Night Riding

I was away overnight and therefore not home to ride as usual this morning. I spent yesterday in NY on business, stayed at my daughter's house in Northern New Jersey and we went back into NY this morning for a family event. I drove home from New Jersey arriving in Philadelphia at about 5PM and feeling the need for a ride. So I jumped into my gear after feeding the cats and was on the road at 5:40 PM rather than 5:40 AM. I had never ridden at night before. Usually I'm working and if I'm not I'm tired from a day of work. But today I felt energized and the ride was great. It was about 34 degrees when I went out and no appreciable wind. The temperature was dropping and I started getting a bit cold when I had to wait about 7 minutes for a train to pass while on my way home. There were plenty of people out on the path: joggers, walkers and cyclists. The quality of the darkness at night did not differ from the quality of darkness in the pre-dawn morning.