As long as the weather is cooperative most nights when M. gets home from work, we will go for a bike ride. This evening was back in early June, on a Saturday and there was a particularly humid, hazy cast to the air. Humidity is more pleasant with the breeze you generate biking, as opposed to walking, in my opinion. And you don't really notice how sticky you are until you stop. So we rode for about seven miles I believe, following the levee trails around, as they are guided by the river on one side and farmland on the other. The fields have a certain aroma in the summertime, which is distinctly Kansas, a sweetness that drifts up in cool intermittent waves. All I can say is it smells deeply green with a cast of blue. Then down in the valley we spotted a single doe standing motionless, watching us, staring right back and slowing to ride softly past.
I think I will remember this as the summer of bike rides.