13 Miles for Ice Cream

It’s a beautiful breezy day when we roll down the hill to Lincoln Park, breezy, not windy, which is perfect because it’s been much too long since I logged any miles on the bike and a stiff wind is going to make it all the harder. Our destination is Alki Beach where it’s car free for the day. At noon, when we’re down there, the beach feels like I’ve always wanted it to feel, mellow and full of kids on skateboards and scooters, picnics set up in unlikely places where usually, there are parked cars. Cops and volunteers are patiently directing the occasional residential driver past the traffic cones and they crawl behind us, our bikes determining how fast the traffic gets to go. It’s a crazy utopia where there are no exhaust from idling cars waiting to snag the next available parking spot, there’s no cruising, it’s just a human scale parade of wheels and people walking. And it’s quiet, there’s a whole level of noise that’s just gone.

Near Seacrest Park, we turn to climb the winding end of California back up to the Junction where we stop for ice cream. “How’s the ride?” asks the guy scooping our cones at Husky Deli.  “I’d be there but someone stole my wheel!” It’s a terrible tale, but he’s as cheerful as he always is, this young man is some kind of a saint; I’ve seen him in exactly the same sunshiny mood when the line runs to the back of the store and the temperatures hover in the 90’s. Cones in hand, we sit outside on green plastic chairs, watching the dog walking, the farmer’s market shoppers, the tattooed alterna-couples. We talk about Sherman Alexie because just there to my left are two guys who look like they’ve escaped from one of his stories.

At the bottom of Gatewood Hill I get off my bike and walk for one long steep block. I have a belly full of ice cream and the sky has gone hot. The clouds are gone and the asphalt is radiating heat. Sticky with sweat, I drop my bike on the grass in the backyard. My laundry is bleaching in the sun. My right elbow complains, and my wrist — it’s hard to know if that’s from the computer keyboard, the ukulele, or the bike — and the place where my bones hit the saddle is saying hello, but I don’t care about that. We’ve ridden 13 miles for ice cream and that is a very good thing, in all kinds of ways.