The best thing about crowds is that they are entirely and unfailingly predictable - in other words, just as easily avoided. So while everyone was gearing up the whole past week to "go out at the weekend,"¹ we simply took one weekday morning the bikes out of the garage and... went. Out of the town and away from paved roads, we followed trails through the woods and old tow paths along the canals², alone but for a few seagulls flying low across the still waters, some squirels darting occasionally across the branches and otherwise, undoubtedly there but unseen and out of way all the same, a whole crowd of tiny life busying itself in the undergrowth with the very aim to hide and keep away from view - to stay *safe*, you know?

Closer to their true element again, as if released from the whole boring back and forth of short town roads, our mountain bikes took effortlessly to the unpaved but rather flat tracks³ and we covered about 16 km (some 10 miles) before we even realised it, surprised to discover that it took us so little time to get so far, even with the child pedaling on his own. As we stopped in the shade to take a sip of water and a glance at the watch, we looked at the map, double checked it all and in the end simply shrugged and decided to keep going since it was even too early for lunch, no matter that we were already further along than we had planned. So on we went and past locks awaiting patiently for the boats that were however waiting in turn for someone - or something - to finally start moving again the still, quiet waters. Nobody and nothing moved though and all was still, for the canals are never rivers, nor even ponds, just basically very long and comparatively narrow puddles, no matter how wide or even deep they might be.

Through the woods where the sun hadn't had a chance to dry much of the previous rains, the paths were going at times slightly up and down some mounds or across old and twisted roots but that hardly posed any problem at all. I was happy to go last, following along as it were, free to let my mind wander with barely 1% of my attention required otherwise to keep on the right path and neither fall behind nor bump into the child going right in front of me. After a while though, as we hit some muddy areas, the child's overactive imagination set to work, describing the slippery qualities of watery soil and complaining so loudly about it all that I soon found myself in front, picking quickly the least muddy path and otherwise totally soothing the child by adding to his previously expressed fears a graphic description of sinking slowly but surely in the moving mud, gasping for air and dieing unheard, nevertheless. He certainly stopped complaining and became very quiet instead, focused fully on following me very carefully indeed, coming out on the other side quite entirely not muddy at all and even happy to go again in front of me, at least while the going was easy enough.

We stopped for lunch too, not as much according to either previous plan or to the time of my watch but certainly according to some growing hunger manifesting in the youngest as a decidedly less sunny disposition. So we sat down and we ordered adult-sized steaks for everyone, as the best remedy that there is to all the incipient grumpiness of otherwise happy people. The waiter was shocked at such utter disregard for their rules-to-feed-your-child, but he recovered fast enough, as they generally do around here and satisfied himself with just a double check - yes, we really mean one steak for the child as well, and no, not any of those "nuggets" from the children's menu, thank you. And then, just as he was soothing his nerves with the familiarity of the click-click-click through their usual pads, the child delivered another blow by requesting with elaborate but quite pointed politeness, "if at all possible", for the calamari starter that I had mentioned but that had been apparently forgotten among the double checks required for steak-shock recovery.

We sat and talked while waiting for our steaks but that's not something children are all that good at for more than 5 minutes at a time. So the child was sent to run around and explore to his heart's content, which he did but not before asking first for my camera to take pictures, too. It's even good that he did since otherwise there will be hardly any pictures at all. I had remembered to take the camera with me but the part with taking pictures is apparently still not coming to mind all that often, especially when otherwise actually enjoying the ride. At any rate, I took the above 4 pictures in total, he took about 30 and overall, there are at least 9 to look at, whether they are or not what one might expect from a day trip by bike, along the water and through the woods:

1. As the "news" will undoubtedly report next week, this Sunday and Monday are likely to be terribly crowded everywhere, seeing how Monday is a day off -"bank holiday"- around here for whatever reason. Meanwhile, we barely met any people at all and we didn't particularly aim for that, either, it's just enough to not follow the crowd to also not have the problems the crowd hasmakes, as simple as that. ↩

2. The canals were built as transportation routes, there's a whole network of them around here. The tow paths are narrow mud paths on one side of the canal and were used precisely as the name suggests: horses or donkeys would walk on these paths, towing a boat in the water. I suppose it was still easier to carry large loads that way than to pull them in carts on the roads but I freely admit that I don't know all that much about canal transportation and it never managed to spark my interest to look it up in more detail, either. ↩

3. Apparently 10 years are not all that much as far as muscle memory is truly concerned - having cycled before even only a bit up and down the Dolomiten, there's just no way a flat path along the river registers much. Whether some 35km (22 miles) long or not, it doesn't seem to matter, basically if it's not going up, then it's almost not there at all, huh.  ↩

Category: Lyf, Young, old and oldest

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