One of the best things to do on Kiawah is to get up early and take a nice long bike ride, but it can be a challenge. Getting off of the streets tends to reduce your awareness of the many obstacles that you may encounter along the tree lined paths. One morning a group of us were out on our ride and low and behold as we came rocketing around a corner in the path a little boy was crying while sitting on the grass with his bike perched across the bike path. His old man was engaged in a conversation with a nice woman all decked out in her $2,000 road bike, and dressed to the nines in her biking gear. The conversation from the old man was very blunt and mean while the lady was agreeing with him, and could not do any more apologizing other than to get down on her knees and beg for his forgiveness. At some point I think that she realized that he was nothing but a big (you fill in the word) and said to him “ I am 60 years old and your son is a kid, I would hope that he has much better balance than I do, and if he doesn’t then he should not be out here riding a bike! “ This just made the big (fill in the word), even more angry. So she said I am sorry and I have a first aid kit on my bike if you would like it you are welcome to it if not I will continue my ride! He said nothing so she continued her ride. In retrospect the boy was crying not from any injury, but more because he fell on his bike and had an old man like he does.  Needless to say the next day we went the other direction, and would you know it we encountered another incident!  We decided to ride down to the Beachwalker public beach. As a side note we found a place to park RV’s. We arrived at the entrance of the beach and in order to get there you had to go across about 2 or 3 hundred years of boardwalk that was elevated about three feet off of the ground. In typical Kiawah way nothing is ever straight, so you had to wide your way thru the brush to get there. Oh I forgot the most important part, and the beginning of the boardwalk there was a big sign not a little one that tells you not to bring glass on the beach, bit a huge one that said DANGER! DO NOT RIDE BIKES ON THE BOARDWALK. (Do you wear glasses?)   Well I don’t have to say, some of our group saw the sign and others I guess need glasses. About half way to the beach there was a group of people (woman) and one of them slid right off the boardwalk and into the dunes! She had to have been hurt, as she pulled her bike back up on the boardwalk, while her companion stood there and watched her, one of them ask if she was hurt and you have to love her response, She said that her body was not hurt anywhere near as much as her pride. How true! I guess riding a bike is kind of like life there are dangers in the road ahead, and if we don’t pay attention to the path we are on, we get hurt, sometime physically, but all the time our pride!

Words of wisdom:  Pride is a wonderful gift, when it is because of honor and not ego.