Mountain Bike rides

It's been a while since i have posted anything but Sprockets dog house is almost complete and I put his name over the door, I think its a nice dog house but Sprocket thinks the house he lives in now is much nicer.Michele and I went to Lake Fairfield State Park and camped out for the weekend of the 10th, we had a nice secluded site and had great weather. We met our camp host who lives full time in a large motor home and travels and volunteers at the State Parks in exchange for free camping. Our accommodations were a bit more rustic but we had a good time riding the miles of park roads and the 15+ miles of mountain bike trails.

Some of the trails were easy and some were pretty hard and crossed live creeks. After Michele walked Sprocket through the park the first time he met some kids and after that when we walked the kids would come out yelling here comes Sprocket, they knew not our names.

Our cycling club has started a new spin class on Monday nights and we both went on the 12th, it was a good workout and was 80 minutes of interval work. Interval work is based on timed efforts at prescribed effort levels of hard, harder, and hardest with short recovery's between sets. We were beat after this class and yet we look forward to this Monday where we will do simulated hill climb training.

On the Sailing front I have started working on the O'day 272 again and have removed the top of the mast to replace the light fixture and install a new halyard that some years ago, that I had accidentally pulled out of the mast.

I was Invited this weekend to hunt on a ranch in Brady Texas and was successful at once again replenishing my nearly exhausted supply of venison. I have some great photos but will spare everyone the dead animal shots. I assure you the meat will go to good use feeding Friends and family.

Happy Thanksgiving

Dennis & Michele

Dog house and dream home

We did the usual bike rides over the weekend and it was a little cool Saturday morning, and it was the last ride before the time change. The Saturday ride will now move to a 9 o'clock start, I much prefer the early start so more of the day is left, but with the colder weather I guess more people like the later start.

This picture is of the dog house I have started building for Sprocket our dog, it will be finished in another week or two and will allow us to get away for a few days at a time without the faithfull companion. As long as he is on good behavior he will still be a mostly inside dog.
We were also invited to some of our freinds lake house on Lake Texoma, they purchased this house and did a lot of work and tree trimming and the result is this view from the living room and patio.
We also hiked a nice loop trail down to the lake and back that is about a mile or so, with half of it up steep hills and half of it down hill. I would love to have a place like this but it's not in the plan unless we hit the lotto.

This weekend we plan on a nice camping trip with the dog and bicycles To Fairfield State Park, we like this park a lot but wanted to try a new one near Austin but they were all full.

Doing better than I deserve

Dennis Starkey

Free concert

Not a lot to write about over the last week or so, Michele had several rides but I only rode the Tuesday night ride. That 21 miles is a weekly low since I started keeping a log. I was also busy with work, which was a good thing, as long as it doesn't last to long or happen too often.

Late Friday afternoon I went to the farm to check on the deer herd and I saw a nice buck Friday evening and a small herd of 6 deer on Saturday. The acorns are falling and it was a good year for mast crops and the ground is covered with the acorns. Since Deer love acorns they are well fed and fat this year. I took a few pictures at the farm but Today blogger will not download my pics.

To make up for lost miles last week,after Church Sunday I rode 36 miles on a really nice day, And I rode 26 miles late Wednesday.

We went to the American Airlines Center again Tuesday night, this time to the Jenifer Lopez concert where we were invited to a suite. This would not be my favorite music but is was a nice show and with VIP parking and seats in a full service suite it was really nice and the price of 0 was also good.

Less is really more

Dennis