Katie and I took advantage of the mild weather today and rode our bikes downtown, to have lunch and pick up some delicious pork products at the Second Street Market. The overcast kept things comfortable, and we enjoyed a leisurely ride there and back, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of Dayton in the spring the way you really only can on a bicycle. I had guesstimated the route to be about a 13 mile round trip, but we ended up taking a safer, if less direct route that totaled almost 23 miles. How’s that for earning your lunch!
The trip reminded me of one of the reasons I got back into bicycling in the first place. When I was a kid, I knew the town I grew up in intimately, because I rode through just about all of it. You can see a city’s secrets when you travel it on a bike. You smell the honeysuckle and lilacs, you see the fish jumping in the river, you can stop at the monuments and read the poems etched into paving stones. There’s an innocent joy of discovery you get from the experience, which has retained its novelty and allure even after all these years. Dayton has so many of those fascinating details, and I’m going to make an effort to discover more of them, by experiencing the city from the seat of my bicycle.
An added bonus today was a classic British car show, being held next door to the market! It was breaking up just as we were leaving, but a few pristine examples remained. Neat little cars, with such a unique style, though I’ve never had a burning desire to own one.
[…] It being the start of football season, I thought it would be appropriate to get a picture of this marker for the blog. It details how the first ever NFL game was played right here in Dayton, financed by local businesses, and played in a park that they built. I’ve stopped to read this before, but never took a picture until today. It’s just another cool little thing I discovered by exploring the city on my bike. […]