Many years ago, when I was in junior high school, before middle schools were a thing, I had a bicycle. It was a cheap bike from Sears. It was heavy and yellow. I had so many accidents on it that I actually warped the frame and forks a little bit. It was still rideable, though. I can’t ride a bike with no hands anymore because my muscle memory was learned on that bike. It was at the time the closest I would ever get to what I thought was adult freedom, the ability to go where you wanted when you wanted. I remember one day in particular when I was riding in the back streets of the subdivision I lived in and came upon a giant road with zero traffic. I couldn’t believe that nobody was on it so I began riding along it to see where it went (we were so far our of town that I didn’t exactly know my way around). I pedaled and pedaled until I finally came to an end of that road. Rubble and cement was piled up and construction equipment waited idly for the beginning of the work week to come. I turned back around and rode back home, paying no heed to the rules of the road. If there were no cars, what need was there for that? Today, that road is not only complete, but a major thoroughfare in north Austin. I can’t begin to count the number of times I have taken it to go get a cache somewhere, much less all the times I used it for other things and places. In my youth, I would have loved the opportunities that the area, thanks to that road, would provide for food, stuff to do, and general entertainment, but I never would have had the same feeling of freedom as I did back then when there were still fields instead of apartments and copses instead of restaurants. I could still ride that road; it has been expanded since and it would be safe enough to bike along, but back then it was so remote that there was nothing I needed to be kept safe from.
A couple of days ago, I needed a cache. I had not been feeling well so I considered logging a challenge for the day, but I decided to go ahead and get out of the house, thinking that some sun and fresh air (for certain values of “fresh”) might do me some good. I looked over the map and noticed a few challenges I had never noticed along that stretch of road I once had dominion over. I decided to go get a fresh one of them for the day instead of logging a stale one, long waiting for me to acknowledge some task I had completed since I signed the cache however long ago wherever it had been. I thought about parking over on the side of the road, but opted against it. Though there was more than enough room to park safely, getting up to speed upon leaving would be a dicier situation. Luckily, I wasn’t using standard maps. The ones I had showed walking paths leading up to GZ from the neighborhood being protected by the guard rails. Good enough for me. I turned onto those streets I used to know. I drove by houses that were weathered and aged and yet new to me and parked in a cul-de-sac. With sun hat donned, I stayed on the walking trail for a short time and then turned off into wildflowers on the side of an embankment. Avoiding beggar’s lice, it was a simple operation to find a keyholder on the steel rail and then sign my name into the log within. My goal achieved, I merely sat and watched the cars and trucks pass in two opposite directions. I used to own that road in as real a sense as a child could know. Where that savage race that hoards and sleeps and feeds thoughtlessly passed day in and day out, I had once, long ago, conquered beneath the rubber of my treads.
Geocaching While Black 