Category Archives: Lake George

40 miles – Riding for fun

The heat wave finally broke! Yay!  Woke up to a glorious 72 degrees out and breezy.  No real plans on tap for the day, which was nice.  Our ride today was for fun and not for a specific reason like the  group ride or my 100-mile ride (and what really was the reason for that???).  I woke up too early this morning, shooting caffeine as a reason for no sleep out the window being caffeine free for 6 days.  I was happy to get out and poke around in the garden.  Look what I found out there:

He was on the ground and I think just chilled because he did fly away after a bit on my hand.

We decided on a different method of riding today.  We wanted to go the the lake, but decided to eat breakfast on the way.  So – after 8 miles, we ended up at Panera Bread.

I had a blueberry bagel and decaf.

I like Panera Bread bagels, but their coffee is pretty lame in general and weak.  And the decaf is worse.  Oh well, at least there are free refills.

We then continued on the path to Lake George.  Haven’t done these hills in a few weeks!

King Queen of the world!

There were gobs of people on the path today, including a group of people on land skis with poles.  It was obviously some sort of class, but they were taking up the whole path! 😡

We finally reached the lake at mile 17 and grabbed a couple Adirondack chairs to sit and enjoy the beautiful day.  It was even windier at the lake.  Isn’t it funny how it is windier near water?

I know you all missed seeing the lake!

Want to rent a boat?

Or you could take a group tour:

I actually like taking the tour boats, although not on a windy day like today.

View from my pear:

I also had a Balance bar.

These are new and awesome!  I don’t eat many bars now, but I do like them.

We relaxed and talked a little bit about where we wanted to ride to.  Lake George and back is about 32 miles, but we both agreed that seemed a little short.  So we decided to go south again and then loop around to home.

We went for another 17 miles before taking a break.  Fresh bike legs and a tail wind can do wonders for you!  At mile 34 I wanted some refreshment.

This was a different road than we normally go on, but it was nicely paved with a decent shoulder.

Even though it wasn’t as hot, I was really sweaty!  It actually feels so much better to be sweating when you doing something rather than sweating just sitting around because it is too hot.

Strike a pose:

John’s goal in life now is to be goofy in all pictures I take of him.

6 more quick miles and were were home.  40 miles in the books and it was not even 1:30 when we got back!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.2

Ride time: 3 hours 2 minutes

Average speed: 13.2 mph

Top speed: 27.7 (Wheeeee!!)

Calories burned: 1450

I’ve been snacking the rest of today to get in those calories.  And watching the end of the Tour de France.  Congrats to Cadel, it was a hard earned victory and he really did deserve it.  Andy Shleck’s time will come, he is still pretty young.

Tomorrow is return to caffeine day – yippee!!

BOW part 3 – Dutch Oven Cooking

If you missed the other parts of my fun weekend, here is part 1 and part 2.

Sunday’s class was my favorite!  Of course because it is food related, right?

Now there are 2 types of dutch ovens, the indoor ones with the smooth bottom and the outdoor ones with the little feet and lipped lid.  They come in all different sizes and the best ones are made of cast iron.

The nice thing about these is that you can cook whatever outside and not have to heat up your oven. You can do casseroles, desserts, breads, rolls, roasts and not heat up the inside of your house, so don’t think they are just for camping!  There really is no concrete story about how the name came about.

Before we prepped the food, we got some charcoal going with a chimney.  No lighter fluid needed!

This person just lit that one, which is why she is so close to it.  You don’t really want to stay that close 😀

We made several different dishes.  I was on team dessert!

Take note of good idea here.  Empty the brownie mix into a big ziplock bag.  Then right the rest of the ingredients needed on the outside.  You then mix everything up in the ziplock bag, saving the need to bring a mixing bowl to your outdoor event!

We lined the dutch oven with a parchment liner for easy cleanup and then layered in the graham crackers.

Then my partner mixed up the batter in the bag:

Then poured it over the graham crackers.

Then we lidded it up and took it outside.  I checked out what others were making.

Lasagna.  This was the mixing stage before layering in the dutch oven.  If you take this camping or to a BBQ, it is easier to bring precooked meat as you don’t have to worry about cross contamination.

Then there was the veggie casserole.  This was a mixture of beans and frozen veggies with some honey mustard dressing, topped with crescent rolls for a crust:

There was another chicken and rice dish which went out before I got a picture of it.  And then as our first test item – cinnamon rolls. Just straight up Pillsbury.  Semi-homemade at its best :mrgreen:

With a baked good like this, it is a good idea to use an inner dish on a trivet to keep the bottoms from burning.  Nobody likes burned buns 😀

Now the lids go on and you put coals on top and coals underneath.  There are equations and such to figure out how many coals, but you basically take the number on the lid (which is the size pot) and add 3 to that number for the coals on top, and subtract 3 from that number for coals on the bottom. This is a general rule of thumb.

Ours was a 12 inch pot, so that meant 15 coals on top and 9 underneath.

Can you believe that cooks the food?  I was totally amazed by that.  Of course, you will replace those coals a few times depending on what you are cooking, but that’s it!  The cast iron gets ripping hot and is equivalent to a 350 degree oven with just these coals.

I am not really sure why we spread ourselves out so much, but that isn’t necessary.  You actually can stack pots on top of each other using the coals on one pot’s lid to be the bottom coals for another.  How cool!

Cinnamon rolls were small, so they cooked up first.

Yum!  We frosted and ate these.  Very moist, too.  Who wouldn’t want that on a cold night in front of a fire?

Our dish had 2 steps.  Once the brownies were almost done, we had to add marshmallows and chocolate chips and then lid it back up again for another 10 minutes or so for them to melt.

Dessert first? Yes please:

These were really good, I have to say!  Ooey and gooey.

Check out the lasagna!

We used the no cook noodles in this recipe.

This was sooooo good!

The chicken dish was just some chicken with sliced red onions and honey mustard marinade on the bottom.  Then a small rack with an old pot and a package of frozen brown rice was set on top to cook.  Clever!

I did not try this one as I was full at this point.

Plus I am not a big fan of red onions.  Others raved over it, though.

Then the veggie casserole:

Who needs just frank and beans at a cookout, right?  I think I am going to get a dutch oven, at least one of the indoor ones and maybe an outdoor one just for fun!

So, a very nice weekend indeed at a beautiful place!

The green, green trails of home

Would you like to come along on 2 rides?  The weather was a little hit or miss this weekend.  At first, we were going to go for a longer ride on Saturday, but there was rain coming on radar.  Then we decided to go for a shorter ride and get it in before the rain came.  We chose to go through the streets to Crandall Park.

John is watching the kids across the street.  They were driving/pedaling a big pink jeep, which was cute.

Crandall Park is about 8 miles from home.  It is next door to the Y, where I used to go when I was training for the triathlon.

It’s actually right next to the main road, but you wouldn’t know it.  It looks very secluded.

You can just make out the road in the background

The water is full of fish, bluegills and something else that is much bigger.  Bass maybe?

Funny, you can fish here if you are a senior citizen or under 15, but not in between.  I am thinking a Memorial Weekend picnic here is in order (Mom, Dad?)

We got home 17  miles round trip.  And it started to rain just as we got home!

Sunday we decided to bike farther to breakfast and try a new bagel place.  I fueled up with a protein drink before heading out the door.  It was cloudy and really humid today.  We decided not to stray too far from home today as rain was forecast for the mid afternoon.

The path to Lake George was exploding in green.  Here is where the path leaves Glens Falls and enters the Adirondaks.  This is about 7.5 miles in.

That building to the left is an ice cream shop.  One of the many.  We actually don’t go here often because they serve Edy’s ice cream, which we can buy in the store, plus no yogurt. They do have jazz concerts on Sundays in the summer, though.

I stopped a few times to take pictures because it was so crazy green!  Almost like the Emerald Forest. This is the top of a hill before going down and curving around.

Time for a quick sugar snack at mile 11.  I was getting hungry by this time and super sweaty from the humidity.

I love ginger! Note the thread on my gloves.  They are already falling apart.  I am so hard on my stuff.

We had a bit more of a climb and then a 2 mile free for all down hill.  I hit 28 mph!  The nice thing about early Sunday mornings is that only dweebs are out that early, so John and I had the path pretty much to ourselves.

We arrived to Lake George at 16 miles. We both decided that is too far for breakfast.  The new place that opened in Lake George?

An interesting concept.  This place was really long and narrow.  A little odd. Not much seating, but in an Adirondack style.

I had a cheddar bagel with cream cheese.

They ran out of coffee before we each got a cup, though!  Had to wait for it to be brewed.  Nice fresh coffee, but having to wait after biking 16 miles was hard.  The bagel had a nice flavor to it, and they made them there, which is nice.  I would have liked a chewier crust, though.  Not sure if they boil these bagels or just bake them.

The Lake is about ready for tourists.

All the cheesy t-shirt shops are open now.  Lake George is an odd mix.

They do have an awesome bakery  – the Lake George Baking Company.

We each got something to go to have later.

We headed back, this time climbing up for 2 miles.  Powered by bagel!

Wouldn’t be surprised if the city of Oz showed up at the end of the path.

At mile 30, we stopped at a garden center that I have been dying to go into every time we bike by.

I drank some coconut water:

I then proceeded to almost hyperventilate at all the flowers.  This is one of those nurseries that is just a joy to go to because their displays are wonderful. And they had 11 greenhouses.  11!!!  We only looked at 3:

John reminded me that it could rain, so I made a plan to come back later on my own by car :mrgreen:

We then headed home and reached there at mile 38.8.

Ride stats:

Total miles : 38.8

Ride time:  3 hours 6 minutes

Average speed: 12.4 mph

Top speed: 28 mph!

Calories burned:  1164.

I was really hoping for a longer ride today, but the weather was iffy, although it turned out to be okay – so we could have gone further.  I did enjoy going back to the garden center, though.  :mrgreen:

Oh, and my item bought at the bakery?

An almond horn!  One of my favorite cookies.  We had lattes at home with our snacks.

Question:  Is your area green or dry right now?

Playing hooky for some froyo

Friday! I know a couple people who took advantage of the sun coming out today!  But first, there was the necessary stuff.

Decided to take it easy on the legs for strength workout today.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff Legged Deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 65# Lower body
Seated Calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 140# Calves
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 12 at 45# Chest
Bent dumbell row 3 sets of 10 with 20# DBs (40# total) Back
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Upright Row 3 sets of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low Back

Then it was to home and a wonderful bowl of banana custard oats!  I soaked the oats per the Sally Fallon method

Makes such a soft and fluffy bowl with soaking. Topped with almond butter and orange marmalade.

Well, I did not escape yesterday’s run unscathed. My knee is fine, but my left thigh is really, really sore. Just the top quad muscle. It’s like I had a heavy duty lifting workout with soreness, only just in one part of my thigh. It feels uncomfortable and weak. I am not sure why running seems to have regressed for me.  I was okay through the fall, but then over the winter it began to cause me problems.  It’s a little depressing, I have to say.  I don’t know if more running will work that weakness out or if I should just give it up all together.

I wanted a circular lunch today.  Okay, not really, but it turned out that way. John made protein muffins, which I toasted up.

Of course, then I realize he made these with wheat flour.  Ugh – it is hard to remember not eat wheat outside of my bagels!  Needless to say, this month’s challenge has been challenging.

Did some more work and we decided to take advantage of mid 50s and sun and go for a bike ride.  Playing hooky!  We decided to take our first trip to Lake George.  That is about 30 miles round trip.  Normally we do this on a weekend and have lunch there, but decided to just go there, turn around, and hit yogurt on the way back.

The path to Lake George is hilly!  Steep hills. Phew.  We stopped at mile 11.5 after reaching the top of the hill we call ‘the bitch.’  Cause it is. It’s long and then takes a steep upturn at the very end.  Made it up okay, though!  Fuel –

The top of this hill is  a pedestrian/bike overpass – kind of looks like a cage.

Turns out the day was a little breezy, which made the descent really cold!  I had 2 jackets on and was still chilly.

Reached the lake after 15 miles.

I love the off season because the lake is quiet and peaceful with just a few people walking around.  Much different from the summer.

The turn around gives us a 2 mile upward climb on the way back.  That is tough.  My thighs were burning a little bit.  I knew our reward was coming, though!

Mile 24:

Even though it was cold, we were going to have yogurt, darn it!  I had angel food cake flavor with raspberry sauce.

I loved this, but I was shivering by the end of eating it.  Mid 50s is okay, except when it is windy.  My teeth were chattering!

My biker buddy:

Then we finished out the ride:

Total miles: 30.3

Time: 2:39

Calories burned: 887

It felt good, although my left thigh just was kind of tired.  Overall good hill condition for April, though.  It won’t take long to build that up, if I can ever get outside and ride more.

Remember that chicken from last night’s dinner?  It made its appearance at tonight’s dinner in the form of salad.

Topped with pepper bacon and parmesan pepper dressing.  I love bacon on salads.  We cooked bacon in the waffle iron, too.

I’ll be snacking tonight, but not going overboard.  I made a promise to myself that I would eat well this weekend.  Also going to do some stretching!

Happy Earth Day!

Weekend roundup with Mediterranean food!

Thanks so much for your congrats on the job situation!  I really didn’t realize how much stress I was under until it all fell into place.  I was so happy working at home again on Friday.  Hopefully on Monday I will feel the same LOL!

Had such a lovely relaxing breakfast at Panera Bread today.

Then we picked up a couple things at Home Depot and looked at the funner parts of our remodel, like the toilet and sink and flooring. Then we started thinking about our upstairs bath as well.  I told John that we should probably finish the downstairs one first 😀

We spent the majority of Saturday working on the half bath.  Now that inspections are done and passed, we could glue everything together and make all the wiring hot, which took most of the day.  The worse jobs are over now!

Tested our plumbing 😯   All lines are okay except the connections for the washer.  We are going to have to solder those in place.   We truly are learning a lot on this project and realize how much more we actually can do ourselves and do it right.  I am glad to be finished with being under the floor, though, which actually is done barring a disaster.  Now are getting into the fun stuff!

I had a few snacks today – these came into the house

Pretzel M&Ms. D’oh!  They are up high, that’s for sure.

We wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate my raise and being able to work from home and passing the plumbing/electrical inspections, so we headed up to Lake George.  We were looking a different restaurant that we hadn’t tried before, but couldn’t find it.  A lot of things are still closed because it is not the season yet.  Lake George is pretty cold right now.

Still  frozen except right near shore!

This is a place we like to sit when we get here from biking in the summer.

Since we couldn’t find what we were looking for, we chose Ali Baba instead:

I like the inside of this place.  It’s a small restaurant, but nicely decorated.

They have a big oven that they cook the food in, which has beautiful tile.  I wish this picture had come out better.  I was trying to not get the other patrons in the shot.

John and I split 2 different entrees.  He had a falafel pita:

It had a cucumber yogurt sauce and a spicy reddish sauce on it.  It was a little too hot for John, but I quite liked it.  The pita was delicious as well.  I think it had to be fresh made judging by the texture and flavor.

I had a cheese pide (pronounced pita – why they didn’t spell it that way is beyond me).  This had egg, mozzarella, feta cheese and a bit of spinach. Or I think it was spinach.

Plus a ton of garlic.  Holy clove batman!  It was pungent but absolutely delicious!  The crust was crispy on the bottom and chewy on the inside.  Very flavorful!

The service wasn’t the best.  Friendly, but not much in the way of checkbacks.  I keep thinking about how good these dishes were.  I think I liked the pide better, but I would get either again for sure!

All in all a nice weekend and I actually am looking forward to working tomorrow (for real!).

Question: Do you like Mediterranean food?

31 miles round trip to India

Saturday is bike day!  I was up pretty early, so I had a piece of toast and pear/cranberry jam.

I don’t want to say that I was waiting for John to wake up because he noted that I seem to write that a lot on my blog.  So, we will just say I was up early, okay?  😉

After a couple hours, it was time for breakfast!  Suzie had also sent me some samples of Cacao Bliss.  I have seen this stuff on the internets, but it is not in the stores here in small town USA.

I made banana custard oats and put half of this packet on there.

Can I say that this tastes *exactly* like a melted Mounds bar?  I wish I didn’t know that.  I wonder if I can recreate this at home…  Time fer some ‘sperimentin!

We lounged for quite a while today, as a shorter ride was planned.  Instead of going south towards cupcakes, we headed north for Indian food!  Last week it was to Ireland 😀

It was pretty windy today, but that just adds a nice challenge to a ride.  We got to the lake after 15 miles.  The fall colors are just starting to peep.

There was also a speed boat show going on.  They are noisy 👿

There is always something going on at Lake George.

Not a speed boat:

Do we look hungry here?

Yes – it was time for lunch.

A Taste of India.  We had a 20% off coupon (I loves me a bargain).  John had the tikka kabobs (which arrived totally sizzling and drool worthy).

I had the aloo matter – which is a potato and pea dish with other veggies in a tomato based sauce, which seemed a bit creamy.

With rice – and yes, I ate a lot more than this 😀

Delicious!  We were talking to our server and he seemed really amazed that we would bike 30 miles in a day.  It’s funny when you become an endurance athlete (yes, I am going to go ahead and call myself that!), the idea of far distance gets really skewed.  I was standing up when I was talking to the server and he sort of gave me an up and down look a couple times.  The old me inside assumed he was thinking “Really? *You* can ride 30 miles?”  Of course, I really have no idea what he was thinking at all and it isn’t my business what he thinks of me.   Funny how old hurts and feelings just never really go away.

There was also a little craft show going on here.

A booth was selling fudge, which had a big line.  And those blasted sugared nuts!  Those are like kryptonite to me, and then John says they were really priced reasonably.  However, I did not partake in any.  Hooray for me!

That’s cause I knew I was getting something later.  We headed on down to our next stop, which was 10 miles later at the library!

Like I need any more books out.  I had 7, now I have 8. 😳

Then we walked over to the Chocolate Mill.  Lots of lovely desserts in the case.

I ended up choosing a carrot cake cookie because it was on the smaller side.  After all, we were only slated for 30 miles today LOL!

Tasty!  With a cup of coffee on the side.

Then it was to home.

Ride stats:

30.5 miles

Top speed 22.9 mph

Avg speed:  12.7 mph

Calories burned:  949

It felt really good to ride today.  I wasn’t even tired when we got home.  There are only a couple months left of biking weather, if that.   I think I am going to buy one of those indoor trainers to put my bike on for the winter time.

Stay tuned on Monday morning for a review and giveaway!

Biking and chilaxin’

Woke up to the most gorgeous morning, although it was very chilly. We hit an overnight low of 43 – can you believe that? 😯

I wanted something warm and toasty, so I made protein waffles and topped with an apple cranberry topping.

It was good enough that I am going to write down the recipe and post it next week!

I was cold waiting for coffee to brew.  See my short hairs?

Very short!  Now I might start growing it out again….

Even though the low was 43, the day was about as picture perfect as it could be, so we decided to bike up to the lake.  We went a different route.

First up is a little bike maintenance:

Some nice scenery on this road:

Date snack!

I had 2.  Isn’t this a pretty little church?

This route had some seriously hard hills! After 23 miles, we arrived at the village and were ready for lunch!

As we love to do at Lake George, we stopped at Taste of India.  I think they have another location, but this one is right on the edge of the Lake and is sort of the casual beach type place.  We had a coupon for buy one/get one, too!  John ordered a Mango shake to try:

It was really interesting.  Not like a lassi, because there was no yogurt in it.  I swear there was condensed milk or coconut milk in it.  Good, but quite sweet!

My choice was aloo gobi.  Aloo means potato.  This dish is a potato caulifower dish that is yummy!  Maybe gobi means cauliflower?

It is a drier type of Indian dish and not fatty, which is a good thing 😀

John had paneer palak, which is cheese and spinach dish:

Paneer is sort of a cheese curd/cottage cheese type thing.  It does not have a strong flavor and it is firm and does not melt.  It’s quite good.

Served with rice and some puri – which was basically fried!

Think we will stick with naan or roti bread.

After lunch, we strolled around town.  Gotta love the wax museum:

I wondered where Frankenstein was, but then I saw him!

Wandering around the street.  Guess that is what monsters do around here.

We headed over to Shepards Park to have a sit and enjoy the beautiful weather.  Relaxing in an Adirondack chair:

The lake was a bit chilly for swimming, but there were some people in the water.  Lots of sunbathers, though.

It was so wonderful to sit and enjoy.  It almost seemed like a September day, not the end of July!  Mid 70s and perfect.  I really do appreciate living around here.

It was time to head home, but we decided to take the regular bike path back home.  The trip there was nice, but the shoulder wasn’t really wide enough for comfort.

You all know what is on the way home, right?

Honey almond yogurt with marshmallow topping.  Yum!  I was feeling very strong on the ride home.  Funny how it takes me 20 miles to really get going.  I don’t know what is up with that, but it is kind of funny.  Just when John starts to get tired, I get moving.

Finished up the last 7 miles to home:

Ride stats:

Mileage: 39.3 miles

Average speed:  12.7 mph

Top speed:  28.1 mph (hills – wheeee!!!!)

Calories burned: 1208 (sweet).

What a wonderful day!  I feel a little tired right now.  Pixie is laying in my lap as I am writing this post.  She is in full cooler weather lap mode!  We have more chair sitting and relaxing in store tonight. 😀

Hope you are all having an awesome weekend as well!

40-miler by way of change in plans

Woke up to a nice morning for breakfast on the porch today!  I made some protein waffles and did a fun sandwich combo out of them.  I mashed a banana and put it in between the waffles and topped with the last of the chocolate homemade fluff.

Very, very good!

Then I got caught up on emails and blogs while waiting for John to get out of bed.  He was out playing poker again….

I needed a pre ride snack before hitting the road.

Gosh this bread is good.  The plan was to head south to Saratoga as we had cupcakes in mind.  Life had other plans, though 😀  About 6 miles in, John’s derailleur came off:

In doing so, it bent a link of his chain, so it made it difficult for him to pedal.  We decided to not keep going to Saratoga, but instead loop back around to Queensbury and Inside Edge bike shop.  I drooled over some new bikes while John had his chain fixed right then and there.  They only charged him $5.  That is good service.  We had done about 12 mile at that point, and decided not to turn around and go back to Saratoga, or it would have been way longer than we wanted to go today.  Instead, we bike a little bit more and popped into The Silo for lunch at mile 15:

This is a restaurant with a barn store attached to it:

They have a little bit of everything!  I saw a special on the menu board that said Maryland crab melt on a waffle brioche, so that immediately caught my eye.  I probably should have stuck with the breakfast all day thing.

Looked good when it came:

Unfortunately, it was made with fake krab!  I should have guessed by the price, I suppose.  It also had a ton of onions in it, so I had to pick out a bunch of onions and celery and peas (?).  I basically put the crab on the brioche and ate that.  I did eat most of the fries.  The watermelon slice was awesome though!  I have to say I was a little bummed at this meal, as we generally love the Silo.

After lunch, we decided to bike on to Lake George, as it was only 10 miles away.  It’s tourist season!  Lake George is a mix of natural beauty:

and the tacky:

Lots of candy and ice cream shops – here is some dip for candied apples!

We sat in the garden and had some coconut water and blueberries:

Also met the cutest little puppy.  Only 2 months old:

Then I chased this guy around for a while before I got a good shot:

Time to head home.  Since we didn’t get a cupcake, we decided to get yogurt instead.  I had rum cheesecake topped with coconut:

I asked John if he was enjoying his yogurt:

Do all almost 42 year old men act like this?  Maybe it is the result of living with me for so long….

Finally reached home:

41 miles.  Burned 1200 calories!  Woo Hoo!  I am kind of tired, I have to say.  It was a hot day for biking and hilly!  The shower felt amazing and perked me up quite a bit.

I wanted just a bowl of cereal for dinner, but we are out.  Need to go grocery shopping.  So, I made a bowl of cream of wheat topped with nut butter and some chips.  I let this cool way down before eating:

Love carbs after long rides.  I am thinking about doing a 60 mile charity ride in September, which would involve a fundraising drive.  I am not sure, but I might give it a go.  Guess this is turning out to be the summer of biking.  I have just rolled over 1000 miles on the bike since we got the bikes out in March!

Come bike with me!

Happy Monday! This is the last day of my 4-day weekend, sigh.   There were a lot of great comments on yesterday’s post, so click here if you haven’t read it.  Guess we just never know until time passes whether the weight will stay off.  I think the important thing is to not become complacent.

Anyway, no gym for me today because I wanted to ride!  Not going to strength train on a heavy riding day.  I fueled up with some protein pancakes and cafe au lait.

I added 1 tsp of coconut oil to the batter to help slow down the digestion on this meal a little bit.  Then I showered and got ready to ride.  On days of a long ride, here is what I do.  First thing when I get up, I drink 2 big glasses of water.  First thing before I do anything else.  That way my body will rehydrate what it needs and get rid of the rest before I hit the trails.  Then I eat a good breakfast and let that settle for a while.  Sometimes I will have a snack if the ride is a little later in the morning, like I did today  – which was a homemade granola bar.

I rode solo today, so there are some very important things that get packed into my bike bags:

Tire repair items.  This includes the wrench if I need to remove the back tire, the tire lifters on the left (forget the real name of these, but they wedge the tire out), a spare tube, and a CO2 cartridge and nozzle.  These things are always in my front bag.

My back bag contains these items:

Okay, the helmet goes on my head, but these include sunscreen, a bottle of hand sanitizer, pain reliever, phone (very important when going alone), 2 water bottles, one of which is in my bottle cage, and a map (because I was taking a new route).

Also extremely important:

Not necessary things I bring include snacks, my camera, a brush, and a cap.

Today’s ride was to Lake George, but I went a different route, which was mostly off the path:

I was a little nervous, as the shoulder was kind of narrow for a chunk of the ride, but there was not much traffic.  I went this way to add miles onto the trip while going to the lake and because we thought it would be more flat (not).   Had a snack after mile 15:

I moved away from that trailer there as it had horse poo in it and was fragrant 😡  It was the only pull off spot, though, because of a guard rail.  This trail went up the lake on the non tourist side, so I got to see some beautiful houses and the accompanying views that they have:

Sigh… gotta start buying lottery tickets!

Reached the village after 21 miles.

Beautiful day, although there was a pretty stiff head wind, which you can see with the waves.  Americade is just getting started, which is a motorcycle haven.  I had forgotten about it.

I was the only thing on 2 wheels not powered by an engine.  Lake George gets really loud during Americade.

I had lunch of a half sandwich and a vegan tomato soup which tasted like a rich marinara sauce.  So good!

Plus a packed granola bar:

The view from my table:

(see the wind?).  After lunch, I looked at some of the landscaping:

Aliums in bloom:

Then I decided to head home, as there was some thought of rain in the forecast for later in the afternoon.  I decided to take the path back instead of the way I came.   It was like the Emerald City.

Isn’t that crazy green?  Took a breather after 30 miles:

34 miles done.  Okay, who didn’t see this coming?

This was Angel food cake yogurt topped with raspberries.  Swooooonnnn!  I almost fell out of my chair it was so good.  Surprisingly, I did not finish this.  That has never happened before, but it seemed like a bigger portion than normal and my lunch actually stuck pretty well.

After that rest, I headed home.  Is it possible to have a love affair with a pair of shoes?

If so, I am having one with my clip shoes.  I adore them.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.1

Top speed:  25.7 mph

Avg speed:  11.4 mph

Ride time: 3:40  hours  (not including breaks)

Calories burned:  1180

I felt great after this ride.  Not really that tired, even though the hills themselves were tiring.  No walking up any hill today!  Woo Hoo!

I munched some cashews while dinner cooked:

John grilled some chicken and caramelized some onions for dinner, so I decided to spread some laughing cow on top of the chicken and top with the onions.

So freaking good.  These were vidalia onions, too.  I wonder if I would like plain old onions caramelized or not.

What a great way to cap off my extended weekend.  Back to the grind tomorrow, though.  At least until I win that lottery 😀

Cupcake snack calling my name right now……

Bring on the froyo!

Happy Saturday!  Another great day today!  Long bike ride on tap for the day.  Fueled up with some protein waffles topped with a mix of ricotta cheese, pumpkin, spice, and 1 tsp of honey (warmed in microwave).  Sprinkled with craisins.

Along side some cafe au lait and this was a yummy breakfast!

Set out for Lake George once it warmed up a bit.  Do you ever get those times where you are just supremely happy?   I was having one of those moments while biking.  The sun was warm, I was feeling great, enjoying the scenery and  just thinking about how happy I was 😀

The ducks are back.  These 2 better get busy and make some ducklings!

Snack time at 9 miles in because my thighs were burning:

About 10 miles in or  so, when we got into the Adirondacks, we hit some icy snowpack on the path 😯

We sort of rode over the patches while straddling the bikes and using our feet (if that makes any sense).  Did fine, except on one spot I took a spill when my bike slipped out from under me.  I banged my elbow, but at least I didn’t rip my pants.  Why I worried more about that is beyond me.  I should have had John take a picture…

Arrival at the Lake!

(John shaved off his beard for the first day of spring.)

Still a little bit of ice on the lake.

A lot of businesses are still closed for the season, but the Bank Cafe is open.  This place is fun.  It’s tiny, but cozy.

We sat by the safe:

I shared a bowl of lobster bisque with John.  It came with the most giant spoon ever!

The bisque was sooo good.

We each ended up getting grilled cheese, too.

Good old American Cheese LOL.   Old school and tasty.

We wandered around town for a while.  Lots of people out and cleaning up stuff.  You can feel the earth stretching and waking up from a winter nap.  Check out this pier – would you want to walk on it?

Then we biked home, being careful on the snowy patches, so no mishaps.  The first part leaving Lake George is the killer.  It’s a 2-mile hill up. Phew!  Quads burning…. burning!  You know what is open now – had to stop and get our frozen yogurt!

This was rum cheesecake flavor with coconut.  ~ 150 calories (plus some coconut).  Gotta love it.

Bike ride done!

Stats:

  • 31 miles
  • 3 hours
  • Average speed:  11.2 mph
  • Top speed: 26.2 mph (hills!)

Bike legs come back fast after a winter off.  I am excited to plan a 100 mile ride this summer.

Today is National Meat-Out day, so we made an effort to eat all veg today.  Dinner tonight was Indian inspired.  Potato sauteed with coconut oil, turmeric, garam masala, a red chili and topped with an egg.  Slapped a cover on to steam the egg, and then I had to add a little cheese.

Unpictured clementines were eaten as well.

Too bad this weather is gone tomorrow.  It has just been so enjoyable!  I am all set for an evening in with some chocolate and tea.

Question:  Did you Meat Out today?