When Jason and I met in January of 2007, we hit it off immediately. We’d both come off a long streak of terrible and semi-terrible Internet dates. We came into our first date with very low expectations, and we far exceeded them. I biked to our very first date, and Jason walked me a mile home, pushing my bike. About a month later, around mid-Febuary, he agreed to accompany me on a our first bike-date, to ride to Hains Point (he borrowed one of my bikes, being bike-less at the time) and then dinner to Ten Penh, my favorite DC restaurant.

As I said, Jason didn’t have a bike, so he dressed for a relatively cold day, and met me at my house. We set out later than anticipated, so it was dark, but Hains Point is closed to cars. Overconfident as usual, I assured him it would be fine. Hains Point is a famous DC bike loop. It used to be famous because it had an AWESOME sculpture called The Awakening, showing a Greek god coming out of the ground, at the midway point (it has been moved elsewhere now).

It is also famous because it is a totally flat and easy three mile loop — with one caveat. If there is a wind, and there usually is, the one and a half mile return trip is brutal, with a strong headwind and nothing blocking it.

This is a very dark picture of Jason that we both love because of his joyous smile, perched on The Awakening. We turned into the wind just seconds after this photo …

Did I mention it was February? And Jason hadn’t biked for a while? And dark? He was pretty game for the trip on Pennsylvania Ave (BEFORE the bike lanes were in place) and wasn’t too intimidated by maneuvering around downtown traffic. He mentioned that it was a bit cold, and I cheerily cheered him on. We got to Hains Point, and the quiet and the calm almost made up for how cold we both were. I really talked up Ten Penh, encouraging him that we were ALMOST there. We got to the midway point, and even paused to take a couple of (very dark) pictures. See the smile on his face? We hadn’t rounded the bend at this point.

From the second we rode around the bend, the full force of the icy wind off the Potomac was brutal. I lived in the Baltimore/DC area 17 years, almost as long as I lived in Houston, and I was a cyclist almost the entire time I was there. I rode Hains Point a lot of times. This was … the very … bar none … windiest. Jason and I couldn’t hear each other, and I gestured for him to get behind me to get some wind protection. The wind was somehow coming from the front and the side, in gusts so hard that I felt like I would get knocked off my bike — and I had JUST completed an ACROSS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA bike ride six months before. Jason hadn’t been on a bike in a decade, and had been promised a quick, mild loop.

He stayed on his bike, we both did. We struggled through the second half of the loop, which seemed to clock in at 100 miles, and then slowly made our way through the busy downtown streets to Ten Penh (located at Tenth and Penn, at the very heart of DC). It was a lovely dinner … and then we had to get BACK ON OUR BIKES to ride back to my apartment. Yes. Back on our bikes.

Cherry blossom festival, in a long-awaited spring.

This is a thank you note that Jason stayed with me on that adventure, that he stayed with me on other adventures, and that he has shown that spirit of love, acceptance of what life (or his now-wife) hands him as it comes, and dedication in the face of trouble in every day since. Look at the next photo — not one month later, the cherry blossoms were in bloom and we volunteered to help the Washington Area Bicyclist Association at the National Cherry Blossom Festival. And we biked there.