Bah, it’s November and I’m not at all ready to say good-bye to summer. Instead, my mind revisits the trips and outings I made during our long and beautiful warm season. When I turn my thoughts ahead to the short, cold days of winter, I shudder and feel a sense of dread.

So, why rush into winter? Let us instead luxuriate in the temperate days of summer and autumn for one last article, before shoving off for the frozen shores of the White Mountains in December and beyond. Hopefully, the photos that accompany this story will take you back as well, take you back to a “monsoon” season that was among the wettest we’ve had in the sixteen years that I’ve lived in this area.

I don’t write very many articles about biking, but it is, nonetheless, the primary way in which I enjoy my outdoor time during the months from April through October. Biking is much more forgiving to my decrepit knees than hiking; plus, it allows me to see more country. Pedaling a bike is also unique in that it somehow transports one back in time, to childhood, when a bike wasn’t just a means of transportation.

Back then, with our earliest bikes (primitive, BMX precursors), we would soup them up with “banana seats” and “ape-hanger” handlebars. For a brief period of time, it was even a fad to use a clothespin to affix a playing card (preferably the Ace of Spades, the Death Card) to the spokes of one of the tires so that the whole world knew you were coming, knew that “here comes the kid on the Mustang” (if your dad worked for Ford) or “the kid on the Sting Ray” (if your dad worked for GM). And trust me, in our 1960s Detroit-area neighborhood, most of the dads worked for the auto industry, and most of the moms had the tougher job of dealing with all of us kids.

Nowadays, I ride an inexpensive mountain-bike, and when the weather is dry, I use it for its intended purpose: trail-riding. When the weather is wet, as it was this past monsoon, well then, I ride it on gravel roads. For the past several years, I’ve mostly ridden alone and routinely bring my binoculars along so that I can stop whenever I see a bird whose identity I want to confirm. I ride less for exercise and more as a way to enjoy the Natural World.

This year, I’ve begun riding with a friend, Redge, whom I met last year when he and his wife, Phyllis, joined our local Audubon Chapter and would frequently attend our monthly bird-watching outings. Redge and I both prefer biking as far as possible from the noise (and potential danger) of traffic, so we often seek out-of-town, little-used rural roads. On these roads we can combine the enjoyment of an energetic ride up and down gradual grades with the peacefulness of being in the countryside. Typically, Redge and I pick one day a week to do a few hours of mid-morning biking and will then stop for coffee before parting ways ‘til the following week. The rest of the week, I continue with my solitary rides that start right from my front door.

On one of my regular rides, I often chalk up a list of 15-25 bird species that I can either identify on the fly (without stopping my bike), as well as those that require a bit more scrutiny and cause me to stop the bike and draw up my binos. When I’m biking with Redge, we are usually moving at a faster clip, so I seldom stop to puzzle-out a bird, unless I suspect that it might be a bird that I seldom see.

Happily, with all of the rain we had this monsoon season, the landscape alone was a feast for the eyes, and though I’ve never taken the time to learn our local flora, I nonetheless was thrilled to see so many colorful blooms on our weekly country rides. During August, September, and October, the areas in which Redge and I rode included county gravel roads in eastern Navajo County and western Apache County. In a typical year, these roads usually travel through parched landscapes and include a ground cover of bunchgrasses, sage, rabbitbrush, and other common weedy species. But with the abundant rains, it was obvious that these fields harbored a diverse array of flowering plants, including an amazing variety of composites (plants with flowers comprised of disks and rays, such as sunflowers, daisies and asters).

Not surprisingly, because of all the rain and resulting flower production, various butterflies and moths fluttered everywhere during our rides, and we had to duck and weave like boxers to avoid having them splat against our sunglasses. A bit later in the season, some of the dirt roads were crowded with a single species of striped caterpillar with a distinctive orange head and tail, the latter with a supple spiny projection which suggested that it might be the larva of our common White-lined Sphinx Moth. It was curious to note that the vast majority of sphinx caterpillars were all heading in the same direction, as if the moth’s eggs had been deposited in one field of flowers, and the growing larvae were all heading to another field of flowers, but of a different type.

We also occasionally had to dodge reptiles that perhaps were feeding on the marching caterpillars. The most frequently seen reptiles were members of the Sceloporid lizard group (there are several species in this group that are found in our part of Arizona), and twice we saw the only horned lizard species known to occur in our area: the Greater Short-horned Lizard. Once, later in the season, I nearly ran over an approximately two-foot-long snake that I stopped and identified as the species known as the Terrestrial Gartersnake.

On one of our more favored routes, Redge and I would pedal up a gradual hill for nearly seven miles. The gravel road took us through juniper habitat for about half the distance, but then transitioned to oak, pine, and eventually fir trees. At our turning-around spot, we would stop to rest, eat, and take a closer look at whatever plants and animals caught our eyes. On the trip back down, we would drop from nearly 8500 feet to 6500 and would build up enough speed that I called it our “hang-glider flight” back to our parking spot. And sometimes, when I would hit a patch of wash-boardy road, it felt like I was airborne for only a little less time than the Wright Brothers.

By the time October came, insect and reptile sightings became uncommon, with the exception of stinkbugs, which seemed to have taken the place of the sphinx caterpillars in their migratory movements from one section of now mostly brown fields to another. Bird life also diminished, both in the diversity of species and in the number of individuals per species.

On our last ride of the year, closer to the end of October, virtually all of the flowers had gone to seed and the green hills had turned brown. There were still a few ephemeral ponds in the terrain’s low-lying pockets, but the road puddles had all disappeared. The occasional pick-up truck driving the gravel roads had been replaced by ATVs carrying deer and/or elk hunters. On our way back from that last Greens Peak-area ride and on into Show Low, Redge and I made our customary stop for coffee. This time, however, we switched from our usual iced coffees to steaming hot brews.

Fall will soon be gone, and it will be time to embrace a whole new set of activities. Maybe instead of dreading winter, I should keep in mind that if we get enough snow, at least I will be able to enjoy some cross-country skiing. And if we don’t get enough snow, well, maybe I will just keep bike riding all through the winter months.