The best thing about fall is the smell of burning leaves. Unless they're in your house, in which case, burning leaves suck. Also great about fall: wool socks. Unless you've worn them for three days in a row, in which case, you'll have lots of personal space. And that leads me, logically, to bike rides. Riding with The Writers is a whole new experience. This is what I learned last weekend:

1. "Tiny Dancer" and "Private Dancer" can be combined, brazenly, to make: "Hold me closer private dancerrrrrrr . . . " OR "I'm your tiny dancer, dancer for mo-neeeeeeee . . . " and I think we can all admit that the difference there is minimal, unless you are the dancer in question, in which case, if you’re the tiny dancer dancing for money, do you make less? And do you still get to lay down in sheets of linen? Are there sheets of linen or did I make up that line, much like I made up, "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy," and spent years assuming Jimi Hendrix was gay.

2. There is one landscaping truck for all of the subdivision in Deerfield that we had to ride through in order to get to the route which I didn't really know, so when I say "route," alert Power Love reader, you should read, "lost." But I'm not wrong about this pickup truck--there was one of it, and it was white, and it had green lettering and it just drove around in circles, passing us four, five, twelve hundred times, until I, alert bike rider that I am, said, "Hey! That truck's passed us, like, four, five, twelve hundred times! Is this, like, a blip in The Matrix?" At which point, I laughed hysterically at my Matrix reference and pondered the possibility of running to the windows to make sure they weren't bricked off and chided myself for not bringing my suitcase full of weaponry on the ride because I ask you: HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO FIGHT THE SMITHS WITH TUBES, CO2 CARTRIDGES, AND FIG NEWTONS????

3. You're not, that's how.

4. Sometimes, when there's construction, not all signage is blatantly obvious.

5. There is a place in Long Grove, IL, that is called The Fairy Garden and it is down the street from the confectionary. As every serious cyclist knows, fudge is created in confectionaries and fudge is the Second Coming of Our Lord, Chocolate.