A little slice of strange

No photos for the following snippet, sorry, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Last Saturday was a windy, blustery day. Don and I were taking advantage of the break in the rain to get some outside chores done. I was cleaning the barn and dressed like it (picture muddy boots, ratty sweatpants, old jacket, etc.). Don wasn't working in mud, but he was dressed in his usual daily work clothes and occupied with a small project in the back yard and on our deck.

Below our property is a road leading further into our isolated little valley. There are other homes further on, snaking into the hills.

While we know most of the people in the homes further down the road, we don't know everyone – especially since a couple of properties have only recently sold. (It's worth noting that one of the recently sold properties is a higher-end home with acreage.)

Anyway, it was while he was working on the deck that Don heard voices. He looked down at the road and saw two people, a man and a woman. They looked to be in their 50s and wore high-end casual country clothing. He said the woman had a short and stylish Karen-esque haircut, and the man had distinguished gray temples.

Having strangers in the neighborhood is odd enough. But it goes further. Apparently they were riding identical lemon-yellow e-bikes up the steepish slope, pedaling gently. He overheard a snippet of conversation about the bicycle gears in which the man said, "I'm on two, sometimes three." The woman replied, "I'm on one. It's very hard to keep us even."

Following behind the e-bikes were two matching (as in, bookends matching) pure-white Corgi-esque lap dogs, very furry, just running along behind and presumably having the time of their lives.

Don watched this extraordinary sight until the people turned a corner and disappeared from view. Meanwhile, since I was out working behind the barn, I missed the whole thing.

In describing the scene to me after I got back to the house, he compared it to the exact opposite of what the locals must have thought when the Clampetts rolled into Beverly Hills. What on earth were these sophisticated people doing here? Where they staying in a local B&B? Were they new neighbors, possible living in the luxury home that recently sold?

"They looked like an advertisement for a high-end retirement village," Don said. "Both looked fit and attractive and very put-together. The e-bikes were matching. Those weren't rentals; they owned them."

We concluded that if these people were new neighbors, we wouldn't look down upon them just because they were fit, attractive, and clearly wealthy. We all have our crosses to bear. Theirs just had an electric assist.

But we also agreed it was just a little slice of strange.