Saturday All-Day Bike Ride

Yesterday morning we got on our bikes with a backpack and headed out to the library. I checked out a certain book for a certain tiny film I'm doing (I'm into Tiny Stuff).
It was a long ride, through parking lots and back roads, paths made just for bikes and sidewalks, that eventually ended on the less traffic-y part of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips goes through the rather mid-northern end of Bartlesville, intersecting with important roads such as Silver Lake and Washington (or US-75). But it starts to wind just after crossing the latter, and that's where we got on--where it gets smaller and windier. Still, there were a lot of cars going thirty to thirty-five miles per hour and the sidewalk ends around there, so you have to go pretty fast. We hadn't gotten to Madison before I was so tired I was walking my bike up the itty bitty inclines.
Ephraim kept complaining, saying
"Come on! Can't you go any faster? If this is the best you can do, I don't know what to say..."
"Well, you know my limits." I said. There really isn't anything you can say about someone's limits because stating them doesn't help. No wonder he was lost for words.
It was way farther, and all we could ride on were roads with not a white line on them--I mean, there were no shoulders. That meant we had to ride fast, although I still haven't worked out Ephraim's logic on that score. They all pass us anyway. Hm, maybe he's thinking less impact if we get hit; you know, we're going the same direction, just slower.
On the way through a wooded area, Ephraim filmed me doing another weird movie with myself acting like two different people--yeah, very different. I think it turned out pretty good and convincing.

At the park, we went to the big half-dome and each stood on one side. It was like a telephone.
I found some big fallen nuts or seeds on the ground and, out of curiosity, crushed a few. The first three were either rotten or bug-filled, but the fourth was very different. There was a nutmeat in it. I sniffed it. It smelled sweet. I tasted it. It was a pecan!
I can't tell a pecan by looking. But by tasting, I think anybody could. That was no walnut: definitely Papa's favorite nut.
Out of all the dozens of nuts I crushed after that, not one had a nutmeat inside. Maybe it just made the first one all the more special.
I won't write about the rest of the agonizing, but still kind of fun, ride home. We had been exhausted before getting to our destination, so it felt like we just kept going on nothing.
Finally, when we were near to the library, we parted ways.
"I can't go to the library even if it's a block away! I gotta go home!" I said reasoningly (that is, I was reasoning. Not necessarily being reasonable.)
"Okay, how about this." Ephraim decided to do his tough thing. "I'll take the book. You go straight home and we'll race."
"Okay." I smiled gratefully.
I took the backroad, the short cut; no stop signs or lights and no going on and off sidewalks and crossing where cars would be turning. No turning my head side to side till my neck was sore!
And as I rode happily toward the house, who should be sitting there but Ephraim. Wow, he actually meant it when he said "race". Well.