Usually my daily bike ride is the same route, and I’m okay with that, because the route is so pretty. The streets to White Rock Lake are lined with gorgeous homes. The lake itself is a treasure, and I see interesting wildlife every day (even parrots!). The trail lets me ride with few if any stops, unlike city streets.

But … sometimes I start out and think I don’t think I can stand riding two times around that damn lake today. So I try to find a new route. Today I decided to ride up the west side of the lake as usual, but then continue on into Lake Highlands to look for a flock of wild peacocks that Mom had alerted me to. I rode up one of the streets in the article, but didn’t see a single peacock. I circled around to the other street, and noticed that my back wheel was a little wobbily. Thinking I had a flat, I stopped to check. That’s when I saw this guy:

Then I noticed a teenage boy making multiple trips to take out the garbage, ignoring the three peahens underfoot. And the white peacock up the street. And the many peabirds standing on porch furniture and garbage cans all around. Look, you can even see them in Google Maps!

I turned my attention back to the bike, and found that it wasn’t a simple flat but a broken spoke, which is a difficult repair even with a spoke wrench and the spare parts, which I didn’t have anyway. So I started to walk up the street to at least get a good look at the white peacock before starting the seven mile walk home. But luckily, just then the owner of the house the white bird was guarding arrived home. He was a fellow cyclist, so insisted on giving me a ride home. On the way, he told me a little more about the peacocks (they love donuts! it makes them hyper!), and about biking in Dallas. It turns out the hill route that I (and all serious bikers here) ride was one of Lance Armstrong’s favorites back when he was a local junior racer. It’s a really tough route. It also turns out that the good samaritan was one of the people quoted in the newspaper article. In fact, I think he is even in that Google Maps street view shot I linked above (next door to all the birds). So despite the hassle, the ride was just what I was looking for, a break in my routine.

If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I have an idea for another route to explore. Stay tuned!