Birthday Ride & Milestones

Last Sunday I had a birthday ride with some of my favorite people.  My niece Mary and her daughter Alex and my Godson Andrew.  It was the beginning of a week of recovery rides after my intense riding of the preceding two weeks.  For starters we had perfect weather, neither too hot nor too cold and nothing but sunshine and blue skies.  We rode one of my favorite trails, the border to border tail in Ann Arbor from Brandemere Park to Gallup Park.  Along the way there is a fun passage over Argo dam, it's a very narrow bridge with high railings and about an inch of clearance for your handlebars on each side.

Then we spent a fair amount of time exploring at the Argo Cascades watching  kayakers shoot the series of nine drops, the kids were enthralled as I knew they would be and I promised a return trip with tubes on a nice hot summer day.  This is a short 20 second video clip from YouTube of a canoeist at the Cascades.  Crossing the bridge you can see the cascades in the background.

And some photos of our time spent there.

 This poor guy on the right was trying to get some peaceful reading in so we shooed the kids away to play on a different drop.

Just prior to the Cascades there is a bike jump course right off the path and of course we had to stop and check it out.  Alex, brave young gal that she is, got right into the swing of things and tried out the mini moguls first then it was on to the bigger ones when we stopped there again on our way back. I knew it was on her mind to try the bigger ones because she kept asking if we were going to pass this place on the way back. Even Andrew got in on the action on the second stop.  

  

Our short 10 mile trip lasted nearly 3 hours because of course when you are out exploring with kids everything must be examined and there is not a piece of playground equipment that we passed by that didn't require a stop for a swing, climb, jump or play.  We laughed our heads off when the 11 year olds even wanted to stop at the little kiddie playground but we also indulged them because we knew it won't be long before they will scorn such juvenile stuff like playing on swings and being out with adults and moments and memories like these are to be savored and stored away for cold winter days

Of course the "older" kids, Mary and I, enjoyed it as much as they did and we had an obligatory stop for Popsicles and a prance through a butterfly and hummingbird garden.

When we got home the kids continued to play and the adults shared an ice cold brew!

All in all it was the best way to spend a birthday day and it was capped off with a dinner with the rest of the family.   Thank you Mary, Alex and Andrew for sharing this day with me!

Drum roll please...and now for the milestone...my little blog has reached over 10,000 views as of yesterday!  Imagine that!