The Road Less Traveled

It is exactly 0.6 miles from the niche under the stairs where I park my bicycle to the parking shed where I store my bike at the office. (It's nice having an odometer in the bike...) but this morning, with the sun shining and the birds singing, I decided to chuck the direct route and take an nice long bike ride into the office.

Well, okay... To be honest the sun was not shining, at least not in any way worth writing home about. It was grey and overcast but at least it was not raining. There was definitely rain in evidence; puddles were everywhere. But the sky was not actually spitting down raindrops.

So, with the morning sky getting light earlier, and no real pressing need to be in the office at my usual 06:30, I turned left instead of right out of my forecourt and headed east along the Portsmouth road. My destination was Kingston and the Kingston Bridge . I wanted to ride in along the tow path that follows the Thames. Why?

As I have said, it was a nice morning. Well, it was a relatively pleasant morning... Well, it wasn't raining. (Yet!)

It was cool and dry and relatively wind-free this morning and as I have said, I had no pressing need to get to the office at 06:30, I usually am there at that hour, but that is mostly a matter of personal preference.

The ride was fine! There was practically nobody on the roads at that hour and my trip into Kingston passed very quickly. I stopped on the Kingston bridge to take this view of the Thames to show you what the weather was like. Yes, it was cloudy, but it wasn't raining!

The other reason for taking "the long way" to work this morning was to get onto the tow path before there was a lot of traffic on it and try to catch some pictures of the rabbits!

For the past few days as I have been riding the tow path more often, I have noticed there are rabbits (hundreds of them) along the path. Most of the time they skitter along out of your way, but a few of them are brave (or stupid) enough to just sit there and let you walk up to them.

I brought my camera with me last night with the intention of taking some pictures but the traffic on the path was too heavy for me to get close. Joggers and bicyclers kept zooming by and scaring them away. This morning, though many of them scampered off before I could shoot them, I was able to get a few good shots! (Most of the ones I shot this morning, are well after the rabbits had hopped out of frame. I guess that is why we have the phrase: "Quick Like A Bunny.")

I take the title of today's entry from the poem by Frost, not because I wonder what would have happened had I come directly to the office, but because I wish I could take both roads every morning!

I hope wherever you are today, you are faced with nothing but pleasant choices.

Don Bergquist - 25th May 2006 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, United Kingdom