Lake Mineral Wells State Park review

We had planned to take an overnight camping trip as soon as it was cool enough and this weekend we went to Mineral Wells Sate Park for our first visit to this Park. After a quick 15 miles on the road bikes early Saturday we headed out and in about an hour and a half we were there.
While the park was very full it wasn't bad at all, we had a nice campsite and for the rest of Saturday we explored the Park roads and some of the trails on our mountain bikes. The roads were good with some nice tough hills and a good number of other cyclist, as a treat Michele and I each saw several deer and rolled up close to some of them before they could hear us. I found the bike trails hard, since horses and bikes share some trails a lot of the surface is loose sand from the horse traffic and its hard to go very fast and you get a good workout quick, add lots of big and small rocks and hills and you have a tough ride.

Now the hiking was good, Sunday we hiked 5 miles on the hike only trail to the primitive camping area and it was really pretty and we only saw one other group on the entire walk. As you can see in the pictures it is hilly and rocky so you walk, climb and crawl. Our dog Sprocket was pooped and in the 2nd photo as we return his tongue is hanging out pretty far.

I think we will return to this Park soon, it's close but seems like a long way from the house, I started getting the dinghy for the O'day 272 ready for the next trip so I can maybe fish the lake. I better rest up now to be ready for the Tuesday bike ride with the club www.gdbclub.com

Proud People Don't Litter ( stolen from Gummy)

Dennis

This week I didn't spend much time at the boat yard working on the O'day but I did sand the rudder down and fair it some. The pic's show the rudder after power washing and then after sanding and fairing (smoothing) it, it will get a new epoxy coating and bottom paint before launch.

Rudder for the O'day 272

I stayed off of the bicycle for the full week and rode 50 miles on Sunday and experienced no knee pain and had a great ride. I hope the rest was all I needed, it didn't hurt bad but after 40 miles or so it would hurt so I was pro active.

Michele had a good ride on Saturday when her and her friend Lugay went riding and had some excitement. Michele had a flat tire and had stopped to try and repair it, another cyclist stopped and helped her by changing the tube. Michele always carries a tube and supplies to make a roadside repair so the good Samaritan used them and all looked well. Shortly after taking off it went flat again and now She has no spare tube, another couple on a ride stopped and he repaired it with his spare tube and would take no money for his parts. I examined the tubes later and determined the first flat was a puncture and the first change went flat due to pinching the tube, the help was still greatly appreciated.

It has been my experience that fellow cyclist are some of the most generous and helpful people you will meet and even more so when dealing with fellow cyclists.

Dennis

Invitation to Sail

This week we went on several bicycle rides and I installed the new front chain rings on the Treck, I also put on some new tires with a red stripe. Saturday was the big ride of the week, it was only a little over 50 miles but we went on nice rural roads and climbed a lot of hills. This was a nice ride in part because I got to ride with some friends I seldom get to ride with like Gerald who let me stay in His motor home a the Hotter Than Hell Hundred. My right knee has been causing me pain toward the end of the longer rides so I think I will lay off the bike for about a week if I can, hopefully this will help the knee and at least keep it from getting worse.



We got a call from Mike and an invitation to go sailing on their Hunter 260 that is berthed on Lake Grapevine Sunday afternoon. Years ago we had kept our boat on this lake and it has really changed. The new Gaylord Texan Resort is open and looms large over the marina, in the photos you can see it in the background. We sailed by one of the areas with a patio on the water and we watched the people watch us sail by. It was a nice evening with a perfect 10mph breeze and low 80's temperature wise.

Michele looks like she is really suffering, but some body's got to do it. Man, I've got to get the O'day ready to go for a couple of long cruises.

The Fed spoke today and the market went crazy, as if a 1/2 point will stop all the foreclosures and inflation will go away if you exclude energy from the formula, please!. Don't get me wrong I liked the lift but I think when life looks like easy street there is danger at the door, and I don't want to go to work tomorrow.

I'm having to much fun, I don't want to grow up

Dennis

Boat Yard and Green Acres

With the O'day in the boat yard I have started to repair the bottom side, this is really a storage yard close to the house and nowhere near water, but while I am there refitting the boat it is a boat yard. After I started grinding the old paint off as I expected there are some blisters in the gel coat and this is not a good thing. The blisters seem to be very small and shallow and at this point have done no real damage to the fiberglass. For now I have to grind a significant amount of the gel coat off and let the hull dry out for months. It's going to take a while to get it all sanded and ground down and after that is done I will work on other project while it dries The O'Day 272 drying its blisters




Saturday Me and Michele rode our bikes to Richardson Bike Mart and bought some parts and a new set of front chain rings for the Treck, The old ones were very worn as they had about 10,000 miles on them. We had a great ride with a coffee shop stop and got in 45 miles. We left early and were back by 11:30 and decided to go to the farm for the rest of the weekend.

We had a nice evening and Sunday morning at the farm, after coffee Sunday morning I went scouting and found this buck rub that is really fresh as the broken limbs still have green leaves on them.

We trimmed the grass around the house and did other little projects and overall it was relaxing but I did a lot of walking in thick vegetation. Michele pitched in and helped do some of the hard work like hauling feed

On the way home my old truck started vibrating so I pulled over and found a good tire had developed a large hump in it. Since I was going to have to change a flat of course it started raining so hard you could barely see so I drove on the shoulder for about 5 miles and changed the tire under a bridge. The good thing is I paid very little for a new tire as It was considered a manufacturing defect.

Don't put it off

Dennis

Moving Day

Friday was the day to move the Sailboat, the travel lift was finally operational although he still had water over the long piers he drives out on to pick up the boat. Early in the morning I hooked up the home made trailer and headed out to the lake and dropped the rig off at the marina and Michele then took me to the boat and I moved it to the Marina.Once he had driven the lift out over the boat we lowered the slings under the boat, lifted the boat out of the water and then he drove it to the shop and power washed off an embarrassing amount of marine growth. I moved the trailer into position and he held the boat over the trailer while we adjusted the bunks to fit the boat.

It took a little longer than I had hoped for to get the trailer to fit but it finally worked out good and we got the boat home with no trouble.
The neighbors were nice about the beast parked in front of the house, we parked it there over the holiday weekend to clean it up a little and get it ready to go to the boat yard where I will start the re-fit of the O'day 272 Rising Star. Now that it's in the boat yard 1/2 mile from the house I am relieved that the trailer I built worked out well and I have all winter to work on it. I should still be able to get in some sailing on other yachts while we are dry docked.

I also had 2 nice bicycle rides with my club www.gdbclub.com on Tuesday and Saturday and plan on riding tonight weather permitting. The cooler weather has been nice to ride in and I have 2 weeks of much easier riding planned after several months of hard rides and then the Hotter Than Hell Hundred followed by 2 hard fast club rides.

Dennis

HHH with the motorhome

Finding a place to stay in Wichita Falls can be tough for the Hotter Than Hell Hundred but this year we were very lucky and had a great place to stay. Gerald, a good friend of ours has been cycling lately and decided to do the ride and take their 32 ft motor home. We scouted around the RV area and found a spot with 30 amp electric and got set up , best of all it was free for cyclist and a newspaper was delivered Saturday morning. This worked out great and was within walking distance of all the events, thanks Gerald and Kay.With nervous energy it was hard to go to sleep so we detailed our bikes, had more snacks

and visited with friends and neighbors. We finally went to bed and set the alarms for 5 am.Michele and I both had good rides and set pb's (personal bests) on a nice day with nice light breeze for the most part. Like last year Michele the the 64 mile or metric century and I rode the 100 miles. Of course our small group on the 100 mile route pulled into the outlaw 98 mile beer stop for a few minutes before finishing.

Get off the couch

Dennis

boating and swimming

On Saturday Michele and had nice rides on the bikes, she rode a little over 40 miles and I rode an extra 18 miles by taking a loop around the perimeter of DFW Airport. This lap is always fast and we almost never have to stop and we try to keep a pace over 20 miles an hour with one all out sprint zone. I got very lucky and won the sprint in my small group while achieving 39.4 mph as my max speed.

Sunday we went to check the flood water level at the lake and found it disappointingly high, we nose in to this Island and explored a little. The O'day 272 is a fixed keel boat but has a shoal draft wing keel, don't try to nose up to the shore like this in your fin keel boat.
This picture shows me fishing at the still closed boat ramp, you can see the parking lot is just now starting to dry out and the picnic tables are still under water. Maybe next week the ramp will open.

My Mother in Law was out of town for a week or so and Michele and I went over to check on things and just happened to have our swim suits with us. It was a nice day for a swim with perfect 84 degree water, (thanks Teddy)

Sprocket went for a swim too and while he can swim you can see he really wanted to get out of the water.

You never know if you have 6 more minutes, 6 more days, or 6 more years so do it Today.

Wish Michele and I both Luck as we ride in the Hotter Than Hell 100 this coming weekend.

Dennis