Every day we notice things we’ve never noticed before, especially while riding scooters.
Scooters, Mr Kelley, and the spiral garden
On this morning’s ride, up the San Gabriel River Trail from Ramona Boulevard in El Monte CA to Arrow Highway in Irwindale at the foot of the Santa Fe Dam, the weather’s perfect: cloudy, cool, no wind. Just right for the 6.5 mile round trip, a 191 foot elevation climb going up, with four or five short walk-up hills, all money in the bank for the trip back. 560 scoots up, 360 scoots back.
Going like the wind, averaging 7 mph
One underpass has a tricky transition crack between asphalt trail and cement at an underpass, otherwise it’s all easy, with nice views of an only partially tamed San Gabriel River.
At the top of the trail, I stop for water, and talk with some bicyclists. Their kids have scooters. One rider tells me his dad used to ride a scooter across his college campus in Mexico.
I urge a couple of the guys to check out andythousand.com
While I’m sitting sipping my water, I notice something I’d never seen before on the several times I’ve been to this exact spot. A spiral, in a garden beside the trail.
A spiral
An age old form in nature and in art. From the Nautilus shell, to the double spiral carved in granite in front of a 5,000 year old neolithic tomb in Newgrange Ireland, to Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty at Great Salt Lake, Utah, circling down to my personal art creation, my Newgrange Neon Spiral, patterned after what stone carver craftsmen created in Newgrange 200 generations ago.
From Neolithic Ireland to the hip metropolis and bright lights of 2020 Los Angeles
For sure, one of the stone carvers passed me a spiral strand of his DNA. I am him. He is me. In some undefinable way, I know he experiences my world of kick scooting today.
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Check these other great featured posts by Jonathan Kelley:
- Scooting For Exercise, Use It or Lose It!
- Senior Scooter Ride, Judgement Error
- Compulsive Seniors On Scooters by Jonathan Kelley
- Seniors… Get Hip to Kick Scooters
- Scooter Rides Along Two Rivers In California
- Xootr Scooter Ride From Grant Rea Park
- Xootr Scooter Ride From Treasure Island Park
Don’t forget to check out Jonathan’s website at JonathanKelley.net.