Mountain Bikin'

After returning from a fantastic vacation, I had one last week off before returning to work. I tried to balance having fun with accomplishing some chores I don't usually get to while working.

We've gone on three mountain bike rides over the past two weekends, and I've been working on gaining confidence with my clip-less pedals. Our first of the rides was to Dakota Ridge, which I felt was way out of my ability level. I ended up walking my bike for a large portion of the ride and ending the ride a bit frustrated. Later in the weekend, we went to Alderfer/3 Sisters and I felt it was more within my range - still challenging enough for me to push myself, but not too hard that I couldn't do anything. I had a lot of fun on a long smooth section with several water logs where I could practice my jumps.

We were short on time today, so we drove to the top of Mount Falcon and rode several of the trails up there. Eric let me borrow his bike for a big chunk of the last two rides, and I found myself feeling much more comfortable and attempting sections I wouldn't have on my bike. I'm thinking it might be fun to get a better bike for myself, but I'm still not ready to commit to spending the money.

We've also made some progress with our yard. Not only did we receive approval from the HOA to rebuild our deck, we built most of the retaining wall. It's nice to be in the "put back together" phase where we can start to see how everything will come together. Once we finish the wall, we will build the patio and have the deck redone. The final step will be to put in grass and redistribute the rocks. I'm looking forward to when we can have an outdoor BBQ in our completed yard.