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Maybe that's not everyone's idea of pretty, but it sure looked nice to me when I went there yesterday morning with my dear friend Donna. It's the state park at El Morro in north Laguna, heading up the road we call I Think I Can. Years ago, when Monte and I lived in the trailer park (that no longer exists) next door, this good, slightly unkempt backcountry was our private playground. Friends would come by and we'd put our bikes over the fence and traverse the dusty ridges on two wheels. We rode headlong into the day, feeling happy and young, the way being on a bicycle tends to make you feel.

Then again, we were young. Donna and I did the math and figured out that the last time we'd been here together was more than 25 years ago. We had little kids home waiting for us then, or sometimes with us. In fact, as I stood at the crest of that hill yesterday, it occurred to me that I used to regularly ride up it while pulling a trailer with a little girl on board and all her library books.

Every hill, road, and viewpoint evoked memories and stories for us, but yesterday's ride at El Morro wasn't just about looking back. It was about the wonderful continuity of our friendship, and the fact that we're still riding, no longer young but sturdy enough, and exceedingly grateful.

"It's all so familiar but unfamiliar at the same time," said Donna.

The area has certainly been altered, but it's still a park, at least. And it was comforting to recognize certain immutable silhouettes. Looking east from the ridge we saw the distinctive peaks of Old Saddleback in the Santa Ana Mountains, and to the west, there was Catalina floating dreamlike beneath a blue and feathered sky.We came down Slow n Easy.

The weather was summer warm and bone dry, but the grass along El Morro Canyon was emerald green, fed by the creek. The road to the parking lot was just a little steeper than I expected.

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