You're on the Road, but You've Got No Destination

I was going to write this yesterday, but there was a big, ugly storm here the night before and we lost our power at 3'ish am and it didn't come back on until 6:30 yesterday evening. So, day late and always more than a dollar short.

Anyway, this will be mostly a photo post. Sunday and Monday of the holiday weekend were wonderful. The weather was mostly cloudy and cool and perfect for riding bikes.

We headed to Kalona because the Weather Channel said the winds were ESE. The Weather Channel was wrong, but it was okay. I didn't think the winds were bad any way they blew.

I love this ride, because it goes through Amish country and it's just really beautiful. We had a great ride and got to the dirt roads, which were fine, but then as I was shifting to my easiest gear up a big hill, my chain went off the tracks and got jammed. The boys tried everything and they couldn't even get one link free. Our friend Lisa's husband was going to meet us in Kalona with their son and he works at World of Bikes on and off, so she thought he might have his tools with him. He didn't and they were already on their way to meet us. I was a little sad that I might not be able to finish the ride, right as John had miraculously freed my chain and got my bike working just fine again. Hooray!

We made it to the Kalona Brew Pub, ate great food and then played some bags with Lisa's 7 year old son.

He also took a break to play Mine Craft with our friend Rob, who might just be a little bit of an expert.

We headed home through Sharon Center.

We had to wonder just exactly how big the Sharon Center Independence Day Parade is. The town is basically an intersection...

After we got home, John furiously cleaned our house, while I went to the store and started making dinner. Our friends from the ride came over and we had a great dinner of enchiladas and mojitos and them everyone else headed downtown to Jazzfest and the fireworks and John and I went to bed.

On Sunday I was going to try to do a trail run in the morning, but I was tired, my legs were shredded and I just didn't feel it. So, I read my book instead and then mowed the lawn and did some weeding in my garden, but, as usual, not nearly enough weeding.

We had planned to meet some of our friends at the Sugarbottom trails at 1 and ride some mountain bikes. Neither of them had ridden in a while and one of them had broken both of his wrists on those trails, so they were both hurting a little and only taking the green trails. no one gets that more than me.

One of the guys actually helped build those trails originally, so it was interesting to hear what they used to be like, and he really loved some of the newer trails he had never ridden before.

I know I've told you that we normally do a Monday night ride with our friends to Old 218 Tap. It's an easy, flat 20 mile ride that is perfect to get our friends who don't ride all that often, out on their bikes. The Tap is usually closed on  holidays and most of our friends seemed to be going to different Fourth of July festivities, so we didn't think there would be a ride that night. One of our friends posted in our ride group site asking if we'd ride. We decided, what the hell. Our friend Burne was up for it, so we rode to 30Hop in Coralville.

They made some cool trails on a floodplain behind the Marriott Hotel.

There were fun sculptures and fountains for photo ops and it is kind of fun to ride on the metal paths on bikes.

We finally made it to 30Hop and sat on the rooftop deck for a beeer before we went downstairs for dinner.

The food and the service were excellent. We had a lovely bike ride home and fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow. The sign of a perfect, long, weekend.