[rwest]

Today’s bike ride brought a bit of excitement. I was riding on the rail to trail path which is fairly wooded with a border of grass/weeds and suddenly a squirrel must have bolted in front of my bike, went under the front wheel, which unsettled my steering, luckily I stayed upright, but then the crazy happened; squirrel comes flying up between my knees and handlebars upside down and spread eagle about two feet of the ground, but quickly rights himself and scurries back into the brush. At best he was just shaken, but I got to imagine he took some damage.

In better news, on the way back of this ride now on public roads, I passed a tiny painted turtle in the middle of the road, so I turned around and got him to the bank of the pond and as I turned to continue my ride, there was a second bigger one in the other lane crossing to the opposite pond. I waved to get a car to go around and I got this one safely to the bank he was going to. I’m going to need an ata boy from Steve!