summer misadventure #1
For the past week, since i got my awesome new stripy swimsuit, I've been psyching myself up to go swimming at the SERF. (That's SouthEast Recreational Facility.) There is much to worry over. Will there be drain-free lanes?*
Will I run into the other people in the lanes? I was going to go yesterday, but then I had a bad dream about swimming that involved a lane with a drain, not to mention the layer of water that was somehow suspended above our heads. You could stick your hand into it. Weird.
So I decided to be brave and go today. I also decided to be extra-brave and bike there. The biking there went without a hitch, except for the construction plaguing both ends of my journey. Then I walked into the SERF. I didn't know it doesn't open till 11 during intersession, so I was 10 minutes early. I stood there for several minutes before they notified me of this. Then I asked if I could just get a drink from the water fountain, which is definitely in viewing distance. They didn't seem to thrilled, but they let me. How kind. Then I sat outside till 11, when a massive crowd (many of them in awesome leggings) gathered to have their IDs swiped. When they swiped mine, there was a pause. "You'll have to pay your summer membership fee," they said. WHAAAAAT? Sure, it is only 10 bucks, but man. As though seg fees to the tune of $350 per semester aren't enough to cover ten dollars for the summer, too? Of course, I also didn't bring my money with me to the SERF, so I did not get to enter and swim today. Rrr.
So I hopped back on my bike (she needs a name, and it should probably be British-sounding. Any ideas? Feel free to comment). I decided to avoid the construction on the side of the SERF I came in from, since dump trucks were driving around and I didn't want to bike with dump trucks. So I went down by the Kohl Center, figuring I could pick the bike trail up back there. Um, no. I was on the wrong side of the tracks behind the Madison depot and there are actual cars on the tracks there. So I got to go all the way down to West Wash and then bike back. But I made it. It was a much more hilly ride than the nice Wingra Creek ride we did to Brat Fest last week.
*my fear of small drains, as in the one in Duco's pool or the ones in sinks and bathtubs, has been cured. I fear that my fear of large, rectangular drains a la Olympic-sized pools is incurable. I once read that people who had a twin that vanished, in addition to being extra likely to be lefties and have midline malformations, also have a tendency to fear vortices...weird.