Around 10:30 pm it will officially be fall. I did a little gardening Saturday morning, harvesting beans and okra and peppers, a few tomatoes and the prodigious kale. Nonetheless, the garden is looking a bit end of season—and of course, the equinox tells me it is. I reserved today for a few things I did not get done Saturday, fitted a few extra things in, and then mid-afternoon, escaped on a bike ride.

At Arlington Cemetery I take a left and head for Memorial Bridge. You can see the Kennedy Center here…center, above the railing.
It was lovely. The river sparkled, the sun shone and there were not too many people out for some reason. I was reminded of a bike ride I took almost a year ago, during the government shutdown. Thankfully, this year it’s too close to an election for our elected representatives to make fools of themselves. Last year, I went out riding and found cyclers’ heaven, defined as beautiful weather and no cars.
I remember being astonished at the freedom of cycling to Haines point without the usual hyper-alertness demanded by mixed traffic. And I had never seen the parking lot at Roosevelt Island look like this:
Today’s cycle had a little more traffic and a few tourists, one of whom was a French lady looking for John F. Kennedy’s grave. I pointed her in the direction of Arlington Cemetery’s Visitor Center and told her to make sure she saw the Custis-Lee Mansion (where there is now a vegetable garden, by the way). “D’Accord, merci,” she said, and was on her way.