The score: Me 1, Lake Flies 0

The dark clouds hovering above the road should have tipped me off.

Or the post that held up a "For Sale" sign. Instead of being white it was more of a gray color.

And of course, I know what time of year it is.

But I just couldn't help it. It was way too nice again to be cooped up in the YMCA. So I opted out of my planned swim and decided to come home and pull my bike out of the garage for a nice bike ride.

I didn't think about the lake flies.

OK. Maybe I did. But I was in denial. I didn't think they'd be that bad. I mean seriously. They were flying. Up in the air. Way above my head. It wasn't going to be a problem.

Yeah, I was wrong.

During some parts of my ride, mostly the sections of road that are really close to the lake (only the first two miles and the last three miles), they were nasty. I tried to duck and avoid them. Drivers passing me must have thought I looked kind of funny, bobbing my head as I'm biking down the road.

But I wasn't so successful in avoiding the pesky flying creatures.

Every so often I'd feel something smash into my head. Then I'd hear the splat. And then I'd shudder. Because lake fly guts? Not so pretty.

I kept pedaling though. And bobbing my head. And trying to avoid the dive bombing lake flies, which kept flying right into me. While I can kind of handle lake fly guts on my clothing, I made sure to keep my mouth closed tight. Because I'm not OK with eating lake flies. I'm sure in some weird, warped way, the protein lake flies offer is a good thing, I'd just rather get in a different form.

I'm happy to report that I did not ingest any lake flies. And none of them got stuck in my eye or fly into my ears. And I didn't find any splattered remains on my shirt, or body, today. I think you can call that a successful 10.5 mile bike ride.

If you ask the lake flies though, they'd probably have a different story. Because I'm sure I left a few dead ones behind along the way.

It's totally not my fault that some of them are dead or severely injured though. The lake flies were the ones who choose to hatch this week. And they were the ones who choose to fly right into me. Any smart lake fly would know that if you fly really fast into a large object, some one's going to die.

And in this case? I won. Some lake flies are dead. Now I just have to wait a few more days until the rest of them croak. Then we won't have this problem anymore.