Mother's Day: the perfect time for a bike ride

Yes, Mother's Day was yesterday, and after a morning of the maternally mundane (shopping at Target), I had an excellent afternoon outing with my family--to the Palos and Sag Valley Division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. We took our bikes and, after a brief stop at the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center, where we admired some 17-year cicadas, we drove to the "mountain bike staging area" and rode the yellow trail through the woods for a couple of hours. Can you imagine? The trail was practically empty on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in May......