CATEGORY: MRS. ANDERSON

Our first bicycling destination in the San Juan Islands was Orcas Island.  It has delightful low rolling hills full of farms and orchards.  At first I could pedal up the hills with ease.  Then it became more difficult.  Bob would come back and pedal around me like a fly around a horse’s head.  He would say, “What’s the matter?  Come on!”

After awhile I couldn’t make it up even a low hill.  I would have to get off and walk the bike up the hill.  Bob got tired of coming back and cycling around me.  He would get off his bike and sit under a tree and wait for me, probably muttering to himself about women with weak muscles.

At one point, laboriously catching up with him as he sat waiting, I said, “I can’t even pedal this bike down hill.”   He looked at my red, sweating face and got serious.  He examined my bike and discovered that my bike pack, which was strapped to the bike rack behind my seat, had worked its way forward and was pressing against the brake cable.   My brake had been on! –probably for a long time.   He became solicitous and helped me sit down in his place under the tree while he re-adjusted my pack.  Too bad I didn’t know enough about bikes to figure it out for myself.

From then on, it was one of the best vacations we had ever taken.