Day 19--A Fun Memory

Which one to CHOOSE???????

OK.  This one is fun AND embarrassing.

Back around 1997, when John and I were living outside of Cincinnati, we decided to pool up our meager credit card resources and take a vacation.  As a couple, we'd only ever spent time off from school/work going home to visit our family in Indiana and Michigan.  Well, this vacation wasn't too much different.  I mean, we still took some time to visit family, but we made it a point to visit some places we'd never been as a couple in and around the way.  We went to Chicago (having to stop at a seedy gas station right downtown as we didn't plan ahead very well and were on fumes), we went to Cedar Point (my first time going where it didn't get rained out), AND we went to Mackinac Island in Michigan

Now, part of the charm of Mackinac Island is that there are no motorized vehicles allowed.  You can walk, take a horse-drawn carriage, or you can ride bicycles.  John insisted on renting bikes.  The catch--I'm not the world's greatest bike-rider.

I learned how to ride almost two years later than a lot of the kids in the neighborhood and was often embarrassed and humiliated about that.  (Amusingly, my own children did not learn until the same "late" age [Izzy's still on training wheels, Keith didn't lose his training wheels until this last summer.  Mary learned around the same age as Keith--and she basically taught herself.], but there are no neighborhood kids around here to tease them.)  I think I just do not have the grace and coordination for physical stuff like that.  My mother could dance swing and country line dances all night long--I have the WILL to dance, but not the coordination OR rhythm.  Learning to ride a bike was painful and frustrating and I fought it tooth and nail (I blame a fall--while riding ON TRAINING WHEELS--when I was about 4-5, resulting in a seemed-to-me GIANT gash on my head, as part of my problem).

So!  To get back to 1997, I was not the best bike-rider, and here my fiance was wanting to ride bikes about this charming island.  Well, one thing about me, I go with the flow--self-fulfilling prophecies be damned!

Well, part of the problem with me and bikes I think is the not really knowing how to WORK them.  I mean, I was presented with a 10-speed when I was in my teens, but except for the "this gear is for regular riding, and this is for uphill, and be careful when using the brakes downhill" bland instruction I received from my brother, I didn't know anything else about it.  Now...focus on that last bit of advice.  I was told to be careful applying the brakes down-hill because if I were going too fast, I may just topple head-over-heals down the hill causing myself great head-bashing pain. 

Did you know that Mackinac Island has hills?  And one really monstrous, scary (to a non-bike-riding enthusiast) hill--and that that hill is paved with GRAVEL, which is the scariest stuff out there to a not-so-great-rider who is deathly afraid of skidding and toppling and is unfamiliar with her bike and specifically with the minutia of HOW to apply brakes when going down a monstrous, scary, gravel-paved hill????????

John tells the next bit best.  He was ahead of me on said scary hill, and all he can remember is seeing a Carrie-sized STREAK go past him at the speed of light.  THEN the Doppler effect of Carrie screaming "AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hey, I didn't skid or fall.  ...And, at least I can laugh about it now!  (And John MORE so.)

(Ugh--I have a story about my first time skiing that's "almost" as funny.  Fortunately for me, no one was around to witness THAT humiliation.  This is why I can now say, "Yes, I've skiied.  Been there, done that.  Check it off.  I'm GOOD.")