I'm so glad I didn't drive my car today

Lately, I've been on the early shift, which means I'm getting off  work around 3 pm.
This is great as I've got swim practice from 5:30 to 6:30, so the plan today was to ride the bike to work, then come home, shove the gym stuff into the panniers and head out.

It's 6 miles to the gym (downhill there, uphill back), and when I left work the wind was blowing so I almost talked myself out of taking the bike.

"Oh, it's windy. I'll be hurting coming back, and I have to run tomorrow morning."

It's close enough to summer that the trip home is in the daylight (not that riding in the dark ever stopped me, but it does make a handy excuse), so eventually I won (or lost, depending on how you look at it) the argument with myself and rode the bike to the gym.

I'm so very glad I didn't chicken out and take the car.

The wind was dying down a bit as I headed out, so it certainly wasn't unmanageable and I had a lovely ride under the blue spring sky (the sky in LA is normally sort of a taupe color - the winds blow all the smog out) down to the gym, where I had a wonderful swim with the new coach.

Then, I sat in the steam room, hit the showers and headed back home.

The ride home was just before sunset, so the sky was turning that nice orange color, and the mockingbirds were starting to sing - I love mockingbirds when they're not imitating car alarms outside my bedroom window at 3 am - and these were singing their hearts out (or warning other birds away from the tree. It's all good), treating me to a car alarm-free tune.

I had enough of a tailwind that I didn't even notice the gentle hill, and got home just as the sun set.

Just think what I would have missed had I driven.