Day 165: Under-the-Bridge-in-the-Rain-Picnic

Today was the last day of our friends' visit. Yesterday we planned to go on a boat outing to an island in the archipelago but early this morning we decided we were all too tired to get up early and rush out the door to catch a nine a.m. boat. Instead we decided to lay low and relax around the apartment and go on a bike ride and picnic in the afternoon. I made a pasta salad and some rhubarb saft and one of our friends and I walked down to a local bakery to pick up something yummy and sweet as an after picnic treat.

One thing an old friend taught me years ago when traveling, and it actually applies all of the time, is to not have expectations. To go with the flow and take things as they come. Sometimes easier said than done but in today's case, not having expectations of how the day would go worked perfectly in our favor and, in fact, turned out to offer a fun, if not quirky, surprise.

We headed out on our bicycles with our rain jackets packed, just in case, and our picnic goodies. The sky was fairly cloudy and the weather forecast called for rain at two p.m. but as we left it seemed that the weather gods were on our side. That is until we were twenty-five minutes away. It started to sprinkle. For me, sprinkling is really like not raining. It is more like really, thick humidity. So I was okay with that. But then the sprinkling turning into a shower. We all stopped and put on our rain jackets. And, of course, once we continued on the rain politely stopped. Fabulous!

The riding went on. We stopped for a brief rest at a craggy, look-out spot and decided shortly afterward that we would head back into the city and find a nice spot for our picnic. Ten minutes later it started to rain again. At first it was just a soft sprinkle but then it quickly turned into a minor downpour. Lucky for us we were about to cross under a bridge. We pulled off the trail under the cover of the bridge and while standing there trying to figure out what to do, we decided to have an under-the-bridge-in-the-rain-picnic. How fun and spontaneous! (And by the way, it was two p.m., as forecasted by the weather report).

We unpacked our picnic blankets in an area suspended underneath the bridge. An area usually reserved for the homeless and vagrants but for some miraculous reason, it was clean, free of graffiti and free of people. Sometimes life gives you lemons and a bridge. We had an adventurous picnic in an unlikely spot and we all agreed in the end that it was, in fact, the perfect spot. After our picnic the rain had subsided and we headed home. As we rode our bikes through the puddles the sun decided to come out and we got to enjoy a sunny afternoon after all. A happy day.