"Movement is a medicine for creating [a positive] change in a person's physical, emotional, and mental states."—Socrates
We are blessed to be living in one of the most hospitable climates and picturesque areas of the world. The day began with an early two mile hike with Cecile and Daisy on the 100 acre grounds where we live. We bumped into neighbor John Perry who recently sent me the attached photo of a Belted Kingfisher resting on a boat dock post, a bird he has been attempting to photograph for four years.
Later in the morning I drove over to my friend Jimi Hunter's abode off Highway 9. He invited me to join him on another biking adventure on the Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga Foothills. The former competitor biker knows these areas like the back of his hand. With the exception of Highway 9 and a few other busy streets we explored the quiet roads less travelled. We stopped in front of the large brick home on Chester Avenue that Cecile and I, Jason and Michelle spent some of our most precious years.
We bumped into a biking club. There were about 15 of them sweating, huffing and puffing. Jimi and I were on electric-assist bikes.
“You want to get guys like this mad,” he said, “just pull out in front of the pack,” he added with a devilish smile. Within a block from these bicyclists, there were two workers fixing underground pipes. One held a Slow Sign. He waved, smiled, and yelled out to us, “Now that's the way to ride a bike if you can afford to buy one.” Of course there is a presumption that when you use an electric assist bike you’re cheating. Au contraire my dear friends. It is not so different than when we went from regular bikes to three to ten gear shifts, when we were kids. Technology has made it possible for guys like me in my late sixties to re-enter the biking world, climbing steep hills, and loving it.
We all need healthy exercise activities in our lives that take us away from our computer keyboards or driving even short distances in town. Many of us have explored astonishing little only to witness life passing us by.
We have been up to Montalvo Arts Center many times. The historic villa and surrounding grounds once belonged to the late California Sen. James Phelan. I used to do varying watercolor renditions of the Villa with the Saratoga Community of Painters. We used to refer to it as the “Big House.” When I first moved to California in 1975 I had no idea that the surrounding 175 acres was a county park.
Villa Montalvo was the last but certainly not the least place we explored.
We went to Mr. Pickles for lunch. One sandwich can feed a village. We then went back to Jimi’s home, put the bikes back into his garage. He pointed out the abstract painting that was done on his garage door by one of his former students. Tibetan Prayer flags hang under the car port. We sat around his Buddha fountain and garden, feeling satisfied and grateful for pushing ourselves to commune with nature, exercising our bodies, getting a little sun and breathing in this precious air. I went home for a well deserved nap and went to a 6 PM one-hour restorative yoga class, and captured the this sunset between the trees. Ahhh! Life is good!
I went home for a well deserved nap and went to a 6 PM one-hour restorative yoga class, Ahhh! Life is good!