Hydration Elation
I was making a long bike ride to my favorite bike shop to get pannier bags, after an incident yesterday finally kicked my butt into gear to always have a first-aid kit on my bike. (They were fine, or at least they tried to convince me thereof.)
It’s a long bike ride, but it’s worth it to me to go to that specific shop. It was also a somewhat warm day, so I was trying to make sure I stayed hydrated.
About halfway through the ride to the shop, I came upon a car stuck on the road, with another one facing it. At first, I thought the two had crashed, but the car facing me drove into a parked position with no damage. The other one was just immobile, and the first guy was there to push.
I asked if they needed help. They accepted, so I left the bike on its kickstand and helped push the car into a better parking position.
This happened on a residential street, so before I left, hoping that one of the two lived in the house this happened in front of, I asked if they could get me some cold water, as I’d already gone through about half the water I’d brought and it wasn’t cold.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t, and I accepted that and moved on, continuing west down the same street.
Half a mile later, the person who still had a functional car drove past me, and then we stopped at the same red light. After the light, they continued forward until a garage door opened at a house on the right as they pulled into that driveway.
As I passed them, I turned to look, and I saw them waving me over. I turned around and went back, and they offered to get me some cold water from inside. I very gratefully accepted!
Later, I made it to the bike shop and got the pannier bags, and then I got lunch from a nearby restaurant and took it to a park. One of the houses neighboring the park had a small dog yapping at me, and someone who I assumed was the dog’s owner said hi as I was setting up to eat.
As I finished my meal and started to pack up, the same person shouted over at me, asking if I wanted a water bottle for the road. When I showed them the one I had, they asked if I wanted it topped up with filtered water and ice. I did, in fact!
The actions of those two kept me hydrated and refreshed for the entire journey. The bottle still had ice in it when I got home, though it ran out of water as I took one last gulp in my driveway. (In fact, it still has that ice in it as I write this five hours later!)