Shakedown. Dreams Walking in Broad Daylight.

Looking behind me to make sure we were all still together.

 Sunday I tried to play every way I could. I did a short 1.5 mile run, to see if my ankle could handle it. Then John and I rode about 10 miles of mountain bike trails, but I was still pretty exhausted from the race the day before and John flatted riding on the rock garden, so we went home and I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch. Then we headed to The Amanas to reride that gravel route after a week without rain.

 This time we rode with our friends, Timmer and Burne. We headed out on the part of the gravel we did the week before. Our friend Timmer isn't the best at waiting for other people when we ride, so John thought he would have a little fun with him. Since John is a stronger ride than almost anyone I know, he can catch any of our friends, no matter how far back he is. So, John rode up to Timmer and told him that if we didn't catch him before he reached Green Castle Road, to take a left and wait for us at the top of the hill. Then he told us to slow down. There is a HUGE hill to left of that road. Of course, we were really supposed to turn left, where there was no hill.

I caught Timmer when he had just started up the hill and told him that we were just kidding, but he decided he'd get up as far as he could anyway. He made it most of the way up and we all had a good laugh.

Since I took pics of the first part of this loop last week, I'll only take photos of the last part of the loop that we couldn't ride the week before because it was too muddy.

There are about 3 water crossings on this loop. the first one the deepest and went almost up to our thighs. I got some good practice shouldering my bike.

This is a really scenic wetlands area and we came across some beautiful snowy egrets, that flew away before I could photograph them.

The second water crossing wasn't bad at all. If we took the high line, it only went up to our ankes.

The third crossing was actually rideable, if not a little scary because of the rocks on the creek bed. If I had been riding my mountain bike, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

The field here was gorgeous. I'm not sure what the grass was, that gave it its yellowy tint.

The whole route took us a little over 24 miles. We got back to Millstream to more polka bands and good craft beer. A couple of our women friends showed up after they had a girl kayak excursion.

the girls were more hungry than thirsty, so we headed over to Phat Daddy's for really good pizza.

From start to finish, Sunday was one hell of a good day.