Category Archives: bike riding

Solo riding!

John was boiling away in Vegas with temps in the 90s and higher (eek!) and we had upper 60s and low 70s. Perfect temps for biking, although it was a bit breezy. I was so glad the rain finally passed through so I could get on the bike!

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Ready to roll!

The paths were still kind of wet, especially in the shady parts.

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This is a coal silo restoration project along the path:

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The canal is really high right now. I don’t know how they route the water because the Hudson can be really high and the canal will be low, even if it rains. However, now it is really full.

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While I was riding, I got a call from John, so I stopped at some outside tables for a chat!

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There is a cool building for sale nearby as well:

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Wouldn’t it be cool to fix this up and live in the top and have some cool artist shops below?

I headed towards Lake George, but turned around before the big downhill parts because the path was freshly black topped last year and it gets mossy and slick when there are days of rain, so I just played it safe since I was alone.

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It was time for my treat!  I headed to Martha’s for the first time this year.

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Nom, nom, nom!

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I swung back around to Glens Falls and decided to check out the LARAC festival. I was going to go on Sunday, but decided to scope it out on Saturday instead.

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Always interesting stuff.

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I love these little mushrooms. They look giant in the picture, but really are about a foot tall.

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Someone also had handmade guitars there, which I haven’t ever seen at this show before.

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They guy said “Go ahead and play!”  So I picked one up and noodled a little bit, even though it was not the type of guitar I play.  It had steel strings – owie!!. Then I asked the man how much they were and he said $4000!!  😯   He was letting anyone pick them up and play them, such as my sweaty bikey self, and I don’t know how he had the nerve to do that with how much they were!

Good thing about biking is that I think 3 times before buying something because it has to make it home 🙂  I decided I don’t really need to be buying anything right now as we need to save lots of pennies for the things we have to have in our new house. So, it was time to pedal home.

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Quick detour to a part of the path I don’t go on too often.  You can see the path winding down. Those moutains way in the back are Vermont:

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Home!

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Bonus manicure shot!  I totally forgot to get my stats off the computer and then I reset it on Sunday for that day’s ride, so all I have is the total mileage of 30.1 miles! And a very enjoyable day!

Breakfast ride!

One of my favorite rides of the week has to be Sunday morning to breakfast. It’s always really quiet because most people are still sleeping or maybe at church and it’s just peaceful.
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It was pretty chilly when we left the house, but it was supposed to get warmer.  8 miles later and we hit up Panera Bread for breakfast!

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It was nice to relax and chat over coffee.  We decided to keep riding for a while and head to Lake George:

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I will say that it’s now tourist time. The people on the path. The people! Spread over the path, with dogs that chased us, kids weaving all over the path on bikes. It can be dangerous.  John and I got separated by a clot of people and then I saw a young boy topple over from his bike, so I stopped to make sure he was okay.  His mom had scooped him and and he was crying, but no blood or anything.

 

I said to him, “Do you know what this means?”

 

What?”

“It means you are a real biker now.”   Then he smiled and we knew he was fine. So, I continued on and met John at the lake, who was probably wondering where I got off to. LOL.

Boom.

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We hadn’t thought too much about this ride as I didn’t have sunscreen and we didn’t have a snack. It was a long ride without food, so we got a snack at the lake and wandered around.

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Fort William Henry fife and drum group.

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We headed back home and wound through more people. Ugh!  It went from 0 to 60 with people this weekend.  We had shed jackets since it was pretty warm.

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After a bit, I realized that I was going to burn in the sun, so I had to put my jacket back on to protect my arms. I did not have my travel sunscreen in my bag since I took it out last fall! We really didn’t prepare well LOL!

The marsh:

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It really was a gorgeous day.

Home!

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Ride stats:

Total miles:  33.8

Average speed:  12.2 mph

Top speed:  26.6 mph

Calories burned: 1010

This ride felt really good. Definitely ready to head down to Saratoga!  Not to mention I want to do 46 miles on my birthday in a couple weeks 😀  

Godzilla and biking!

Another weekend flying by.  I have not been to a movie in a theater in 2 years (the last Batman). It takes a lot to get me out to the theater and this movie did it. Godzilla!  I am a huge Godzilla fan and grew up watching all the monster movies on TV. I loved Godzilla, King King, Rodan, Mothra, Gamera. Yay!  Of course, I had to see this with my sis, so we met her, the nieces and my BIL for a Saturday showing.
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I tried to get my nieces to look scared and this was the best take:

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Good thing they have other talents because they are not thespians…

As a true fan, I have to say the last reboot of Godzilla with Ferris Bueler Matthew Broderick was horrible and disappointing.  However – this reboot? Amazing!  I loved it!  No silly one-liners, excellent special effects. Just very good.  I didn’t really care about the family at all  – in fact I kept forgetting their names. But who cares because… Godzilla!  Highly recommended.

We all went out to lunch and then it was time for John and I to get in a ride. Not going to waste a nice weekend day!  Our original plan was to go to the lake and back.  

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It was pretty breezy and I was feeling fatigued just from a hard week. Work was pretty bad this week and on top of that I haven’t been sleeping well and I think it just took its toll.  After 10 miles, I told John to go on to the lake. I still wanted the miles, but not the hills, so we decided to meet back up again a little later.  I went back through the streets.  Looking off to the golf course:

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You can’t bike on the golf course.  Probably a good thing 😀

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Hometown Glens Falls and our future home when the never ending closing finally happens:

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I love the paint job on this building!

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I rode for another 10 miles or so and got a text from John that he was headed towards Coopers Cave and froyo!  I headed that way and met up with him on the path and it was time for our treat!

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I got a Mexican sundae, which is chocolate and peanut butter (under that whipped cream!) on top of vanilla yogurt. That’s probably my favorite thing to get at Coopers.

We actually got chilly eating this as it was much later than we normally are out riding and was starting to cool off.

My patented shot while biking!

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All done! Tired, but still a good ride:

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I have another project I am working on.  I found something interesting up in the attic of the shop.

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So, I got to cleaning it up.  It’s quite old, actually. I took off the back to make sure there weren’t any buggies in it before bringing it into the house and found a stamp on the mirror from CD Widman, which is a company in Detroit founded in the 1800s!  The mirror itself is beveled and has that funny coating on it to make it the mirror (not sure if that makes sense). This piece has been painted, so it isn’t the original finish.  It looks pretty good clean:

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This is going to become part of my dresser redo project, which I will talk about at some point when I get a chance. This will be getting a new coat of paint and detailed cleaning (there is paint on the mirror).

Sunday was also more family time!  It was my dad’s birthday, so we gathered for ice cream cake!

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I can’t believe another work week is upon us. I cannot get everything done on the weekends that I want to do! Note to self:  buy a lottery ticket this week.

Riding and Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Such a nice weekend!  Saturday started with rain, but then it got nice and I got so much done!  This was the first weekend in many weeks where I didn’t work on at least one of the days. Having 2 days off was a real treat.  I got working on some painting projects, including doing my great grandmother’s table!

Before:

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I made my own version of chalk paint to paint it in a linen color and did a transfer on it.  I can do a tutorial on this if you want. It was easy and came out cool.

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I coated it with satin polyurethane for protection and now it will be by my side again as my table during work!

Sunday morning was ride time! This was our first breakfast ride of the year, can you believe it?

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This is the Hudson:

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This is the husband!

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What an amazing sky, right? We stopped at Coffee Planet for breakfast!

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After lounging for a while, we continued on our ride.  We decided to mark how far it was to bike to Radiance Manor from there.  Turns out it is exactly 1 mile! Totally walkable to come downtown as well.  We creeped around the property just to make sure it was okay and so I could see what was happening in the back yard.

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You know this is killing me.  

Want to see something kind of sad?  This was written on the back of the house:

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I feel bad for the family that had so much trouble here.

Did I mention this house is 95 years old?  This is an old milk chute.

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There is a similar door on the inside of the house.  From the inside, you would put your empty milk bottles inside the compartment and the milkman would be able to get them from the outside and replace with fresh milk. How times have changed.

This waiting is so hard. Ugh!  Anyway, we had more riding to do.  We took a turn down a side street near the path that we have never been and came upon a treat!

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This is Glen Lake.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a place on the water here? No tourists!

Tulips blooming at the Country Club:

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Definitely a great day for a ride and we got in over 23 miles.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!  We took out my mom for a nice casual dinner at The Spot.

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Very beautiful evening as well. 

Post dinner ride!

It was such a nice day that I wanted to get on the bike and ride. Normally I do the gym on Thursdays, but since it is supposed to be rainy tomorrow, I decided to take a solo bike ride after dinner and save the gym for Friday. It’s really starting to feel like spring now. Things are greening up!

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Bike path start.  I hopped on and off the path tonight.

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This light took forever, so I took a picture while waiting for it to turn. Just so you all can wait with me.

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Yay!

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You can see the cement plant in the background of this photo.

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The sun came back out about half way through my ride, which was nice. I was beginning to wonder if the rain was going to come early.

The trees are finally budding out.  This is the more wooded part of the bike path (duh).

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An ice cream shop right on the path. I didn’t stop there, though 😀

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More picture taking while riding!

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I passed by Covet House, too.

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One of these days I will get up the nerve to ask to see their house!

Nice evening ride!

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It felt good to be outside and not bundled up for a change!

Sharing my Photo A Day picture here today.  The prompt is Something Blue:

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I had this drink at a restaurant some time last year and I loved the color of the bottle, so I kept it. 😀

 

First Lake Ride of the Year!

Finally! We made it to Lake George.  The weather looked a little iffy, but we decided just to go and deal with it if it rained 🙂

The temps were supposed to hit 60 and there was very little wind, so good enough!  Showers were predicted for later, so we left in the late morning.

Path riding Woo Hoo!

 

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It was a good day to be out.

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I told myself since this was the first lake ride of the year with all of the hills, it was okay if I had to stop. Turns out I didn’t need to. I went slow and steady up the hills and we made it to the peak!

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It had been several hours since breakfast, so I had this juice, which had come in a food sample pack.

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It was only 60 calories and really a small portion for all that packaging.

Finally seeing the lake on the bikes for the first time since the fall!

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It’s very quiet at the lake right now as many shops are not open and there aren’t many tourists.  Some shops are open, though. Like the Silver Mine and peace shop:

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Rastafarian snowman??

We were hungry for lunch and stopped at the Bank Cafe, which used to be an actual bank. I had some lobster bisque for lunch, which was yummy!

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We walked around after that looking at the few shops that were open and enjoying being outside!

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My husband…

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I told him to look scared, but he just looks like he is on his cell phone.

We decided to have afternoon coffee back in Glens Falls, so it was time to hit the hills on the way back. We stopped at the marsh for a break:

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We saw lots of red winged blackbirds staking out their territory, too! Spring is finally here.

Bikes racked in Glens Falls:

 

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We stopped at Spot Coffee, which is our go-to spot now for weekend and evening coffee as they are open late!

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I had a pumpkin apple muffin with coffee.  I realized I hadn’t really had enough calories since we had already ridden about 25 miles by this point.

 

It was nice to sit and chat and relax.  I need to do more of that with how stressful work has been lately. However, we weren’t sure if it was going to rain or not, so it was time to head home.

I wanted to see if I could take a picture with my phone while riding. Don’t try this at home, kids!

 

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It worked!  I probably don’t need to know this. 😀

Home and feeling good!

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Ride stats:

Total miles:  33

Average speed:  12 mph

Top speed:  28.1 mph

Calories burned:  1178

 

This was the longest ride of the year so far. My legs felt pretty good, actually. All that lifting has been good for the muscles even though I haven’t ridden as much this year.  Not terribly tired and my sit bones were good as well, although I don’t know if I would have wanted to go 10 more miles. 

 

 

 

 

 

Windy Riding!

Saturday was ride day since we were going to my folks’ house for dinner on Sunday.  It actually started on a very sad note.  I looked outside in the morning and saw a kitty on our lawn.  My heart sank because I recognized the kitty as one that comes through our property a lot. She was owned by someone last year because she had a flea collar on, but over the winter the collar disappeared and she didn’t have any ID on her.  We called her Girly Girl (not sure how that came about).  She was somewhat friendly and the other day happened to just walk in the shop because John had the door open.  Anyway, I went outside hoping that she was just injured and I could help her, but it was too late.  We don’t know who she belonged to (if anyone). I was starting to think she was homeless and wondered if she was going to become my next project and I feel maybe I dropped the ball there. Anyway, we buried her. We will keep an eye out for signs about a missing cat or if we hear anything. I don’t know if anyone misses her, but I cried for her.

Sorry about that depressing start of the post, but it made my heart heavy for a lot of the day.  We waited until after lunch to ride. The plan was to go to the lake, which would be about 32 miles round trip and the first real hill challenge of the year.  While 55 seems warm coming off the winter, it actually is pretty chilly still and so I bundled up with some long underwear and a couple of jackets. Still Michelin Man time :).

It was really, really windy out. It was a head wind to start and boy howdy did I get tired right off the bat. You have to work so much harder to keep your balance and just make headway that it is really tiring.  

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About 8 miles in, we decided that we didn’t want to try to get all the way to the lake because we would have to come back after struggling the whole way there.

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I didn’t see this picture later until later with the bunny ears John was trying to make. Nice husband…

We ended up going to Decision Point, which is the stop where we decide to continue to the lake or not. Obviously we already knew we weren’t.

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We rested here for 5 minutes or so. We had passed a woman on a bike a bit earlier and said hi as we went by. She ended up coming through here and said “Can you imagine how great this day would be without the wind?” I laughed because that proved to John that I wasn’t the only one complaining about the wind.

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We decided to go loop around and hit up the new coffee shop in Glens Falls – Spot Coffee.  This was 15 miles in.

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Now there is a Spot in Saratoga and we really like it. It’s a small chain that started in Canada. Anyway – 2 years it took them to open this! It’s a beautiful build out, though.

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Snack!!

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After relaxing some, we walked around downtown and stopped in a store that sells old furniture. They like to do the painting of old furniture, which sometimes I don’t mind, but sometimes I wish they hadn’t.  Anyway, the downstairs is where the furniture is sold. You can purchase it and they will paint it and do whatever finish style you want on it.  John saw a china cabinet that was just perfect for Radiance Manor. If we ever close on it, that is…

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The ceilings in the new house are not really tall, so we have to be careful about the scale of furniture. This is perfect because it is 5 feet 1 inch, from the 1930s and in fantastic shape.  The price on it was $85, which made me stop in my tracks and then the owner said “That piece is on sale now for $75”.  I nodded, but inside I was all YIPPEE SKIPPEE!

We checked out some other really nice pieces as well and decided to purchase the cabinet. Of course, we asked them to hold it since it didn’t fit in our bike bags.  We will have to go later in the week and pick it up.

After that unexpected purchase, we left for home. Note to self:  STOP buying things for the new house

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Finally home and actually pretty tired.

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Ride stats:

 

Total miles 24.2

Average speed:  11.1 miles per hour (much slower than normal due to wind)

Calories burned:  943

So, the lake will have to wait. There is plenty of biking season to get there ann back. No hurry.

 

 

2500 Miles!

Yippee!  I finally reached 2500 miles!  The first ride of the year was March 10th and I hit 2500 on November 16th.

2500 miles

I wasn’t planning on hitting that Saturday, but it turns out that Sunday ended up rainy and there was no biking – so I am glad I did. Saturday was gorgeous! I still was bundled up because it was in the 50s.

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The exact spot where I crossed over 2500:

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I actually ended up a bit over 2500 on the day:

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Some fun stats.

Equivalent miles of running – Approximately 834

Calories burned – 75,060, give or take a few thousand

Pounds not gained due to calorie burn- 21

Pounds lost during the season –  Zero  😀  I just don’t lose during biking season.

Flat tires – Only 1!  Remember the year of the flat tire a couple years ago? I replaced the tires with Gatorskins and that was so worth it. Those tires cost more, but overall less than all the tubes I had to buy from all the flats.

Distance traveled – Albany to Los Angeles is 2457 miles, so pretty much across the US! Of course, that is air miles, so I guess I need a flying bicycle.

Last year’s total road miles – 2174

Things that contributed to the success of this goal:

The weather.  We actually had somewhat of a wet summer, but there didn’t seem to be days on end where it would rain, so I was able to sneak in rides here and there.

No injuries, or least nothing that kept me from cycling.

My job.  Having the ability to flex my schedule allowed me to get in those rides when the weather was right.

Deciding to commit to the goal.  That meant always planning out how many miles I wanted in a week and checking the long range weather to plan when I was going to ride.

How about a collage of some of the treats I had while riding this year?

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So what’s next?  I am not ready to bring the bike in for the year yet. There may be another nice weekend this month. I have never ridden into December, so that is probably very unlikely, but I did ride Thanksgiving weekend last year.

Fall Foliage Tour

You know those times when everyone you know is out of town?  That would be me – including John being away.

 

So how about I take you on a fall foliage tour?  It was cloudy on Saturday, which is a good type of weather for taking foliage pictures, although it would have been better if the sun was a bit brighter through the clouds.

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I snagged John’s clear glasses to ride in since I didn’t need my shades, but still need eye protection.

I’ll just let the shots do most of the talking.

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At the marsh:

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Me looking over the bridge:

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How a smidge of video?  Don’t try this at home, kids.

You can hear me crunching over the leaves 😀

Arrival in Lake George!

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I made a couple of stops for my snack.  I saw the display at this store, which really cracked me up.

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A combined win-loss score for all 3 teams is 2-11, with both wins belonging to the Bills.  Not a happy sight in this window. (Go Broncos!)

First up was Lake George Baking Company for an Apple Snitzel Tart. It’s really just a mini apple crumb pie.  And a then latte from Cafe Vero, complete with latte art!  I took these to the dock to eat.

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I know you want a better picture of that tart, right?

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That was a nice snack, although I was getting chilly here by the water.  There is always a breeze coming off the lake.

Is this tree not amazing in color?

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Then homeward.

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Fall colors really just can squeeze at my heart. They are so beautiful.

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I love the burning bush.

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It’s glorious!

I took a million pictures, but I think that’s enough. 😀  What a wonderful ride today.

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Ride stats:

Total miles:  32.1

Average speed:  11.7  (lots of stops)

Top speed:  28.2 mph

Calories burned: 1206

2013 total ride miles:  2186, maybe I can break 2200 if it doesn’t rain on Sunday!

 

Pink Picture of the day:

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The Breast Cancer Site

Make sure to stop by on Monday for this month’s AIM post!

Fall is here!

Fall is hitting with a vengeance!  Woke up to this temperature:

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We actually had to turn the heat on for the first time.  The house was at 61 degrees and it just wasn’t warming up, so we turned it on for a bit.  Stinky! I hate the first running of the furnace.

I had to let the temps warm up before riding today!  I worked until they got into the 50s and then went out for my ride.  There are a lot of frustrating things with my job, but one thing that I do love is being able to take advantage of a flexible schedule.  Now that cold weather is coming, I am going to have to do rides more in the middle of the day.  It is going to be too cold to go early and too dark to go after dinner.  I am very lucky that I can shift my hours to accommodate my rides.  That’s the only way I will be able to get to 2500 miles, if I get there.  It’s all weather dependent from here on out.

I use the little magic gloves that stretch out to go under my biking gloves when it is cold.

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I am really hard on my cycling gloves, too.  I tend to grip the handlebars pretty hard, especially on hills, and I wear them out.

It was fairly brisk out.  😀  At least it was sunny.  Here is my usual picture point.

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Everything is still nice and green.  There are a few early turners, but that’s about it for color.

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Super bright! I look like a ghost 😀

Add another 10 miles to the tally now.

I also did a new nail design.  I posted this on facebook, so sorry for those that are seeing it again.

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This is my new cheap hobby!