I’ve been doing yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Proctors, and I typically bike the same route: I head to Central Park, go up Monument Hill Road and past Central Park Middle School, then down Bradley Street to Brandywine, where I take a left and go a block or two to enter Vale Cemetery and go through the cemetery and Vale Park and out at Nott Terrace to cross over the Franklin Street and down the hill to Lafayette, where I take a left and head over to State Street. And then, to get home, I reverse it.
I love this bike ride. Over the summer, as I’ve been riding up Franklin Street on the way home, I’ve been treated to rainbows twice (and shared a picture once), and most recently I followed up my moon salutation-themed class with a fantastic view of the almost-full moon. I tried taking pictures: I couldn’t remotely do the moon justice.
But over the past week or two, my favorite part has been Monument Hill, the street between the Rose Garden and the lake in Central Park. First, of course, it’s pretty:
And obviously the Rose Garden in late summer is lovely, plus there are often families or couples posing for pictures, which is sweet to observe. But this stretch of road has its own sweet little vignettes as I whiz past, to class and back. The other day I noticed a woman creeping forward, phone poised, trying to get a good picture of a large bird. Another day it was three teenage girls, two dolled up stylishly and the third in drab black clothing and hijab, arms linked and cackling raucously. I biked past a cross country meet and heard joyful cheering from teammates as someone made it to the finish line. Another day there was a young dad holding his toddler up at his shoulders to let the little one bat curiously at a tree’s leaves. It’s a little burst of joy as I move along. I mentioned it to Cute W, and we agreed that biking feels inherently social, versus feeling much more isolated in a car.
There’s always activity and things to notice. For example, this hill is smack in the middle of the disc golf course.
One day as I was biking along, a couple of guys were mocking their friend who had whipped his frisbee so far off course that it had landed in the street. “Run it over!” they urged me. I headed right over to it, merciless.
This hill isn’t called Monument Hill for nothing, either. If you’re going up it, you’ll see the soldier on the left who is… uh, basically celebrating colonialism, and the one on the right, which honors those who fought in World War II.
There’s also plenty of wildlife, and even if you don’t see any while all the people are around, you can find evidence of fauna everywhere, like this tree pocked with woodpecker holes.
The view is just as lovely on the way down…
…although my favorite, either way, is looking through the trees toward the pond.
It’s rapidly becoming too chilly and dark for the bike, so for now, I’m doing my best to savor every ride.
