Entries this day: dark_night_skate

dark night skate

7 May 1996

Last night I experienced a new cool level of skating.. I called a couple of friends until I found that Susan was home and wanted to skate. We went out west of Houston, out near Bear Creek Park. By the time we got there, it was 8:30pm or so, and vaguely dark outside.
She showed me a jogging/biking/skating trail that wound its way through some trees sans lights. This trail is like 10 feet wide and nice smooooth asphalt. There was absolutely no one out there, except for an armadillo that rooted under some brush as we sailed past.

The air was cool; the night was getting darker. We approached a lighted area which turned out to be a vacant parking lot and playground. We stopped briefly for water. As we started again, it was darker, and our eyes had become un-adjusted to darkness. We continued through the trees, eventually rolling smoothly over a bridge that presented a small change in elevation that normally would be no big deal, but we had to rely on only our feet to tell us how steep it was.

We got to an area where the trees joined at the top from across the path, effectively blocking all light. For these portions, I noted that dark shapes in the trees seemed to spill into the trail. If I looked down at my skates, I couldn't detect the edge of the path; I had to look straight ahead where I could *vaguely* tell where the trail went.

Mosquitoes unwittingly attacked us as we plowed through. Suddenly one of the dark shapes seemed to move across the path.. Or stright toward us. A guy-on- a-bike shape went past. Why didn't that naughty boy have lights on?? Why didn't we have lights on? At least I was wearing my white NO FEAR shirt. I pointed out to Susan that she was wearing black. "I just realized that," she replied.

Ahead were some more lights, in the form of a busy street crossing our trail. We pushed the WALK button, but skated across instead. Several minutes after that, we arrived at another park. We got a drink and chilled for a second before we headed back.

On the way back it was pretty dang dark. I can't lie and say it was pitch black dark, but it sure wasn't very light. We crossed the busy street again and soon got to the portions where the trees obscured pretty much all light. I could only barely *barely* see where the trail was if I looked way in front. After a bit, we knew the bridge was coming soon, (or was it?) but we just kept plunging through the dark, hearing noises (rabbits?) (bears?) (zombies??) scamper around the brush beside us.
The bridge appeared in the form of "whoah!" as we adjusted for the sudden dip in elevation.

The rest of the journey was mostly not shrouded with trees. We got back safely and soundly. I will do it again when it's darker.