How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach ...
My soul can reach ...
The question is how many ways do I have to leave the house on my bike. The answer is Plenty.
Unlike many houses which are on a hilly, dead-end street, I have at least a dozen exit routes. Here is a map showing these ways to leave. The scale is one half-mile per side. Of course as is customary on treasure maps, X marks the bicycle garage, my starting place.
Unlike many houses which are on a hilly, dead-end street, I have at least a dozen exit routes. Here is a map showing these ways to leave. The scale is one half-mile per side. Of course as is customary on treasure maps, X marks the bicycle garage, my starting place.
The GREEN lines show exits that require riding through the canyon or on a trail. The sneaky ways out. One of which appears to be blocked this morning!
The YELLOW lines show the ways I can ride on an alley (mostly paved; some dirt).
The RED are normal streets that you drive with your car (there are many more RED tributaries than I have counted).
The gradient (dark to light shading at 135° diagonal) portrays the slope of our hill. Up is at top left.
The gradient (dark to light shading at 135° diagonal) portrays the slope of our hill. Up is at top left.
Routes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 12 are uphill (darker). The rest are downhill (lighter). If I had used a larger map, I could have shown that all routes go downhill pretty quickly - certainly within a mile. Which means they are uphill coming home (as I have complained before).
What's the point? Other than amusement for me and sheer amazement for my readers, this is a chance to reacquaint myself with Adobe Illustrator, the multi-layer, vector-based, technical-drawing software I used to make the map.
It also Illustrates the dilemma I face each morning. Which Way Do I Go?
It also Illustrates the dilemma I face each morning. Which Way Do I Go?
Any "leaving home" choice must consider either (A) coasting, or (B) working hard in the first 30 seconds. Hmmm. Which way would you chose to start out?
