Shadow Rider

With my new schedule, I'm only able to get out twice during the week.
If I'm lucky, and make it home fast enough, I can be on the road by three fifteen.
Not too bad for right now, but the shadows are getting longer:



Hey!
Does that picture make my ass look fat?
Maybe it was all that fried rice I ate this morning.
Yes, the shadows are getting longer and soon I will be riding with front and rear lights.
Riding in the late afternoon never appealed to me.
Too dangerous, twilight time, that transition between day and evening. People in a hurry to get home from work and have that first cocktail.
People coming home after having a few cocktails.
So I began to ride with a rear blinky, only turning it on at my halfway point, just as the sun began to slowly sink behind the hills.
I didn't have to turn on the blinky today, but I suppose I should have for the sun was low enough to cast shadows on the road I was on.
That low sinking sun.
Only an hour ago, that sun was bearing down, blinding me, tauting me.
Now, it reminds me of that flashlight with the low batteries; it's only a fraction of it's former self.
Somehow, that late afternoon warmth is comforting.
I may have balked at going out, but now I am enjoying my ride, feeling the dying glow touch my face, arms and legs.
I start to make a game of it, chasing my shadow on the side of the road.
Look at him!
Pacing and mocking me!
Half wheeler!
I'll beat him one day.
Not today though for the sun has disappeared behind puffy low clouds and the breeze that cools now chills and dries the perspiration on my arms.
I head for home, another race, this time with the sun, as I watch the Earth tuck it in for the night.
I'll see you later.
Maybe up early next time.
Maybe I'll leave late.
Just for the shadows.