February 29, 2024
Leap Day, part two
I’m anxious to share the details of our day with you, but first there’s this important announcement: we discovered how to turn off the kitchen cupboard lights!! It’s very exciting. Now if I’m sleeping on the couch again tonight it will at least be with the lights out. Yippee!
We (Rachael, actually) discovered it purely by accident, which I’m pretty sure is how they got turned on in the first place. And, I was wrong (again) - it wasn’t the non functioning switch I assumed was just broken. No, here’s the switch:
It’s that white disc on the door of the freezer. I’d never even noticed this was here, but it’s actually a remote control device with a magnetic back so you can mount it on any available metal surface. That’s so clever! What an excellent device to place in a rental unit! Rachael apparently leaned her back against it or something, shocking me when the lights suddenly went out for the first time in three days.
Has anyone seen anything like this before? I had previously warned our host that the light switch was apparently broken, so I updated it to let him know we’d finally solved his little mystery but suggested they put a note in the user instructions. They can’t count on many others to be such quick-witted sleuths as Team Anderson! We probably would have figured it out right away if we weren’t both laboring under a cold-induced brain fog.
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We’ve found a restaurant we like the look of for lunch - Casa Vila, a nearby waterfront place with reasonable prices, an appealing menu, and outdoor seating. They stop serving lunch at 3, so we plan on meeting there at 2:30.
It’s noon when I leave the apartment first, taking our lone apartment key with me. I’m out on the street waking up the Garmin when I realize that my route to Albufera Natural Park hasn’t been loaded. I consider calling Rachael and asking her to bring down her Garmin which probably does have it (too complicated to explain why) but decide I can figure it out on my own. I’m a smart boy, it should be no problem.
Rachael leaves not long after, and I’ll learn that she fit in a relaxed six mile walk strolling up and down the waterfront, delighted to be outside on active again - especially because it’s so warm and pleasant out today. It’s hard to believe, after it was so foul out yesterday. She’s just out for a walk and to enjoy the day, but she did stop long enough to bring a few photos back.
Well, I was wrong of course. Six miles into the ride I still haven’t found the entrance to the park. I know what I’m looking for - a small road into the park leading to the visitor center - but I’m six miles into the ride and past the western boundary of the park when I realize I’ve missed it. Frustrating, but I turn back and look more carefully. When I come to a rideable but unpaved path into the park, I take it.
Albufera is supposed to be a wetland and a good birding area (the couple from Pollenca we met on the bus to the ferry mentioned it as an attraction, but I’d already known and was planning to go); but there’s very little water here. Just enough to hold a single full, which I of course snap up. Yellow-biled gulls are probably the most common of the large gulls here and I’ll undoubtedly see many of them, but this guy’s the first of the year:
After that though I’m just making a slow loop through the park for a few miles, following a series of unpaved paths of varying quality until I’m finally dumped back on the highway near the point where I turned back the first time. Pretty enough and I unsurprisingly have the place to myself, but there are no more bird sightings. Not at all what I’d been imagining.
It’s around one at this point, and there’s no time left to just head back to the apartment and then on to lunch. About now Rachael calls, inviting me to show up early if I’d like. I’m not sure how far back it is though, so I turn her down and bike on. Three miles later I come to a small parking lot on the side of the road, totally unmarked. Suspicious, I bike across to check it out, see that there’s a small semipaved road leading away from it, and realize that this must be the park entrance I missed the first time. Its all unsigned as far as I noticed, so I guess you just have to know - or map out a route in advance and remember to take it with you.
This is more like it. The road follows a narrow channel for about half a mile before coming to the park facilities. At the end it’s clear that this would be a productive place to spend an hour wandering along its paths and checking out the birdlife - as had been my plan when I set out. There’s no time now though. I take a few minutes to take a few shots here and there, but I really do need to get back if I don’t want to keep my lunch date waiting too long.
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I’m close, but arrive three or four minutes late. I try blaming it on Rachael for the route loading omission, but she’s not having it. What she is having though is an elegant salmon dish, a serving large enough that she’ll take half of it home with her. I have the pork cheeks, a salad we share, and a glass of Tempranillo - after five days of sickness it feels like there’s a reason to celebrate. We take our time, luxuriating in sitting around on a warm sunny afternoon watching the world go by. Delicious all the way around.
And I narrowly avoid spoiling an otherwise fine day by realizing when we’re only a few hundred yards from the restaurant that I’m missing my glasses - and when we return, they’re there waiting for me.
In the evening we watch another show on Netflix, enjoying the luxury of viewing it with the lights out. This one’s another biopic about Diana Nyad, the remarkable woman who at the age of 64 became the first and only person to swim from Cuba to Key West. We heard of this film when Susan recommended it to us back in Tucson, and it really is an exceptional story. All the way through it it’s hard to keep remembering it’s a true tale.
Today's ride: 19 miles (31 km)
Total: 31 miles (50 km)
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