afternoon cruise

For a while now I’ve been trying to take Mondays off from any significant physical activity. Yesterday afternoon I took a quick 1.3 mile ride up to get a burrito. Then I thought I’d just cruise up the street a little further to stretch the legs. It was a really nice day and I found myself pedaling along my seven-mile bridge run route. It’s interesting how different it looks from the other side of the street. Then I kept riding some more following the Arroyo Seco towards Brown Mountain.

I got to thinking about all the trails up in those mountains that I’d like to experience. So I hung a West and rode up to the map shop to look at those trail on paper.

I think it would be fun to walk/run from my home to the Pacific Crest Trail. This would likely be an (multiple) overnight journey for me at this stage in my endurance/life. The PCT is probably something like 30 miles away - I didn’t measure on the map. Of course, if I walk all the way to the PCT, shouldn’t I just walk all the way to Yosemite, too. Or Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Canada… Another very long-term goal, I guess.

Then on the way back I finally got a chance to ride across the new pedestrian/bicycle bridge over the Arroyo next to Devil’s Gate Dam. It’s got a nice solid steel framed structure with wooden planks for a floor. It’s a little noisy as you pass over but that just adds to the fear factor of the 50-foot drop over the side.

After that I took a North and had a nice mellow ride through the quiet shady river canyon (mid-seventies and sunny yesterday) below Brown Mountain.

After 25 miles of resting, I came home and had wine with Hilary.

Hilary drinks wine now, you ask? Well, yes, thank god, and she started just in time - last week she tore her ACL.