On a bike ride without the kids

Almost as soon as I hit the street, the bike started trying to dart out from under me, like a racehorse anticipating the bell. When I reached the Greenway and had a wide open trail in front of me, it leapt forward like a rocket and we sped along as fast as we could.

A few minutes outside of Minneapolis, a large hawk or falcon dropped down beside me. It was just a few feet away, and the two of us flew along, side-by-side, feeling the wind blowing against us. After about fifteen or twenty yards, it turned its head to look at me then swooped back into the air and flew away.

As I made the loop back to Minneapolis, I came up beside a set of train tracks and a long freight train rolled by, pulled by two engines. It seemed to last forever, box car after box car, followed by a nearly endless line of flatbeds. Each time I thought it had ended, it hadn't. The train outpaced me, stretching out towards Minneapolis, and as I rode through St. Louis Park, it looked like the train stretched from the suburbs all the way to the outskirts of Minneapolis.