourself in the excitement and just peddle straight through the park and out the other end?’ she warns. ‘If you keep your feet on the pedals and don’t stop, where might you end up?’ The idea appeals to Maud more than she can say. She doesn’t want to know where she may ‘end up’.

I always wondered, though, what the fathers felt as they drove up the street they used to drive down every night, and whether they really saw their former houses, whether they noticed how things got frayed and flaky around the edges now that they were gone. I wondered it again as I pulled up to the house I’d grown up in. It was, I noticed, looking even more Joad-like than usual. Neither my mother nor the dread life partner, Tanya, was much into yard work, and so the lawn was littered with drifts of dead brown leaves. The gravel on the driveway was as thin as an old man’s hair combed across an age-spotted scalp, and as I parked I could make out the faint glitter of old metal from behind the little toolshed. We used to park our bikes in there. Tanya had “cleaned” it by dragging all the old bikes, from tricycles to discarded ten-speeds, out behind the shed, and leaving them there to rust. “Think of it as found art,” my mother had urged us when Josh complained that the bike pile made us look like trailer trash. I wonder if my father ever drove by, if he knew about my mother and her new situation, if he thought about us at all, or whether he was content to have his three children out there in the world, all grown up, and strangers.

Tim and Andy stood there in head-to-toe leather motocross outfits, covered in road dust, behind me in a dark corner of the hotel’s dining room. Tim has penetrating pale blue eyes with tiny pupils, and the accent of an Englishman from the north – Newcastle, or Leeds maybe. Andy is an American with blond hair and the wholesome, well-fed good looks and accent of the Midwest. Behind them, two high-performance dirt bikes leaned on kickstands in the Hang Meas’ parking lot.      Tim owns a bar/restaurant in Siemreap. Andy is his chef. Go to the end of the world and apparently there will be an American chef there waiting for you.

What isn’t scary can do you in. Snacking doesn’t intimidate anybody. Neither does watching TV. Or sitting in a movie with a large drink and so much popcorn that it comes in a tub. Driving to work and parking in the garage doesn’t upset any applecarts, but riding your bike and asking for a place to lock it up just might. Suggesting to your boyfriend that you’d like to go to the soup-and-salad place instead of the he-man chuck-wagon could be awkward…[but] you are committed to living fully. You are going to take care of you, no matter who suggests that you’re selfish or full of yourself. Living well will give you the emotional energy you need to fulfill your destiny.

Two boys on fluorescent bikes with extravagant ape-hanger handlebars were doing wheelies in the parking lot, weaving in and out of each other’s paths with a dexterity that suggested a solid background in video gaming and possible high-paying futures as air-traffic controllers . . . if they managed to stay away from coke and car accidents, that was.

It’s estimated that more than forty thousand RVers dwell in the desert near Quartzsite from December through February. Bill Alexander has watched them come and go for what seems like forever. The outdoor recreation planner and lead park ranger at the Bureau of Land Management’s Yuma Field Office, he’s been working in this region for seventeen years. And after all that time, he says, he’s still impressed by the campers’ neighborliness. “We can have that guy who rides up on a bike with his dog on a leash and throws down his tent next to a guy in a $500,000 custom-built motorhome, and they get along just fine,” Bill told me. “That ability to coexist is based simply on their desire to enjoy the public land, and the fact that it belongs equally to the guy riding the bicycle as to the guy in the motorhome.

Everything seemed bright and different after so long in the darkness. Even though most of the businesses were closed, there was one neon sign lit in the window of a narrow storefront. COFFEE AND PIE, it read. Two bikes were parked just outside. On the boardwalk, in the thrown light of the neon sign, his head dipped down as I pulled my fingers through his hair. The night still in progress, with daylight hours away.

Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter. Support local and no-kill animal shelters. Plant a tree to honor someone you love. Be a developer — put up some birdhouses. Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them. Make sure you spend time with your animals each day. Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products. Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home. Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides. If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices. Support your local farmers market. Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

I heard a choking sound behind me. When I looked back, Cannoli was hanging from the backpack harness with her hind legs circling frantically in the air. She looked like she was riding a bike just above ground level. "Cannoli," I yelled. I unhooked her and made sure she was breathing on her own. When I tried to get her back in the backpack, she whimpered. I talked to her soothingly yet firmly, then tried again. This time she started howling like I was hurting her. People turned and stared as they walked by. "What are you looking at?" I said to one couple. I suddenly felt true remorse for every time I'd stared at a parent with a toddler throwing a tantrum. I made a vow to be a better aunt to Tulia's kids if I ever made it out of this parking garage. I pleaded with Cannoli one more time.

PART TWO Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. —SIGMUND FREUD CHAPTER ONE Alicia Berenson’s Diary JULY 16 I never thought I’d be longing for rain. We’re into our fourth week of the heat wave, and it feels like an endurance test. Each day seems hotter than the last. It doesn’t feel like England. More like a foreign country—Greece or somewhere. I’m writing this on Hampstead Heath. The whole park is strewn with red-faced, semi-naked bodies, like a beach or a battlefield, on blankets or benches or spread out on the grass. I’m sitting under a tree, in the shade. It’s six o’clock, and it has started to cool down. The sun is low and red in a golden sky—the park looks different in this light—darker shadows, brighter colors. The grass looks like it’s on fire, flickering flames under my feet. I took off my shoes on my way here and walked barefoot. It reminded me of when I was little and I’d play outside. It reminded me of another summer, hot like this one—the summer Mum died—playing outside with Paul, cycling on our bikes through golden fields dotted with wild daisies, exploring abandoned houses and haunted orchards. In my memory that summer lasts forever. I remember Mum and those colorful tops she’d wear, with the yellow stringy straps, so flimsy and delicate—just like her. She was so thin, like a little bird. She would put on the radio and pick me up and dance me around to pop songs on the radio. I remember how she smelled of shampoo and cigarettes and Nivea hand cream, always with an undertone of vodka. How old was she then?

It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...

My hour with my phone off starts shortly after I get home from work. This is one of the hardest times of the day because my children are ramped up for my attention, but I’m still trying to come down from the workday. My habit is to get changed, make one final email check to make sure things are in order at the office—and if not, to tell someone that I’ll get back to them later that night—and then to turn it off and put it in my dresser drawer. It’s a weird feeling, almost like hiding a valuable under a mattress. You walk away but your mind stays on it. You can visualize it sitting there in the dark. But whether the boys and I are riding bikes to the park, initiating a royal rumble on the living room floor, or setting the table together, my presence is fundamentally different that hour of the day. I am with them. Whatever we’re doing, it is together.

there is nothing generic about a human life. When I was little, to get to my bus stop, I had to cross a field that had so much snow my parents fitted me with ski pants and knee-high thermal boots that were toasty to forty degrees below zero. I am excellent in the stern of a canoe, but I never got the hang of riding a bike with no hands. I have seen the northern lights because my parents always woke up the whole house when the night sky was painted with color. I love the smell of clover and chamomile because my sister and I used to pick both on the way home from swimming lessons. I spent weeks of my childhood riding around on my bike saving drowning worms after a heavy rain. My hair is my favorite feature even though it’s too heavy for most ponytails, and I still can’t parallel park. There is no life in general. Each day has been a collection of trivial details—little intimacies and jokes and screw-ups and realizations.

Deep underground, microbes turn half a century's worth of city waste into methane. The gases and leachate are extracted through an extensive network of subterranean pipes and then used to power 22,000 nearby homes. While 150 million tons of garbage gradually decomposes unseen below the surface, above ground, the former dump reverts to meadows, woodland and saltwater marshes, providing a haven for wildlife and a massive park for the people of New York. This is Fresh Kills in the 2020s. In 2001, the infamous landfill received its last, and saddest, consignments - the charred debris of the World Trade Center. Since then, it has been transformed into a 2,315-acre public park. Three times bigger than Central Park, it is the largest new green public space created within New York City for over a century, a mixture of wildlife habitats, bike trails, sports fields, art exhibits and playgrounds. This is poisoned land: fifty years' worth of landfill has killed for ever one of the city's most productive wetland ecosystems. Restoration is impossible. Instead, a brand new ecosystem is emerging on top of the toxic garbage

The first day we rode our bikes to Chelsey and parked them. It was a terrible feeling. Most of those kids, at least all the older ones, had their own automobiles, many of them new convertibles, and they weren't black or dark blue like most cars, they were bright yellow, green, orange, and red. The guys sat in them outside of the school and the girls gathered around and went for rides. Everybody was nicely dressed, the guys and the girls, they had pullover sweaters, wrist watches and the latest in shoes. They seemed very adult and poised and superior. And there I was in my homemade shirt, my one ragged pair of pants, my rundown shoes, and I was covered with boils. The guys with the cars didn't worry about acne. They were very handsome, they were tall and clean with bright teeth and they didn't wash their hair with hand soap. They seemed to know something I didn't know. I was at the bottom again. Since all the guys had cars Baldy and I were ashamed of our bicycles. We left them home and walked to school and back, two-and-one-half miles each way. We carried brown bag lunches. But mot of the other students didn't even eat in the school cafeteria. They drove to malt shops with the girls, played the juke boxes and laughed. They were on their way to U.S.C.

You sound off,” he said. “Why are you whispering? I thought you and Ana were having dinner together.” I bit my lip. “It’s kind of a funny story, but you have to promise not to yell.” “Why would a funny story make me yell?” he asked warily. “Well,” I drawled. “I was on my way to meet up with Ana, and there was this truck parked in an alley that didn’t look right. So, I left my bike on the street and went to check it out.” “Jordan.” I didn’t need to see him to know he was pinching the bridge of his nose, something he’d been doing a lot in the last few months. “Don’t worry. They didn’t see me.” His tone sharpened. “Who didn’t see you?” “The Gulaks. They were too busy loading the girls into the back.” I paused as the truck slowed going around a curve. “I slipped on without them having a clue I was there.” He swore. “Do not tell me you climbed into a truck with a bunch of Gulak slavers.” I scoffed softly. “Of course not. Give me some credit. I’m on the roof of the truck.” He growled something, and I heard another male laughing. It sounded like Mario, one of the warriors we were working with on this job, along with his mate, Ana. We’d been in Panama for two weeks, at the request of the government, to locate and shut down a human trafficking ring. But this one was a lot more sophisticated than any other Gulak operation we’d encountered, and they’d managed to evade us completely. Until now. “This is not a funny story,” he said in an exasperated voice.

So to avoid the twin dangers of nostalgia and despairing bitterness, I'll just say that in Cartagena we'd spend a whole month of happiness, and sometimes even a month and a half, or even longer, going out in Uncle Rafa's motorboat, La Fiorella, to Bocachica to collect seashells and eat fried fish with plantain chips and cassava, and to the Rosary Islands, where I tried lobster, or to the beach at Bocagrande, or walking to the pool at the Caribe Hotel, until we were mildly burned on our shoulders, which after a few days started peeling and turned freckly forever, or playing football with my cousins, in the little park opposite Bocagrande Church, or tennis in the Cartagena Club or ping-pong in their house, or going for bike rides, or swimming under the little nameless waterfalls along the coast, or making the most of the rain and the drowsiness of siesta time to read the complete works of Agatha Christie or the fascinating novels of Ayn Rand (I remember confusing the antics of the architect protagonist of The Fountainhead with those of my uncle Rafael), or Pearl S. Buck's interminable sagas, in cool hammocks strung up in the shade on the terrace of the house, with a view of the sea, drinking Kola Roman, eating Chinese empanadas on Sundays, coconut rice with red snapper on Mondays, Syrian-Lebanese kibbeh on Wednesdays, sirloin steak on Fridays and, my favourite, egg arepas on Saturday mornings, piping hot and brought fresh from a nearby village, Luruaco, where they had the best recipe.

Let's get out of here. You and me, mi amor. !Vamos!" I breathe a sigh of relief as I straddle Julio and Brittany hops on behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist, holding on tight as I speed out of the parking lot. We fly through the streets; which eventually become a blur. I don't even stop when rain starts pouring down. "Can we stop now?" she yells through the deafening storm. I park under an old abandoned bridge by the lake. Heavy rain pounds the cement surrounding us, but we have our own secluded place. Brittany hops to the ground. "You're a stupid jerk," she says. "You can't deal drugs. It's dangerous and stupid, and you promised me. You'll risk going to jail. Jail, Alex. You may not care, but I do. I won't let you ruin your life." "What do you want to hear?" "Nothing. Everything. Say something so I don't stand here feeling like a complete idiot." "The truth is . . . Brittany, look at me." "I can't," she says as she stares at the pouring rain. "I'm so tired of thinking of every scary scenario." I pull her against me. "Don't think, muneca. Everything will work itself out." "But--" "No buts. Trust me." My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. "Come to me," I say, then lift her until she's straddling me over my bike. I can't stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we're together like this, hell, I can't think of anything else but her.

John’s hand is pressed against my back, leading me, and I think he’s forgotten all about the game. I’ve got him in my crosshairs now. “You’re not so bad,” I tell him. Song’s halfway over. I’d better hop to the beat. I’ve got you in five, four, three, two-- “So…you and Kavinsky, huh?” He’s distracted me completely, and I’ve forgotten all about the game for a moment. “Yeah…” Clearing his throat, he says, “I was pretty surprised that you guys were together.” “Why? Because I’m not his type?” I say it casually, like it’s nothing, a fact, but it stings like a little pebble thrown directly at my heart. “No, you are.” “Then why?” I’m pretty sure John’s going to say “because I didn’t think he was your type,” just like Josh did. He doesn’t answer right away. “That day you came to Model UN, I tried to follow you out to the parking lot, but you were already gone. Then I got your letter, and I wrote you back, and you wrote me back, and then you invited me to the tree-house thing. I guess I didn’t know what to think. You know what I mean?” He looks at me expectantly, and I feel like it’s important that I say yes. All the blood rushes to my face, and I hear a pounding in my ears, which I belatedly realize is the sound of my heart beating really fast. My body is still dancing, though. He keeps talking. “Maybe it was dumb to think that, because all that stuff was such a long time ago.” All what stuff? I want to know, but it wouldn’t be right to ask. “Do you know what I remember?” I ask suddenly. “What?” “The time Trevor’s shorts split open when you guys were playing basketball. And everybody was laughing so hard that Trevor started getting mad. But not you. You got on your bike and you rode all the way home and brought Trevor a pair of shorts. I was really impressed by that.” He has a faint half smile on his face. “Thanks.

Why, he asked, do all of our policing efforts have to be so reactive, so negative, and so after the fact? What if, instead of just focusing on catching criminals—and serving up ever harsher punishments—after they committed the crime, the police devoted significant resources and effort to eliminating criminal behavior before it happens? To quote Tony Blair, what if they could be tough on crime but also tough on the causes of crime?3 Out of these questions came the novel idea for Positive Tickets, a program whereby police, instead of focusing on catching young people perpetrating crimes, would focus on catching youth doing something good—something as simple as throwing litter away in a bin rather than on the ground, wearing a helmet while riding their bike, skateboarding in the designated area, or getting to school on time—and would give them a ticket for positive behavior. The ticket, of course, wouldn’t carry a fine like a parking ticket but instead would be redeemable for some kind of small reward, like free entry to the movies or to an event at a local youth center—wholesome activities that also had the bonus of keeping the young people off the streets and out of trouble. So how well did Richmond’s unconventional effort to reimagine policing work? Amazingly well, as it turned out. It took some time, but they invested in the approach as a long-term strategy, and after a decade the Positive Tickets system had reduced recidivism from 60 percent to 8 percent. You might not think of a police department as a place where you would expect to see Essentialism at work, but in fact Ward’s system of Positive Tickets is a lesson in the practice of effortless execution. The way of the Nonessentialist is to go big on everything: to try to do it all, have it all, fit it all in. The Nonessentialist operates under the false logic that the more he strives, the more he will achieve, but the reality is, the more we reach for the stars, the harder it is to get ourselves off the ground. The way of the Essentialist is different. Instead of trying to accomplish it all—and all at once—and flaring out, the Essentialist starts small and celebrates progress. Instead of going for the big, flashy wins that don’t really matter, the Essentialist pursues small and simple wins in areas that are essential.

So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head. . . but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz. . . not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-​night diner down around Rockaway Beach. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip. Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out. . . thirty-​five, forty-​five. . . then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these. . . and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything. . . then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-​five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board. Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly -- zaaapppp -- going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea. The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil-​slick. . . instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-​inch notices in the paper the next day: “An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway I.” Indeed. . . but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-​burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes. But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right. . . and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it. . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica. . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge. . . The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

How to scale and enter the risen path was largely unknown. It all might begin in darkness, but it cast a shadow that, when viewed from the ground, was too bleak. Demolition was once a question not of “whether, but when,” until one photographer spent a year on the trail documenting what was there. 4 The scenes were “hallucinatory”—wildflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, irises, and grasses wafted next to hardwood ailanthus trees that bolted up from the soil on railroad tracks, on which rust had accumulated over the decades. 5 Steel played willing host to an exuberant, spontaneous garden that showed fealty to its unusual roots. Tulips shared the soilbed with a single pine tree outfitted with lights for the winter holidays, planted outside of a building window that opened onto the iron-bottomed greenway with views of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty to the left and traffic, buildings, and Tenth Avenue to the right. 6 Wading through waist-high Queen Anne’s lace was like seeing “another world right in the middle of Manhattan.” 7 The scene was a kind of wildering, the German idea of ortsbewüstung, an ongoing sense of nature reclaiming its ground. 8 “You think of hidden things as small. That is how they stay hidden. But this hidden thing was huge. A huge space in New York City that had somehow escaped everybody’s notice,” said Joshua David, who cofounded a nonprofit organization with Robert Hammonds to save the railroad. 9 They called it the High Line. “It was beautiful refuse, which is kind of a scary thing because you find yourself looking forward and looking backwards at the same time,” architect Liz Diller told me in our conversation about the conversion of the tracks into a public space, done in a partnership with her architectural firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and James Corner, Principal of Field Operations, and Dutch planting designer Piet Oudolf. Other architectural plans proposed turning the High Line into a “Street in the Air” with biking, art galleries, and restaurants, but their team “saw that the ruinous state was really alive.” Joel Sternfeld, the “poet-keeper” of the walkway, put the High Line’s resonance best: “It’s more of a path than a park. And more of a Path than a path.” 10

We asked Shoup if his research allows him to optimize his own commute, through the Los Angeles traffic to his office at UCLA. Does arguably the world’s top expert on parking have some kind of secret weapon? He does: “I ride my bike.

Now I discover that I can ride my bike past the Lake Merritt park benches we used to sit on without feeling twinges of pain. I can return from Grocery Outlet with items she would’ve enjoyed and feel warmth in that recognition. I can watch an episode of Colbert taking happy satisfaction in knowing she would’ve laughed too.

made those rusty scratches on the chrome. She could match each insult to her bike to an injury on her body: scabs on her knees, scrapes to her elbows, bruises on her shins, and a tiny sliver of a scar under her chin. Amelia Bedelia had parked her bike at the bike rack. She was about to go into school when she saw some kids buzzing around Suzanne Scroggins. Suzanne was a new girl this year. She told all her friends to call her Suzi. Amelia Bedelia still called her Suzanne, even though Amelia Bedelia sat right behind her. Amelia Bedelia had never figured out why Suzanne was so crabby and bossy every day.

Hey, you,” a voice calls out. I turn to look, and find Bob Caster perched on a gleaming motorcycle with wide, shiny handlebars. I point to myself and ask, “Who? Me?” “Yes, you,” he says. He squints at me like he’s trying to look inside me. I cross my arms under my breasts to block his piercing gaze, and his eyes drop down to my boobs. He licks his lips ever so slowly, and then his eyes travel back up. Heat creeps up my cheeks, but I refuse to fidget on my feet. I stare straight at him. “You want to take a ride with me?” he asks. He revs the bike. I point a finger. “On that?” He grins that sideways grin again. “Well, I wasn’t offering my personal services.” He glances down at his button fly, and then he laughs. He runs a hand lovingly down the shiny chrome handlebar, his touch reverent and respectful. “Of course on this.” I point to the center of my chest and then at the bike. “You want to take me for a ride on that?” He stares at me. I finally let that feet fidget thing happen and want to kick myself. “Is it safe?” He shakes a cigarette out of a pack and takes his time lighting it. He inhales deeply and holds it for a moment. Then he blows it out and says, “I won’t let you get hurt.” I look at my car and then at him. He revs the engine again. “Where are we going?” “For a ride,” he says with a shrug. “When will we be back?” I step closer to him and his eyes light up a little. And I like it. “When we get done.” Be still my heart. He flicks his cigarette into the grass. “Are you coming or what?” “Okay,” I say. He looks surprised. “Yeah?” “Yes.” He takes the helmet off his head and holds it out to me. I pull my ponytail free and tug the helmet on. He reaches out to buckle the strap for me, his fingers gentle. “How old are you?” he asks, his voice strong but quiet. “Nineteen.” “Good.” He grins. He motions for me to climb on behind him and I do, my thighs spread around his hips. He lifts my feet and shows me where to put them. “Why is that good?” I ask close to his ear. He looks back over his shoulder. “Because I don’t want to go back to jail.” He doesn’t wait. He hits the gas and I shriek as we take off through the parking lot and onto the open road. He reaches back with one hand and puts my hand on his waist, and I automatically follow with the other. I hold on tightly to the man who just told me he doesn’t want to go back to jail, and I wonder what the heck I just got myself into.

He turned and walked to his bike and parked his ass on the cheap vinyl seat. He reached down and adjusted his fuckpecker again. Fuckin’ whore was nothing compared to his Fat Bitch. The big girl held a soft spot in his heart, all business in the back and soft chica curves hugging his balls and shit.

I pulled off the highway and found a motel. The room stunk of cigarettes and the shower was caked in mildew. I pulled the brown and maroon paisley comforter off, threw it on the floor, and doused my hands in sanitizer. I slept on top of towels I laid across the sheets. In the morning I grabbed a stale doughnut and weak coffee from the free continental breakfast in the lobby and headed out to my truck, where I discovered my bike had been stolen from the back. In my sleep-deprived state the night before, I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of my bike being stolen. I slumped into the driver’s seat and finished my disgusting doughnut. Still in the motel parking lot, I shaved with an electric shaver using the side mirror of the truck. After one half of my face was shaved, the batteries died. There are just certain times in life when every fucking thing we do seems so arbitrary. Why in the world did I shave my face to begin with? I drove to a drugstore and got more batteries and a lot of weird looks from shoppers. At checkout, the gum-popping, teenage female clerk smirked at me. I decided to let humor prevail. “Do you like this look?” I smiled and pointed to my face. “That’s dope.” “Thanks, dawg.” “Peace out,” she said, and I walked out. I didn’t turn around but I held up a peace sign and said, “Word.

You can choose to focus your advertising within a certain mile radius of your listing and target viewer interests, such as hiking, mountain biking, and skiing. You can also target any major nearby attractions, such as national parks or wineries.

Murphy biked circles around the courthouse parking lot like an evil newspaper boy from one of her favorite movies, Better Off Dead. She and Judge Miller Abbott didn't have a great history. Since she'd hit puberty, he'd seen her through two shoplifting convictions, countless underage alcohol issues, a few streaking episodes, and the time she'd mutilated the Bob's Big Boy "Big Boy.

Yeon Lee-Woodley is a speech language pathologist with an M.S. in Speech- Language Pathology from Nova Southeastern University. She also holds a bachelor's in the same area. Yeon Lee-Woodley likes to take her children to parks in her free time and going running, walking, and biking with them.

Does arguably the world’s top expert on parking have some kind of secret weapon? He does: “I ride my bike.

Q: What can ordinary people with busy lives and not a lot of political access do to address this stuff? You can try to address it in your own life. You can try to set up your life so you have to drive as little as possible. In so doing, you vote with your feet and your wallet. When more people bike, walk and use public transit, there is greater pressure on elected officials and government agencies to improve these modes of transportation. It thus increases the profitability of public transit and makes cities more desirable places to live. It also helps reduce your carbon footprint and reduces the amount of money going to automobile manufacturers, oil companies and highway agencies. In a globally connected capitalist world, cities and countries are competing for highly skilled labor—programmers, engineers, scientists, etc. To some degree, these people can live anywhere they want. So San Francisco or my current city in Minnesota aren’t just competing with other U.S. cities but are competing with cities in Europe for the best and brightest talent. Polls and statistics show that more and more skilled people want to live in cities that are walkable, bikeable and have good public transit. Also our population is aging and realizing that they don’t want to be trapped in automobile-oriented retirement communities in Florida or the southwest USA. They also want improved walkability and transit. Finally, there’s been an explosion of obesity in the USA with resulting increases in healthcare costs. Many factors contribute to this but increased amounts of driving and a lack of daily exercise are major factors. City, state and business leaders in the US are increasingly aware of all this. It is part of Gil Peñalosa’s “8-80” message (the former parks commissioner of Bogotá, Colombia) and many other leaders. (2015 interview with Microcosm Publishing)

I want to show you something,” he said, his voice dropping a little lower than usual and causing a shiver to run down my spine. “What?” I asked. “I said show, not tell. You have to come with me.” Curiosity nagged at me and the champagne urged me into recklessness. He’d promised to be nice after all, so why not? And even though I’d said I wanted to go back to the snooze fest party, I didn’t really. Given the choice, I’d just head back to the Academy. “You’d better not be about to whip your junk out again,” I warned. “Because I’ve seen way too much of you for my liking.” “Oh I think you liked it just fine,” he countered and the heat that flooded my cheeks at his tone stopped me from raising any further argument on the subject. He stepped a little closer to me and I fought against the impulse to lean in. “Come on then, don’t keep me in suspense,” I demanded though a little voice in the back of my head wondered if I meant something else by that statement. Darius’s mouth hooked up at one side and he inclined his head to yet another door on the other side of the room. I followed him as he led the way through the manor to a grand atrium before opening the door onto a dark stairwell which led down to what must have been an underground chamber. I eyed him warily but at this point I was pretty sure he’d have attacked me already if he was going to. Darius Acrux may have been a lot of things but it seemed he was a man of his word; he’d promised to be nice to me tonight and that was what he was delivering. I’d have to keep an eye on the time though, at midnight his Cinderella spell might come undone and he’d turn back into an asshole shaped pumpkin. Lights came on automaticaly as we descended and at the foot of the stairs, he opened another door and led me out into into an underground parking lot. I eyed the row of flashy sports cars in every make and model imaginable but he didn’t pause by them, instead leading me to the far end of the lot. A smile tugged at my lips as I spotted the lineup of super bikes. They were all top of the range, ultra-sleek, ultra-beautiful speed machines. My fingers tingled with the desire to touch them as the tempting allure of adrenaline called to me. “You said you could ride,” Darius said, offering me a genuine smile. “So I thought maybe you’d like to see my collection.” Damn, the way he said ‘my collection’ made me want to punch the entitlement right out of him but I didn’t miss the fire burning in his eyes as he looked at the bikes. That was a passion I knew well. He was a sucker for my kind of temptation too. “Have you done any modifications on them?” I asked, reaching out to brush my fingers along the saddle of the closest red beauty. “They’re top of the line,” he said dismissively like I didn’t know what I was looking at. “They don’t need any mods.” I snorted derisively. So he liked to ride the pretty speed machines but he didn’t know how to work on them. “Figures pretty boy wouldn’t know how to get his hands dirty,” I teased. “Maybe the kinds of bikes you’re used to riding need work to make them perform better but this kind of quality doesn’t require any extras. Besides, I could just pay someone to do it for me even if they did.” “Of course you could. That’s not really the point though.” And he was wrong about the kinds of bikes I was used to riding. I spotted four models amongst his collection which I’d ridden within the last six months. The others could easily be mine with a little bit of time and a tool or two. Not that I felt the need to tell him that. “You wanna take one for a ride?” he offered. “You can test your supposed skill against mine; there’s a circuit to the west of the estate.” My eyes widened at that offer. I’d missed riding since coming to the Academy and I hadn’t really thought I’d be able to get out again any time soon. ...

Peñalosa learned when he was a boy that the redistribution of privilege always meets with resistance. But he was not one for compromise. He ordered the removal of thousands of cluttering commercial billboards, and he tore down the fences residents had erected around neighborhood parks. He went to war not just with cars but with anyone who appropriated public space in Bogotá, even if they were poor—in one case forcing thousands of struggling street vendors to remove stalls that had choked off public plazas. The city’s amenities were for everyone. Peñalosa campaigned to turn the city’s grand country club into a public park. Even the dead were targeted: while Mockus had the words “Life Is Sacred” painted on the walls of a cemetery in the central city, Peñalosa attempted to remove the graves so that the living could have more park space. (Both the country club and cemetery initiatives failed.) This aggressive plan created plenty of enemies for him at first. Private bus operators and drivers who were pushed from TransMilenio routes were furious. So were the vendors and hawkers who were swept from popular plazas. But none were as vociferous as the business lobby, who were outraged by the bollards that went up along city sidewalks, effectively killing their free parking. They could not imagine customers arriving by foot, bike, or bus. “He was trying to Satanize cars,” Guillermo Botero, the president of FENALCO, Colombia’s national federation of retailers, told me. “The car is a means of subsistence. It is an indispensable means for people to develop their own lives. If we keep squeezing roads, the city will eventually collapse.” FENALCO

As I parked my bike alongside one of the temples, set by a tranquil lake where young girls were washing laundry, I was assailed by a dozen little boys who insisted on escorting me into the building.

parked the bike in a side road—and fainted. The second accident occurred at night in heavy

We can be intentional in our decisions about vacations and leisure time. Before we make our decisions, we can explore questions like, How far from home will we travel? Shall we go by bike, car, train, or airplane? Do we have closer alternatives nearby? What kind of tourism and recreation do we want to support with our choices? Travel has always been a big source of pleasure for Jim and me and we have struggled to find the right balance between saving and savoring. Some of our happiest times have been traveling to festivals and parks. We still travel but we are experimenting with the staycation. One day a month, we go off the grid. We wake up and make one decision at a time about what we feel like doing. We don’t take phone calls or look at our computers. We don’t pay bills or do housework. We just enjoy whatever we feel like doing in our area.

in a park under the sunny summer sky. This was a memory he remembered; it was from last summer after a bike ride through the city park. Lois bought Roger a digital

said. A shiver of excitement wiggled through her. This was almost like sleuthing! They parked their bikes a few houses down from Annie’s. Then Nancy grabbed the love note and the granola bar from her bike basket. Nancy wished they had a fancy box of candy, the kind where each piece sat in a little pleated paper cup. But Bree kept insisting, “It’s the thought that counts.” Lickety-split they dashed down to Annie’s house. As they reached the porch, a dog inside started yapping like mad. They left the note and granola bar right by the front door. Then they made a quick getaway.

Hannah tells me that you helped protect her from the Hispanics during the riot.” “The Hispanics? Oh, the protest, right.” “Call it what you like, son. This place was crawling with spics, and I am grateful that you took care of my only child.” “Well,” I shrugged. “I guess that’s what boyfriends do.” Spics?? “Only good boyfriends,” Hannah said, still tightly holding my left hand. I could never predict when she’d pour on the affection and when she’d act distant. Were all girlfriends this complicated? “I helped pass that law, you understand,” Mr. Walker said. “I’m an advisor to the senator, and it’s about time someone notable, someone of prestige, took a stand on the influx of hispanics into our once great city. The Hispanics were rioting because of that law, because they’re afraid of justice.” “Oh yeah?” I said. I knew nothing about politics or laws. But I had a feeling I disagreed with him. “But I’ll discontinue this tangent before I begin to preach,” he smiled. “Hannah is giving me the warning look.” “Thank you, Daddy,” Hannah said. “The spics destroyed your car,” he said. “Hannah informed me, and then I read the report in the newspaper.” “That was a good car,” I nodded. “I will miss it.” “Well, let me see what I can do to help,” he said. “I’m a financial consultant to many of our nation’s finest automobile manufacturers, including Mission Motorcycles. You have heard of them?” “I don’t know much about any cars. Or motorcycles,” I admitted. “Well, it just so happens, they owed me a favor and agreed to give me a short-term loan on one of their new electric bikes,” he said. And it was then that I realized we were standing beside a gleaming black, silver, and orange motorcycle. I hadn’t noticed before because our school parking lot always looks like a luxury car showcase, and I’d grown numb to the opulence. A sleek black helmet hung from each handle. Mr. Walker placed his palm on the seat and said, “This bike is yours. Until you get a new car.” “Wow,” I breathed. A motorcycle!! “Isn’t it sexy?” Hannah smiled. “It looks like it’s from the future.” “It does,” I agreed. “I’m almost afraid to touch it, like it’ll fly off. But sir, there’s no way…” “Please don’t be so ungrateful as to refuse, son. That’s low class, and that’s not the Walkers. You are in elite company. Dating my daughter has advantages, as I’m sure she’s told you. You just keep performing on the football field.” “Oh…right,” I said. “I’m gratified I can help,” Mr. Walker said and shook my hand again. “I’m expecting big things from you. Don’t let me down. It’s electric, so you’ll need to charge it at night. Fill out the paperwork in the storage compartment and return them signed to Hannah tomorrow. If you wreck it, I’ll have you drowned off Long Beach. I wish I could stay, but I’m late for a meeting with the Board of Supervisors. Hannah, tell your mother I’ll be out late,” he said and got into the back seat of a black sedan that whisked him away.

Arriving at my apartment, Cooper not only parked, but turned off his bike. “Invite me in,” he said softly while glancing around as if the place was beneath him. “I’m not having sex with you,” I said, getting off the Harley. “Tonight? Oh, yeah, I know,” he said, giving nearby voices a dark glare. “If you meant ever, we’re not on the same page.

I park my bike in her driveway and ring her doorbell. I clear my throat so I don’t choke on my words. Mierda, what am I gonna say to her? And why am I feeling all insecure, like I need to impress her because she’ll judge me? Nobody answers. I ring again. Where’s a servant or butler to answer the door when you need one? Just as I’m about to give up and slap myself with a big dose of what-the-fuck-do-I-think-I’m-doing, the door opens. Standing before me is an older version of Brittany. Obviously her mom. When she takes one look at me, her disappointing sneer is obvious. “Can I help you?” she asks with an attitude. I sense either she expects me to be part of the gardening crew or someone going door-to-door harassing people. “We have a ‘no soliciting policy’ in this neighborhood.” “I’m, uh, not here to solicit anythin’. My name’s Alex. I just wanted to know if Brittany was, uh, at home?” Oh, great. Now I’m mumbling uh’s every two seconds.

He tosses my book bag over his shoulder and pulls me toward the door. This time, he has two helmets, and he helps me fasten mine. I love that he tries to take such care of me. My apartment or yours? I ask. He brushes the hair back that’s hanging around my face, pushing it under the helmet. I don’t want you going back to your apartment while Trip’s there. He looks closely watching my face. That okay with you? Fine, I say. I kind of like it when you go all Neanderthal. I grin, and he straddles the bike. I climb on behind him and wrap my hands around his waist. He hisses playfully when I lift his shirt and lay my hands against the tender skin of his belly. We zoom through the streets and into the parking deck beneath his building. He bends at the waist and tosses me over his shoulder. “You haven’t seen Neanderthal yet,” he warns as he carries me up the steps.

The roar of the motorcycle stopped, and the rider whipped off his sunglasses. “Are you trying to get your door taken off?” My heart had stopped the minute I’d looked into his piercing gray eyes, but anger quickly took over everything. “Do you always swing into parking spaces when someone is opening their door?” I rubbed my leg once more and stumbled awkwardly out of my car. I realized he hadn’t answered me, and after shutting my door and locking the car, I turned to face him, a frown tugging at my lips when I saw him smirking. “I’m fine, if you’re wondering.” He sat up straight on his Harley and took a deep breath in. “I’m sorry I made you hurt yourself. I’m Kash, by the way.” “Cash . . . like money? Or Johnny?” “Um, I guess we can go with Johnny, but with a K.” “Kash with a K. Got it. That’s a, uh . . . very interesting name. Fits the image, I guess.” His head jerked back. “I’m sorry, what?” I took a few steps toward the apartments before turning to look at him, my hand waving over his frame, which was now hunched back over his bike. I wondered who he was here to see. “You know, the whole ‘bad boy’ thing you’ve got going on there. Tattoos, lip ring, Harley. Makes sense you’d have a nickname and try to make it, I don’t know, awesome or something by having it start with a K. Have a nice day; try not to almost take any more car doors off, Kash with a K.” Kash

We can’t afford to build places where people just park their bodies at night,” Burden said. “We can’t afford to spend a single transportation dollar that doesn’t increase land value rather than decrease it.” We should go back to building towns the way our great-grandparents did, he suggested. Most people today want to live in a community where they don’t have to drive long distances. They want to live near enough to the stores and jobs so they can walk, take a bus, or ride a bike wherever they need to go. If Muscatine wanted to stay competitive, retain existing businesses, attract new ones, and have money in the treasury for parks and other amenities, then the best thing residents could do would be to focus on making their town walkable and livable, Burden said. That meant adding sidewalks, improving crosswalks, replacing intersections with roundabouts in some places, and converting one-way streets to run in both directions. “One-way streets help move people faster,” Burden said. “But is that your goal? To empty out downtown?” You should be doing just the opposite, he argued. You want people to linger downtown and enjoy themselves. “Then, before you know it, your children won’t be moving off to other cities. Everything they want will be right here in your own community.

He comes to a stop, plants one foot on the ground firmly, and uses his other foot to kick start his bike. He revs the throttle back a few times and looks over at me with complete excitement in his eyes as he kicks the start back into place. He nods his head back over his shoulder. “Hop on behind me and wrap your arms around my waist. You’re going to want to scoot close up against me and hold on tight, but not so tight that I can’t move freely.” I step up beside him and he reaches out his hand for me to take hold as I throw my leg up and over the seat. I scoot forward enough that my center is pressed tightly up against his rear end, and wrap my arms around his waist. Even if we didn’t move any further than this position right here, I would be a very happy girl. Adam lets out a laugh. “Even though I’m really enjoying you being this close, you might need to scoot yourself back just a bit so you can actually lean and move with me. Having you’re coochie pressed against my body has crossed my mind, but it might have to wait until later. Right now, you’re just going to manage pushing me forward.” My cheeks feel like they are on fire and my mouth drops open. I release my arms from around Adam’s waist and scoot back on the seat. “Did you just call my woman parts a coochie, and should I even ask about the wait until later comment?” I’m not going to tell him right now, but with that one simple sentence Adam has gotten me very worked up, in a very good way. Adam looks back over his shoulder and I can tell he’s smiling by the look in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t sure what type of girl you were as far as vagina terminology goes? Coochie seemed like a safe word, but I have many options you can choose from that you might prefer. There is always the common pussy and cunt terms, then there are the more original ones like; cockpit, mud flaps, love tunnel, bone cave, meat massager, theme park, dick mitten….” I start shaking my head back and forth. “Ok, Ok, I got it. Coochie will do for now, I guess, and I will give it some more thought later as to a term I more prefer. I don’t think we need to keep talking about this right now if you plan on actually showing me why I should be your biggest fan and you my favorite rider out at the races. This is just a big distraction instead.” Adam reaches back and places his hand on my knee. “Maybe it’s a major part of making you my biggest fan as well as showing you that I’m meant to be your favorite rider. It can wait, though. Hold on and we can head on out toward the field.” I grab back hold of Adam and keep my coochie slid back further on the seat this time. “That might be a very strong incentive, Adam, for us both. I agree. Oh and you forgot to mention; purple people penis eater, honey pot, poody tat, stop-n-pop….” Adam releases my leg and grabs back hold of the handle. “Ok, you’re right; we will continue this conversation later on.

It was too embarrassing to admit that a young woman was the most popular politician in the Islamic Republic. In the official tally she came in second, with slightly fewer votes than the older cleric—an injustice that must have riled Hashemi, given the nature of her platform. Hashemi had made her debut in politics by challenging conservative clerics who opposed women’s right to exercise in public. Using her standing as Rafsanjani’s daughter, she argued that there was nothing wrong with fully covered women exercising. An increasing number of old and young women already crowded parks to jog or play volleyball or badminton. But the Basij often harassed and intimidated them to discourage women from exercising. As part of her campaign to defend and expand women’s right to exercise, Hashemi built a bike path for women, increased women’s access to sports facilities such as golf courses and tennis courts, and set up the first women’s soccer and, eventually, rugby teams since the revolution. She also founded the Islamic Women’s Sport Foundation, through which she held games in Tehran involving Iranian athletes and Muslim women invited from other countries.

How do you know your boss is a lesbian? It’s when she always park her bike in a dike

listening to the opening tunes of Bel Biv DeVoe’s Do Me and side-stepping the paperboy as he biked past her, hurling a rolled paper onto her neighbor’s porch.  By the time it had switched over to Aerosmith’s Ragdoll, Judy was on her way to the park. 

We don’t want to get off the main road,” I said. “There’s way too many tack weeds out there.” “Those stickers are worse than real tacks,” said Henny. “Maybe we should leave our bikes and walk. I don’t want to take any chances.” That’s the trouble with having such a nice bike, with so many terrific gadgets. Henny doesn’t like to ride unless conditions are ideal, like maybe around a newly paved parking lot. “Henny,” I said. “It’s definitely time for us to move on. Your inner tubes will be safe if you just stay on the highway. Besides, it will be cooler with a breeze blowing in your face.” Henny got back on his bike and slowly pedaled it up to a speed past wobbly but short of smooth and comfortable. “This is not a breeze,” he called up to me. “This is hot air being forced up my nostrils. This is hot air drying out my already parched throat. Water. I need water.

We asked Shoup if his research allows him to optimize his own commute, through the Los Angeles traffic to his office at UCLA. Does arguably the world’s top expert on parking have some kind of secret weapon? He does: “I ride my bike.” When

Norm hadn’t had to swerve and skid to avoid hitting it he might not have noticed that sitting in the driver’s seat was none other than Mikey’s mum. And that sitting next to Mikey’s mum in the passenger seat was none other than some completely random bloke who Norm had never clapped eyes on before in his life. Of course it was all ifs and buts. Because Norm wasn’t completely focused on riding his bike. He did have to swerve and skid to avoid hitting the car. And he did notice that Mikey’s mum was sitting in the driver’s seat. Except luckily, the car was actually parked at the side of the road at the time. So it could have been a lot worse, thought Norm, as he regained his composure and carried on down the road towards Mikey’s house as if nothing had happened.

The next thing I know I'm outside and Lynne is teaching me how to give life. Sarah was helping also, but she was getting herself too dirty so her mother told her to go play with David. David who is riding his bike around the parking lot proclaiming that flowers are for girls. The indirect insult kind of makes me feel feminine. I never liked flowers anyway.

When he parked out front, I stayed on the back of his bike and hugged him closer to me. “I need you too, Kai.

But you were unhappy. The different between you then and you now... I wish you'd told someone." Unhappy doesn't cover it. I dreaded school so much, I couldn't sleep at night and couldn't get up in the morning; I'd park my bike near the bike garage exit just so I could be the first to leave after classes. "It got harder after a while," is all I say.

Just off the roaring, high-velocity motorways and the congested main roads, there is still a leisurely, low-decibel, cyclists' England. Here, quite apart from national parks, conservation areas and other tourists' high spots is an unspectacular, intimate countryside: and it is the cyclist, himself unspectacular, not the motorist, who is best equipped to enjoy its pleasures of pub, church, market-place and cottage in all their variety of regional character.

I pulled my Harley into my driveway only to find a similar bike already there. The sleek crotch rocket was parked

When I was ten we moved seven miles outside the city, out past the Christmas-tree farms and the hiking trails of Spencer Butte Park to a house in the woods. It sat on nearly five acres of land, where flocks of wild turkeys roamed picking for insects in the grass and my dad could drive his riding mower in the nude if he wanted to, shielded by thousands of ponderosa pines, no neighbors for miles. Out back, there was a clearing where my mother grew rhododendrons and kept the lawn kempt. Beyond it the land gave way to sloping hills of stiff grass and red clay. There was a man-made pond filled with muddy water and soft silt, and salamanders and frogs to chase after, catch, and release. Blackberry bramble grew wild and in the early summer, during the burning season, my father would take to it with a large pair of gardening shears and clear new pathways between the trees to form a circuit he could round on his dirt bike. Once a month he’d ignite the burn piles he’d gathered, letting me squeeze the lighter fluid onto their bases, and we’d admire his handiwork as the six-foot bonfires went up in flames.

Thirty minutes later, we reached the rocky Anjuna beach and parked the bike. We walked for five minutes and reached a shack called Curlies. We sat on adjacent easy chairs, both of us facing the Arabian Sea. I removed my sneakers to rest my feet on the sandy floor of Curlies. ‘Beer?’ Brijesh said. ‘Sure,’ I said. He asked a waiter to bring us two Kingfishers. Two tables away, I saw another Indian couple. The girl wore red and white bangles on both hands, a wedding chudaa; they had just gotten married. Must be their honeymoon. They held hands, but it seemed a little awkward. Arranged marriage, maybe. I looked at Brijesh. We would be a married couple too by this weekend. Brijesh smiled as he handed me a half-pint Kingfisher bottle. ‘What did you tell your folks?’ Brijesh said. ‘I told Aditi didi that I am going for a walk with you.’ ‘They don’t know you are at Anjuna?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘mom will freak out.’ I sipped my beer. We watched the sun go down. A young singer at Curlies sang and played the guitar. The Goan sunset became even more poignant with the music. The singer sang Justin Bieber’s song, Sorry. Is it too late now to say sorry? Yeah, I know that I let you down

New Yorkers liked Sadik-Khan’s bike lanes and the plazas; they liked the 800 more acres of parks—though Parks had cut its staff 40% between 2008 and 2012 even as the Central Park Conservancy boasted a $183 million endowment—and three-quarters of a million more trees. A certain texture was gone though, easy to see on the Upper East Side where almost a third of the apartments between 49th and 70th between Fifth and Park were vacant ten months a year, owned by shell companies and LLCs. The neighborhood was a kind of jewelry store now, apartments tended and traded for their speculative value. Yet the idea of New York City was bigger and broader than it had ever been. By 2010, 37% of New York’s residents were immigrants, two-thirds living in Brooklyn and Queens, and as much as globalization had helped gut the city’s manufacturing base, they’d been at least as much responsible for hatching its evolutions as anything done at One Police Plaza or City Hall. While Wall Street had been mining wealth for itself, immigrants from around the world had rebuilt the day-to-day economy; from 1994 to 2004, businesses in neighborhoods like Flushing and Sunset Park grew by as much as 55%. Half of the city’s accountants

The glare of the green landscape and the air, the air that was everywhere, in us and making way for us, and we rode and were aware only of each other and ourselves for those couple of miles, and for those couple of miles I was myself, back in the neighborhood of Chacarita, where I moved with my mom after we realized my dad was never going to move out first, that we would have to leave him, and I saw on either side of me the big ugly high-rises and squat goldenrod houses and fuchsia and blue and inscrutable notes scrawled on the walls, graffiti intermingling with the shimmering, shadowing little leaves of the tipas, and as I rode I slowed at the oleander at Facultad de Medicina, those delicate pink flowers that rose over the fence in utter opulence and the lush stiff leaves that reached out through the bars that were freshly painted bright green. Then there it was: the Great Mamamushi. I slowed, and Freddie slowed. We parked our bikes. I was out of breath and all the air on Earth was in my blood, and we kissed again, and I turned around, and he put his arms around my waist, and I leaned into him, and we beheld it: a tree that was almost too much to be true, that truly was incredible, with its trunk that was almost eight meters around, a staggering circumference, glittered over by dragonflies, heavy, petite, iridescent incarnations of Irena's genius, when suddenly a flock of impossible parrots exploded out of the alders, and we looked up to see them shattering the sky. "All the oaks on this trail have their own names," I explained to Freddie. "This one is my favorite. Can you believe it's still growing?" He put his face against mine. He didn't say anything. For a while we just stood like that, together, watching the Great Mamamushi grow.

The city pounced on him when Jake opened the front door of the building. Even at this early hour, people were on the move, a fraction of them in the city’s decrepit subway trains, the rest above ground, pushing forward with determination below long rows of trees recently planted along what used to be parking lanes. It hit him every time he opened the door—how the street had shrunk, how the sidewalks and bike lanes had expanded, and how these rearranged proportions had changed the atmosphere into something radically new, an entirely different city.

Freiburg eco city, Germany Renowned for sustainable urban development since the 1970s. In the Vauben district, cars must be parked in garages on the outskirts. One-third of city journeys are made by bike.

Me Time Zone It’s okay to be a “me-time mom.” ~Author Unknown The day has ended yet only just begun for I have two lives — one that hides behind the sun You may not see my secret life — the one lurking in the dark, the one that eagerly awaits its time to spark Daytime me puts the other me aside Daytime me doesn’t get to hide Daytime me washes all the clothes Daytime me kisses the injured toes I am a teacher, a maid and a cook I hand out the cuddles and the disconcerting looks I referee the arguments, the teasing and the fights I fasten the helmets to go ride the bikes Nighttime me relaxes in the chair Nighttime me reads books without a care Nighttime me watches comedy shows Nighttime me eats the treats that I chose I sometimes wonder whether I used to be bored when I had just one life and hardly any chores I want to do all the things that I did before but how do I fit them in now there’s so much more? I read books, played piano and swam I cycled and socialised and ran I wrote poetry, played video games and went to bars I knew popular culture and all the famous stars Now my me time has become so small sometimes I feel it’s hardly there at all When the children will not settle but the sun has gone away I throw my arms in the air, for daytime me has to stay. I count to ten and breathe in deep Why oh why won’t they go to sleep? Me time is a ship that has sailed past How could I be so foolish to think that it would last I tuck their hair behind their ears and then I begin to feel the tears Am I crying for my me time? That seems a little mad Surely it’s something else that’s making me sad Crying for my me time does seem a little daft As I leave the children’s room I begin to laugh. I’m trying to put me time into a time slot I precariously balance it on the top. But I realise my me time comes in different forms to be enjoyed even while daytime storms I read a book whilst I make the tea I play ukulele whilst the children dance with me I swim in the sea with the children under my wings I run around the park between pushing them on swings And there are famous stars that I know, even if they come from the children’s favourite show Yes the ultimate me time is when I’m on my own but me time can also be enjoyed when you’re not alone My me time is a state of mind When I’m in the me time zone who knows what I’ll find? — Anneliese Rose Beeson —

I think of the self-proclaimed agrarian farmer and scholar Victor Davis Hanson who in his book Fields Without Dreams, wrote sneeringly but also with grief: 'They [city people] no longer care where or how they get their food, as long as it is firm, fresh, and cheap. They have no interest in preventing the urbanization of their farmland as long as parks, Little League fields and an occasional bike lane are left amid the concrete, stucco, and asphalt. They have no need of someone who they are not, who reminds them of their past and not their future. Their romanticism for the farmer is just that, an artificial and quite transient appreciation of his rough-cut visage against the horizon the stuff of a wine commercial, cigarette ad, or impromptu rock concert.' People in the cities don't see farmers clearly. The farmers are overlooked, and instead of being seen as recognizably real, the farmer is romanticized.

There was so much to think about and so much to do with all this activity and responsibility that he hardly had time to really consider how he missed London, the hum of it, the Brixton roar and the beloved river, the West Indian take aways, the glittering of the tower blocks at night, the mobile phone shacks, the Africans in Peckham, the common proximity of plantain, the stern beauty of church women on Sunday mornings, the West End, the art in the air, the music in the air, the sense of possibility. He missed the tube, the telephone boxes. He even missed, deep down, the wicked parking inspectors and the heartless bus drivers who flew past queues of freezing pedestrians out of spite. He missed riding from Loughborough to Surrey Quays on his bike with the plane trees whizzing by, the sight of some long-weaved woman walking along in tight jeans and a studded belt and look-at-me boots and maybe a little boy holding her hand. The skylines, the alleyways, and yes, the sirens and helicopters and the hit of life, all these things he knew so well. And the fact, most of all, that he belonged there in a way that he would never, could never, belong in Dorking. He was outside, displaced. He was off the A-Z. He felt, in a very fundamental way, that he was living outside of his life, outside of himself. And the problem was, if indeed it was a problem – how could you call something like this a problem when there were bills to pay and children to feed and a house to maintain? – the problem was that he did not know what to do about it, how to get rid of this feeling, how to get to a place where he felt that he was in the right place. And this not being such a serious problem, not really a problem at all, he had suppressed it and accepted things as they were.

During a visit to the county landfill, I parked my truck in front of a junk heap and stared. As I meditated on the garbage piled as high as a demolished apartment building, it struck me that everything in this gigantic entangled mass was once new. State-of-the-art. An object of want. There were BBQ grills, bikes, toys, lawn furniture, stoves, picture frames, wine racks; it was a graveyard of past desires, a swollen scrap heap of residually accumulated consumption. Then I thought: Someone once opened their wallet, swiped a credit card, and bought this stuff. And now, here it lies as worthless junk, while its debt probably remains.

On Saturday morning, he'd chosen his favorite place in Taipei to show me, Chung-shan Park. We wandered on a beautiful walking path around a lake with spraying fountains, surrounded by trees, and under the shadow of Taipei's iconic skyscraper, which was called Taipei 101. It was a great place for people-watching, with young couples on romantic walks, parents pushing babies in strollers, older people practicing tai chi, kids riding bikes, and nature lovers snapping photos of flowers. Best of all were the baobing- delicious shaved ices with a super-thin texture and condensed milk that added an extra sweet flavor. I topped my baobing with mango chunks, while Uncle Masa chose sweet potato chunks on his, an addition I never imagined could be delicious until I sampled his for myself.

As I sat on the back of his bike, Anh Bao pointed out local sex workers he recognized as they walked out of a bar with their arms wrapped around Viet Kieu men. He had gotten to know these women when he parked his bike outside the bar around closing time to offer cheap rides home to the women who had been unable to secure a client for the evening. Over the course of nearly three hours spent cycling the city, I took everything in—making mental notes of things I would later enter into my research. Anh Bao was a storyteller; and as we stopped outside each place, I propped on his bike laughing as he made up dramatic scenarios about the kinds of love affairs that occurred in each segment of the sex industry.

TRAIL DESCRIPTION Segment 4 begins along FS Rd 560, Rolling Creek Trailhead, mile 0.0 (8,279 feet), where there’s a small parking area and sign. Go west on the jeep road to another small parking area at mile 0.3 (8,354), where there is an information display and trail register. The Colorado Trail is on the right side of the parking area and heads in a northwesterly direction. At mile 1.0 (8,527), take a left when the trail joins an old logging road. After passing a fence, where there is a possible dry campsite, continue uphill to mile 1.9 (9,016), where the trail enters the Lost Creek Wilderness Area. As with all wilderness areas, bikes and motorized vehicles are not permitted. Expect none of the triangular CT confidence markers you’re used to seeing, as reassurance markers are not allowed in Wilderness.

then a small stream just above the bottom of the canyon. There are good campsites in this area. Cross the bridge over the Middle Fork of the Swan River and go right for 50 feet on Middle Fork Road at mile 17.1 (10,203). The Colorado Trail diverges left into the woods onto a single-track trail. The trail crosses a small stream and curves right in the next 2 miles. Reach the North Fork of the Swan River and marshy bottom at about mile 19.4, crossing on a raised walkway and bridge, beyond which there is good camping. The trail turns right (east) and then curves left as it follows the perimeter of the camping area. Cross a road at mile 19.7 (9,981). Go right at an intersection at mile 20.1 (10,067). From here, the trail begins to climb out of the drainage. Keystone Ski Resort eventually comes into view along the high point of the ridge to the northeast. Where the trail twice intersects the West Ridge Loop Trail (from Keystone Gulch), first at mile 22.6 (11,114) and then at mile 23.8 (11,022), stay left. After a long descent on a series of switchbacks, the trail intersects Red Trail at mile 26.1 (10,035) and goes to the left again. After dropping into a small valley and passing a power line, take a right at the fork at mile 27.5 (9,973). Cross Horseshoe Gulch at mile 28.8 (9,458) and follow the trail as it heads north with camping 0.2 mile ahead. Intersect and go left at Blair Witch Trail at mile 29.4 (9,458). Intersect and go left at Hippo Trail at mile 29.7 (9,700). Descending with Breckenridge coming in view, at a switchback intersect Campion Trail at mile 31.8 (9,240), and go left. Reach neighborhood and pond at mile 31.9 (9,200). Cross Swan River on a bridge, then cross Revette Drive where one could park for a few hours. At mile 32.5 (9,203), cross CO Hwy 9 adjacent to where the free Summit Stage bus stops. Go right (north) on bike path, cross Blue River on a bridge, and reach Gold Hill Trailhead at mile 32.7 (9,197). Follow the bike path for 0.2 mile until reaching the Gold Hill Trailhead on the left and the end of Segment 6 at mile 32.9 (9,197).

Samantha watched Tracy biking through the park with her new friends. She was happy for Tracy who had just recently come out of her shell and started hanging out with some girls from school. But Samantha missed Tracy. They’d been best friends for as along as Samantha could remember. And now, Tracy barely had time for Sam. “You did a great job with her,” said a brown-haired girl on the swing next to Sam. Sam jumped. The swing had been empty a minute ago. Where had the girl come from?

It took a certain skill to make a living off the city’s poorest trailer park, a certain kind of initiative. Tobin’s strategy was simple. He would walk right up to a drug addict or a metal scrapper or a disabled grandmother and say, “I want my money.” He would pound on the door until a tenant answered. It was almost impossible to hide the fact that you were home. It was hard to hide much of anything. Office Susie knew when your check arrived; she put it in your mailbox. And Lenny could plainly see if you had enough money to buy cigarettes or beer or a new bike for your kid but not enough to pay the rent. When a tenant opened the door, Tobin would thrust out his hand and say, “You got something for me?” Sometimes he knocked for several minutes. Sometimes he walked around the trailer, slapping the aluminum siding. Sometimes he asked Lenny or another tenant to rap on the back door while he assailed the front. He called tenants at work, even talking to their supervisors. When caseworkers or ministers would call and say “Please” or “Wait just a minute,” Tobin would reply, “Pay me the rent.

adventure. Or maybe it’s just because I’m dumb. “No. I don’t know anything about Linus that might help you.” Colton folded his hands and exhaled slowly. “That’s a shame, because you seemed like a kid with common sense.” He stood from the desk and cracked his knuckles. I didn’t know what he was planning on doing, and luckily I didn’t have to find out. The speaker by the door crackled, and a girl’s voice spoke loud and clear. “Colton, to the front office please. Your bike is parked in a tow away zone. Colton, to the front office immediately.” “Blazes!” Colton shouted as he hopped off his seat. “My bike is in trouble?” As Colton started walking to the front door of the art room, I managed to sneak a peek at the page he had written notes on. The manila folder was open on the desk next to me. The paper on top was filled with chicken scratched words and doodles that looked like blueprints. Paper clipped to that sheet was my school picture. What the heck was my picture doing in his folder? Stopping at the door, Colton flipped around and headed back to the desk. Slapping the folder shut, he slid it along until it fell into his hand. “Don’t want to leave this thing sitting out, do we?” I didn’t answer, watching as he left the room. Before he disappeared out of view, I saw him say something to the