There was a no-occasion party at magdalene1's place Friday night, which was fun and chatty for a while, but then it was hot and I'd had less than six hours of sleep and I knew I had to be up early for a 10 a.m. screening all the way downtown, so I bailed by 11 and dragged my half-conscious carcass home. We all but picked up the same party with many of the same people last night at ladymajor and phaedrusdeinus' going-away party. I'd gotten up early, gone to the movie (Oy. Space Chimps.), run a bunch of errands, got my hair cut, and then came home and slept through the hot part of the day, so I was much more coherent and fun-havey, and I spent a lot of time talking with both the departees after the party quieted down around 1 a.m.

Eventually, around 2 or so, I figured it was time to leave, and I offered Phaed and Lady a ride home, since they live to hell and gone south, and were otherwise going to have to try to rustle up a cab in a residential neighborhood at bar-closing time on a Saturday. So off we headed south.

We ran right into L.A.T.E. Ride, an annual charity 25-mile bike procession that starts at 1:30 a.m. at Buckingham Fountain downtown and lasts through the night. We didn't know anything about it, so as we were riding south and ran into the first flotilla of a couple dozen bikers, we kind of went "Hey, look, cyclists at 2:30 a.m. Neat!" The people in the cars around us seemed similarly baffled; one guy kept yelling out his window, over and over and over, "Why the bikes? What's the cause? Hey, what's going on?" but the bikers were speeding by too quickly to answer him.

Then there was another group of several dozen. Then another and another. Then a steady stream of bikes in twos and threes. The police took control of the intersection, and were blocking people from turning onto Elston. Naively, I assumed they were sheparding this little group of a hundred or so strung-along bikers, and once we got around them, we'd be fine, so I took a side road and got onto Elston going south. We'd gone half a mile or so when I realized there was no one else driving on the road at all, and we were heading upstream into hundreds upon hundreds of cyclists.

It was a little eerie being alone in a car out there, but seeing all the bikers — old people, kids, serious cyclists in sleek helmets and Spandex, neighborhood teens with no special equipment — all pouring along together like a giant bike river. We wondered if it was some special Critical Mass event or what.

---

Eventually, we hit another police roadblock and were diverted. The cop there had nothing but a flashlight to signal with, and wasn't wearing a traffic vest, so he wasn't very visible and he seemed really, really frustrated, flashing his light rapidly in drivers' eyes as if to communicate in Morse code, and yelling "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Stop! You, stop! STOP! Go! Pull up pull up pull up pull up GO GO STOP GO!" Which led to this:

Me: Okay, we're off our route and I have no idea which way we're going now. What's next?

ladymajor: Keep going straight.

phaedrusdeinus: But stop at this red light.

Me: Okay, I do not need to be told to obey basic traffic laws. I'm willing to take instruction from anyone not trying to use a flashlight to stand in for the entire English language, but I still have enough presence of mind to stop at lights.

phaedrusdeinus: I don't think that guy was trying to flash out every word in the English language. Just "STOP," "GO," and "DAMMIT."

I got the giggles something serious at that point. I was tired and giddy with surreality.

---

Then we got to Phaed and Lady's neighborhood and dropped them off, and they suggested we follow Chicago to Milwaukee, turn onto Odgen, and take 90/94 home. No problem! Except that when we got to Milwaukee, it was MADE OUT OF CYCLISTS. There were no cops in the area yet — just so many bikers that they took up all four lanes, north and southbound, though they were all going north. There was a solid wall o' bikers, appearing out of the dark, gliding almost silently in front of us, and disappearing into the dark in the north. It was vaguely ghostly and eerie, like watching a massive herd of buffalo cross the plains. I was actually kind of envious. Clearly ALL OF CHICAGO was out biking. Why hadn't I been informed?

The lights at the intersection cycled four times without the car in front of us even attempting to get through on the green lights; there was just no point in attempting to cut through that stream of people. Eventually, the police showed up and took control and let us through. Turning onto Milwaukee — which we were only able to do because we were effectively making an almost-U-turn onto Ogden, and turning away from the crowd — we were able to see down Milwaukee, which to the south was just a four-lane-wide sea of bikers, as far as the eye could see. And then we were on the highway and away from it all.

Man. I really want to be a part of this event next year. Though I can't quite imagine biking all night. Maybe I should start resting up now.

I'm-a feelin': gleeful