Egg Recovery Ride

Image: Bike Friendly Arlington

Took Mrs. V. on our first joint ride of the spring today -- it was Easter Sunday, and 71 degrees with blues skies. The Valley is just delightful right now, birds busting out all over, trees showing that first faint veil of lacy yellow-green, pine-cone aromas wafting out of the roadside woods.

The missus was lamenting last night that we don't have any Easter traditions yet, as we've only been married a few years, and, moreover, I'm Jewish. I pondered this after she left for church this morning, and remembered a brilliant idea, passed on to me by the ever-thoughtful No One Line. I had told him that I wanted to get my sweetheart more into cycling, and he suggested that I take her for short rides around the neighborhood, having hidden a picnic basket or such-like not too far away, and surprise her thusly. I liked the idea at the time, had been pondering it ever since. When I began puzzling over the Easter question this morning, and then remembered that we'd discussed going for a ride this afternoon -- well, as the Brits say, the penny dropped.

I threw some pedals on my winter bike (now seasonally re-incarnated as my town/pleasure/dirt-road bike) and dashed around the neighborhood finding sweet spots to hide chocolate Easter eggs before she got home. I live in the country, so it weren't too hard.

Mrs. V is a particular fan of New England cemeteries, so the first couple were hidden behind time-worn 300-year-old headstones, way in the back of our little local burying grounds. I hid others in other pretty spots along the way home; by a stream, behind fence posts. This part was almost more fun than actually taking her on the ride later.

When she got home, I was lounging about, and tried to show only the usual enthusiasm for the idea of a ride. When we got to the graveyard, I dropped a few cryptic (Get it? "Cryptic?") hints about searching around gravestones with certain names on them, and let her loose -- thus adding a dash of treasure hunt/history adventure to the usual hunt approach. You should have seen her smile when she found the eggs: Sweeter than Easter candy.

It was an ideal ride home, happy, chatty, and beautiful. She reports now that she had no suspicion that I had hidden eggs in any other locations until we stopped the seond time. I gave vague hints each time, and she was as game as could be.

We had a blast, and she was happy as a little girl on Easter. Mission accomplished!