For several years now, Matthew’s mom has been coming down to visit during October to take part in the Wild Goose Chase bike ride at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, just down the Shore from us. It’s a women’s bike ride, so in the past Matthew’s sisters have taken part in it too. This year neither could come (one was attending a wedding and the other was running the Baltimore Marathon – go Andy!!) and it was suggested many a time that I should step in and do my filial duty. When finding that “suggestions” weren’t enough, I was eventually bribed with the promise of a dinner at a fine restaurant, so what could I do?

I signed up. And insisted that Alden do her filial duty as well.

We registered and collected our schwag at the South Dorchester High School. Alden was pleased to see that she was the only youngster there to ride.

We stopped inside for a quick perusal of the tent sale before leaving, and of course to check out the raffle items. Alden carefully looked over all of the great prizes (amazing wicking socks! Bike repair kits! High-tech hoodies! Lightweight bicycle seats! Polarizing sunglasses! Padded shorts! etc!) and settled on a silver reflective flower pin.

She put all of her tickets into that cup. Given how little competition she had, I thought her odds were good, and said as much. Because she couldn’t quite understand how the raffle worked, she thought that the pin would be her prize if she finished the race. For the entire ride, I had to remind her that the flower pin may or may not be her prize at the end, but that we did have to finish to find out.

We decided on our route (of the 16.2, 22.2, 42.8 and 66.5 mile bike rides, which do you think we picked?), saddled up and headed out.

We were very lucky to have a tailwind for the whole first half of our loop. We only had to stop three times in the first half mile to add more layers to Alden’s biking outfit because of bitter complaints of being cold. Two sweatshirts, a pair of rainpants over sweatpants over leggings and a froggy raincoat later we were ready to roll. Though the first seven miles were filled with requests for an approximate return time, Alden still managed to do some pedaling and appreciate the autumnal yellow of the turning soybean fields.

At almost exactly the halfway point, we stopped for a photo-op on a low and narrow bridge crossing a bay.

The tide was very high, and apparently cyclists on the longer routes ran into some flooding.

That sign reads “National Wildlife Refuge” and is not meant to be almost entirely underwater.

And those birds (they looked like cormorants to me, but I don’t actually know) were on a dock that was not meant to be almost entirely underwater either.

Luckily, all of that water apparently made for good crabbing.

After Alden investigated the bucket, one of the nice gentlemen who was crabbing off the bridge suggested we come look the bushel basket across the way.

What beauties!

It took everything in me not to grab that basket of crabs and head straight home at 100 miles per hour to get some Old Bay and a steamer. Luckily for the crabbers, there were two bystanders for whom I at least needed to pretend to be an exemplar.

In retrospect, they might have preferred to motivate me with stolen crabs, because from that point on, we were riding straight into the wind. Without the fear of seasoned watermen chasing me down, I had little incentive to move faster than a crawl for the entire return trip.

And so I was delighted when the opportunity for another photo-op arrived.

Because Alden had never heard of Smokey the Bear before (what kind of parent am I?), she was quite curious as to why he was standing there with a shovel and wearing a hat (strangely, the pants and no shirt thing didn’t bother her a bit). My answer that he was standing there to notify us that the fire danger was low today was pretty unsatisfying to her. She didn’t understand why a bear was letting us know about the fire danger, and frankly I didn’t have a good reason. Bears don’t like fire? Bears are good with shovels? Bears like wearing hats and can’t if they’re on fire?

Either way, she wanted a picture with the bear.

Alas, that was the last photo-op there was. The remainder of the trip was through lovely marshlands that did a terrible job of blocking the howling wind. Though I probably could have stopped to take some pictures of something, I was worried if my momentum slackened even the tiniest bit (which is all it would have had to do for me to come to a full stop) I might never get started again.

And so it was with great relief that we saw the sign for the final turn on our route – Route D.

The turn went right into the parking lot where we started, but I think Matthew’s mom needed some assurance via iPhone that we were actually close to the finish line. Given how slow I was going, she needed to calculate whether to call Matthew and let him know we had arrived, or whether it was going to take me another half hour to get across the parking lot.

When we arrived back at the school for snacks and the tent sale, Kato was really pumped up to see us. Literally.

And August was fired up:

Alden was very eager to see if she had won the flower pin. We waited patiently behind a throng of people looking at the prize postings, and I hoped that she would win simply because she had been looking forward to it for the entire ride. But alas … she did not win. It really was a Wild Goose Chase after all!

Though disappointed, she thoughtfully mused that maybe her prize was getting to be in the bike ride in the first place. Yes, indeed. It was a most pleasant way to spend a Sunday, and I hope that we can all do it again next year.

Thanks, Baba, and thanks Alden, for a great ride!