Dive Bomb Diva

Holy grasshoppers, Daniel-san!

After a 5:45 a.m. lifting session and a 6:30 a.m. hour of RIPPED, I came home with the intent of riding my bike for an hour or so. 

You see, this crazy week of rain has kept me indoors for tooooooooo loooooong and I'm going a bit stir crazy. 

Of course, the TV weather personalities who told me that it wouldn't rain in the a.m. were wrong. Again. So I hunkered down to wait for clear skies. Long about 1 p.m., it seemed safe. So I hit the road. 

And the road and skies both fired back. With bugs. Lots and lots and lots of bugs. 

Grasshoppers pelting me from the ground, nailing my shins, knees and feet? Check. 

Giant flying shelled things (it's too late for June bugs, right?) bombarding me from the air? Check. 

I had bugs pinging off my helmet, my face, my arms, my legs. I took more than one right straight in the gut and three, YES THREE, got trapped between the tongue of my shoe and the top of my foot. 

I have been stung by a bee like this once before while riding my bike, so the instant my brain registers that there's a bug trapped there, my foot flies out of my pedal, I begin rapidly and violently shaking my leg to dislodge it and my bike starts to wobble like crazy because this has all happened instinctively before I've actually thought about how dangerous it is to throw myself off balance like that at 20 mph downhill on a piece of cracked and bumpy pavement. 

But I'm sure it looks hilarious to oncoming traffic. 

I don't know if it was the time of day, since I'm not normally biking in the middle of the afternoon? Or perhaps the swarm was out in force because of the morning's rain? Maybe it was just the not-so-traveled roads I chose? 

Seriously, you guys, it was like a horror movie. 

I'll be counting the bruises later. 

Head down. Mouth shut. Wipers, anyone?