On Wednesday July 26, 2017 I sat at my work desk at the Houston Today office making a mental note of all the photos I had to take that day, as well as the route I would need to take to deliver newspapers by bike.
I do have a vehicle I use to get around town if need be to deliver the latest issue to various businesses in town, but I really felt like biking.
Chalk it up to a kind of impulsive behaviour complex and the need for a quick release of energy.
So I strapped on this helmet my mom found in the crawlspace of our unit, slapped a bottle of 500 millilitres of water to my bike, loaded my backpack with newspapers and the camera, and off I went.
Apparently I have legs like a thunder-god, because it took me the same amount of time it would to do my delivery by truck.
I did have some detours along the way, due to the mental map in my head not matching the geographical one in Houston.
I started off by covering all the surrounding businesses around Ninth Street, stopped back at my house to switch out my glasses for contacts, (only because bridge of my nose was profusely sweating into my mouth) resumed to make a straggly route to the chamber and industrial area.
That was the easy part.
My paper route takes me all the way to Monster Industries, but I needed to make sure I stopped at a couple of businesses along the way.
I was unsure of biking along the highway, so I took the back trail behind the Houston Christian School to get to Sullivan Motor Products.
Then I made a mighty trek to the rabbit trails, and found myself riding through a ridiculously bumpy, mosquito-infested forest.
Next time I’ll just take the highway.
Once on Lund Road I sang, “Do Re Mi,” like I was Julie Andrews biking with seven Austrian children in the Sound of Music.
I was huffing and puffing, by the time I made it to Monster. Laughed with the staff at Finning for delivering their paper last instead of second, and pedaled on back down the highway.
Weather permitting, I can’t wait to do this again.