The view is on my bike route, too, located at the intersection of Moore Ave. by E 5th St. It took an hour and forty-five minutes. I was painting into the effect. The dusk was falling fast. Actually, there is an anecdote behind this painting.
Many of you know my biking serves two purposes. One is for exercise, of course; the other is to explore the surrounding area in order to pick scenes for plein air painting. For that reason, I often altered my biking route from time to time. Once, I remember, I biked into Hendry County on a deserted road full of potholes and cracks. It is true I often took the road less traveled.
A few days ago, I biked along E 3rd St. to the east. It is the street next to a canal and there were very few houses on the road, and no traffic at all. I felt I was left alone in the world biking on the road when I saw a police car ahead of me. I felt strange. Why was the cop patrolling here in the middle of nowhere? More strangely, he drove very slowly. When i caught up with him, he had stopped at the intersection form some time, sitting there looking around. After I passed him, he started to drive slowly again. By the time, I caught him at the next intersection, I saw him doing the same thing -- stopping his car and looking around. I thought it was none of my business and ignored him. Therefore, the two of us were going along E. 3rd St. by ourselves, passing each other by turns all the way till we were nearing Scott Ave. There was a house there ahead of us and on both sides of the road were a whole bunch of cars and trucks including some police cars. At that point of time, my traveling companion began to drive faster than before. He passed me and parked his car on the roadside with the other vehicles.
I saw quite a few people (maybe plain-clothes) and cops on the road. They were all opening their trunks to get stuff. I saw some of them wearing something like black turtlenecks with the collar pulled up so high that it covered their mouths. What the heck, it's not that cold, I thought to myself. What's going on? Wait a minute... Oh no, they all had on their bullet-proof vest and took their automatic machine guns out of their trunks. By then, I was in the middle of the crowd of cops, some of them walking towards the house and others spreading out to surround it. What should I do? I saw a cop staring at me with gun in hand. He motioned me to ride faster. I really wanted to be out of it, so I began to pedal really hard, praying they would wait for me to leave before they stormed the house. I used the top speed on my bike but I felt it moved like a turtle. Would bullets come from behind my back? Pretty soon, I hit Moore Ave. I made a left turn. In a minute, I was on the dirt road in the painting.
I don't know what the cops were doing there. Was it a growing house as people here call it? I don't know. They looked like a SWAP team. I tried to find out on news time but couldn't. Maybe I missed it because of Winter Olympic Games.
