Evening by the Lake on the Bike Trail

There’s about a forty-minute window in August where the light on the trail goes from golden to purple and the lake turns into a mirror. I almost missed it. I’d been riding since Plummer and my legs were done, but the trail curves along the shoreline right at Harrison and everything just opened up. The air smelled like warm pine and lake water. A couple of herons were working the shallows near the old railroad bridge pilings. No wind at all — the kind of still where you can hear a fish jump from a quarter mile away. I pulled over and sat on one of the benches they put in along the trail. Didn’t even take the photo right away. Just sat there for a while watching the light change. The Coeur d’Alene mountains across the lake were going from green to blue to almost black. When I finally pulled out the camera the moment was already different from the one that made me stop, but it was still good. It’s always good out here. The ride back to the truck was in near-dark and I scared a deer at the Chatcolet bridge. Worth it.