The big blue marble in this pic - actually a blown-glass fishing float - reminded me of the big blue marble we live on. I spend a lot of time, professionally, thinking about this marble - writing about sustainable water strategy and advocating for healthy lifestyles, diversity, and sustainable development. It's easy, in my line of work, to get caught up in all that is wrong on our marble, but like the net in this picture, we are all connected. Yesterday that point was hammered home for me.
I started my day with whole wheat toast, and honey - harvested, as you know, from the killer bees in my yard. Darlyn and I met up with a group from Bike/Walk Central Florida and Commute Orlando to ride our bicycles to the Winter Park Harvest Festival - a celebration of locally grown food. On the road, along the way, to and from, we passed people we knew, some also on bikes. They smiled and waved. Sometimes we stopped and talked, and it struck me as wonderful, the way a couple of winding residential thoroughfares, connected by a paved park path, is rapidly becoming a bicycle highway - well-travelled by a growing number of faces - faces I recognize, because we're not all flying along at 55 miles an hour behind tinted glass.
The recently installed bike racks in Winter Park's Central Park, were filled to capacity. And all around, I saw families on foot - parents pushing strollers, kids lolling in the grass conversing with bugs. Everywhere we turned, we found people we knew. And when we got home, there were emails from friends we'd missed, who had heard we were there and wanted to say they were sorry we'd missed each other.
Next to the Harvest Festival, which was new this year, was the Winter Park Farmer's Market, which is held every Saturday -- fresh produce, homemade breads, beaugainvillea and bromiliads. Hard to find fault there.
Later, in my car, I passed the venerable Citrus Bowl, where the Florida Classic, the annual match-up between Florida's two predominantly black universities, square off every year in one of the nation's truly great Football traditions.
I was on my way to Clermont, where bike club officers from around the state gathered in a conference room at the base of The Citrus Tower - a tourist attraction dating back to the days before Interstates, where, when roadside attractions thrived. When I moved to Central Florida, in 1985, you could still go to the top of the Citrus Tower and see mostly citrus groves below. These days, you see mostly houses, and varicolored ribbons of cycling clubs, churning and burning their way up, down and around the region's verdant rolling hills.
The meeting was organized by one of my clients, The Florida Bicycle Association, which was reaching out to ask club leaders how they might better serve the cycling community. It was a great dialogue, followed by a reception at the Cycling Hub bike shop, headquarters for the Horrible Hundred, a ride named for both its 100-mile distance, and the challenging hills on the course. The ride itself took place today.
Just 24 hours - one turn of the marble between the thumb and forefinger of God. So much hope. So much life. So much to celebrate.
The Good Stuff:
The Horrible Hundred
Community
The Cycling Hub in Clermont
Five Guys hamburgers
The Winter Park Harvest Festival
Blue Jays at breakfast
meeting friends at the park
momentum
college visits
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