Um, maybe that’s not entirely true. I love life in the country. I’m just trying to convince myself that I’d had enough, hoping it would make being back in this crazy, crowded, metropolitan Hell more tolerable. Really I had to come home to do chores and stuff.
Anyway, why I came home isn’t important. The ride home is what I’m talking about here. We hadn’t, as we’d hoped, had many opportunities to ride our motorcycles in West Virginia. Not only was it horribly hot, I was way too busy with work stuff to get away. So I decided I’d ride my bike home. If I can’t do any riding in Maryland during the week, at least I’ll have the rides to and from under my belt.
Although cloudy and rainy most of the morning here in Maryland, sunny, blue skies were supposed to prevail by afternoon. All was pretty much fine weather-wise. I did get rained on a little bit. But what was not fine was this weird thing that happened while I was on I-70. Before I describe said weird thing, you need to look at a picture of my helmet.
I wear a full-face helmet. With the visor/face-shield down, there’s not a lot of circulation and sometimes, just like a car window, the visor can fog up. That’s why many helmets are designed with some sort of ventilation. The red arrow shows the vent on my helmet. That air is directed upward so that it blows out of those holes indicated by the blue arrow onto the inside of the face-shield, reducing the chances of fogging. My face-shield is up in this picture. When it’s down, those vents are on the inside with my head, about three inches from my nose.
While cruising along on I-70, to my complete surprise, a large bumblebee hit my leg and then flew up and hit my helmet. It was stuck right in front of my face. From what I could see, it was stuck, holding on for dear life right near that vent. I couldn’t look too closely because I had to watch the road. I turned my head to the left and to the right several times thinking the bee would just blow away.
It didn’t.
Even though the bee was only three inches from my nose, it didn’t seem to be moving, so I wasn’t too freaked out. Yes, I was a little weirded out. But not enough to risk my life stopping on the shoulder of an interstate highway. Besides, I knew I was almost at my destination. And how much harm could a bee do while clinging to the outside of my helmet?
Once I did stop, I was quite surprised to realize the bee was on the inside. It had ridden there, mere inches from my nose for about fifteen minutes!
What are the chances of a bee hitting my leg, bouncing off and getting sucked into that tiny little air vent? Fortunately for me, either the collision, being sucked into the vent, or a grisly combination of both killed the bee. Can you imagine having a bee fly into and around inside your helmet? There’s not that much extra space in there, trust me. (In case you are wondering about the big, black thing inside my helmet, that’s my backrest. I usually stick my helmet there when I get off of the bike.)
Other than that, the ride was pretty much uneventful. And you know what? It’s actually kind of nice to be home.
Oh my gosh woman! Weird stuff like that happens to me way too often. I am soooo glad that bee was DOA.
Me, too!