So today my daughter and I went to a new-to-us hike in a new-to-us park that included a bit of this, the @LakeMetroparks Greenway Corridor.
If you zoom in real close on this photo you'll see a woman in black pants with platinum hair. (1/x)

We ended up catching up to her, because she wasn't just walking the trail. She was getting her fitness on, doing stretches and such every few paces. At some point, she moved erratically in the lane while we were JUST in front of her. Causing a biker behind the three of us (2/x)

to have to swerve quickly to avoid colliding with her. At that point, my 6 year old daughter was a couple paces behind me and apparently just a couple paces in front of Platinum Hair, and so there biker very accidentally plowed into my daughter at fairly high speed. (3/x)

All I heard was "SHIT!!” *CRASH* behind me. And turned to find the biker next to her bike with my 6yo very much UNDER her bike.
The biker was tremendously apologetic and concerned for my daughter's well-being. As she began to try to explain what happened, Platinum Hair (4/x)

quickly pieced together that she was being implicated and disappeared.
The biker and I established that my daughter was basically whole, no cuts, nothing broken, and I tried in vain to assure her we were okay. I tried to move on to thanking her for her concern and express (5/x)

my greatfulness that she and her bike were both okay. (Truly, this woman was not at fault and her concern was appreciated but...) My secondary safety concern kicked in. We were hovering closely over my weeping daughter and none of us were masked. (6/x)

She eventually realized we were all too close together and took a not-far-enough step back, explaining she has kids of her own and she's going to have nightmares about what had just happened. A good person, mortified, but now the bike wasn't the danger. (7/x)

I hope that she was not infected. I believe my daughter and I are not (but who could know?). This pandemic momentarily making a bad situation worse. We parted amicably, I wished her safety. Then my daughter and I found a bench to sit on, hug more, have a drink, and recoup. (8/x) – at Lake Metroparks Greenway Corridor

We were less than a third into our planned hike. I was so proud of my kid for bravely deciding she didn't want to give up and turn back. Though she'd prefer to stay in the grass next to the Greenway from now on. Which, fair! (9/x)

We soldiered on, thankfully not terribly far (we'd pre-planned this hike to be a brisk 1.4 miles and used pennies on the table to talk about tenths of miles and, so, about how much proportionally longer this hike would be than Thursday's 1-miler. (10/x)

There was a waterfall to see, after all, and my brave bear wasn't going to let a little thing like a massive collision, head scrape, and knee bump keep her from seeing it. She was further heartened to see the signs at the Chair Factory Falls Overlook Trail head indicating (11/x)

NO BIKES / NO HORSES ("Yeah, because I bet getting hit by a horse would hurt even worse!" "They'd probably just step on you.")
So we trekked on, and we found our waterfall, and it was worth every bit of the trouble. (12/x)

She even made me take a video "for Instagram" and bonus, we saw the CUTEST husky puppy. (13/13) – at The Falls Overlook

should cc @melissabaloney on this thread because she got like SOME of the story and assurances that her kid is alright but had to also be wondering wtf happened.