Last Saturday our children had plans to spend the day and night at their friend's house and that left John and I to our own devices. (can I get a 'yee-haw'?!).
Now, what does one do when your teenage children are all gone from the house and you havea gorgeous day to do whatever you like? As for us, we strapped packs and coolers onto our bikes, loaded them with food, lots of bottle water and a blanket, put our bikes in the van and took off for a bike trail.
We'd not been on this trail before and didn't know what to expect...flat, easy going? Hills? Rough road/trail conditions? Who knew and...who cared? We just wanted to have a little adventure with just the two of us. We didn't have to worry about whether or not our youngest could keep up, or if we took a long time or...ANYTHING!
It turned out that the trail was a little bit of everything with some sunny open prairie-type terrain and other parts were more woodsy and lush (my favorite). We had level spots which made for easy conversation and smooth pedaling and we also had some thigh-burning hills to keep things challenging. It wound around quite a bit, meandering along parallel with a little creek/river sometimes. It's so nice to hear running water over rocks don't you think? We saw lots of birds that I couldn't identify, a blue lizard that I think must have been a salamander, a little water turtle and a deer that ran right across our path. We even had to be cautious in some areas to avoid the occassional kamikazee bunny or squirrel that just run right out in front of your bike.
One of the best things was that we stopped when we wanted and road when we wanted. We ended up riding about 10 good hard miles one way and stoppping to rest in the town we lived in when we first were married (about 40 miles from our home now). We found a lovely park with gorgeous trees and spread out our blanket underneath it to eat and nap. There was a festival of some sort going on at a historic farmstead across from the park and we could hear the band playing while we dozed. I wondered at one point...how long had it been since I'd laid on the ground and looked up at the clouds going by? Too long. How 'bout you?
After a good long rest we started back. We road over 20 miles over about a five hour period.
We came home to a crockpot of black bean soup, crusty bread and salad and then sat around the house in our underwear, just because we could (is that TMI?) LOL and played board games until we couldn't stay awake any longer.
*sigh* I really did have such a great time.
