It was spring break and the kids announced they wanted to make chocolate chip cookies. Who am I to stand in the way of the production of sweets????

A quick inventory of ingredients revealed we were out of eggs. Most normal people would just run to the store and grab a dozen. If you know me or you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know, I’m not “normal people”. I’m an egg snob and I blame my neighbor Cammy. Cammy keeps hens and is very generous with her eggs. It is hard to describe to someone the difference between a mass produced egg and locally raised, fresh egg. A fresh egg is just, well, eggyier, but not in a bad way, it just has a deeper, richer flavor. It is a mild infusion of taste, but once you’ve had it, you’ll never go back to regular eggs. It is sort of like the difference between a handmade chocolate and a Hershey bar.

I could have gotten in the car and taken a ride to Cam’s, but it was a beautiful day and I was looking to get some exercise and spend some time with my daughter. So, we decided to perform and eggsperiment. We hopped on our bikes and pedaled away.

Cammy lives about 2 miles away, and I was looking for a bit more exercise, so we took a roundabout route to her house. Upon arrival at Cammy’s we discovered a dozen eggs wasn’t going to fit in Fish’s bike basket. Carefully I ripped the cardboard container in half and we snuggled the two halves in a dishtowel I’d brought along for padding. Then we were off for the quick two mile ride home.  Or so we thought.

Eggcept when we went to turn on our road, we encountered this.

For my city slicker readers, dirt roads are riddled with divots and pot holes eggspecailly during mud season and after days of rain (which we’d recently eggsperienced). The town comes through and turns over the dirt with a tractor pulling a eggceptionally large blade on an angle, then they go back over it with another eggceptionally large rake. The result is a surface that is loosely packed dirt and gravel. Great for cars and trucks, but when you are riding a bike a newly graded road is like slogging through taffy. It is bumpy, large rocks appear out of nowhere and the loose surface makes for slow traveling. It is hard enough on a regular ride, nevermind one involving eggceptionally fragile cargo.

Rather than risk further eggasperation, we turned around and rode back the way we came. Well, we modified the route a little to avoid some hills that were fun as down hills, but looked pretty miserable as up hills.

All was well, until we once again reached the dirt. Half of our passengers decided to make their escape. Ooops. Amazingly, they all survived the drop without a scratch.

So, one hour and 10.5 miles later, I got my eggcercise and we had eggs for cookies. Ah, such is the adventure of life in the country.