Lake Mineral Wells Trailway Ride

Michele and I had planned a trip to ride the Lake Mineral Wells Trailway on Saturday the 17th, the weather forecast was for hot, hot, hot, and we were glad when Marla and Rick accepted our invitation to ride with us. We met at the trail head to find the gate locked even though the sign on the gate said open sunrise to sunset. We noticed another cyclist parked at the city park about a block away and going under the gate with his bike, he told us the Weatherford end is opened by the local police when they get around to it. We followed his lead and did as he had done.

At the halfway point we passed through the town of Garner and posed at this cool sign, there is also a convenience store with a diner, we kept going and stopped there on the return trip for cold drinks. Above left to right Dennis, Michele, Marla, Rick, the intrepid cyclists training for the hotter than hell rally at the end of August.

This was an over the shoulder shot going down the trail, some areas are open and some are like a tunnel of green with welcome shade on a hot summer day. We saw fewer than a dozen people on our round trip of 40 miles, we did assist two women with changing a flat tire.

Along the way we stopped several times to snack on wild grapes growing along the side of the trail.

This is not a good picture but we also stopped and snacked on wild plums like these that were so plentiful they are bending the trees down. The plums were just getting ripe , the ones not fully ripe are bitter while the ripe ones are sweet. In about a week they will be great.

We really enjoyed this ride and hope to do it again soon, we would like to once again camp in the new RV at the State Park and combine this with some hiking and fishing to prepare for our upcoming Grand Canyon hikes.

Dennis

First trip and the Peach Pedal

We took the first trip in the new RV and drove to Weatherford to ride in the Peach Pedal bicycle rally. We drove through some of the hardest rain I have ever seen on the way but arrived at the Serenity Ranch as the storms ended. We spent the full weekend here as did several other campers that were riding the rally. Everything worked out well in the RV, it pulls great and we were dry and comfortable.

The morning of the rally was dry and cool for this time of year and we had a great 62 miles of rolling hills and beautiful country side, we followed up the rally by taking the free shuttle to the Peach festival. As the day progressed it got hot at the festival and with the record turnout it was a little to much for me, I think I enjoyed last year more.

Sunday we took a nice long 4 mile hike on the Mineral Wells trail way, it was like a tunnel of green in some areas and is a great summer morning hike. We plan on taking the mountain bikes back this weekend for a day trip and to ride the full 40 miles (20 out and 20 back).

Bobby called me Tuesday night and told me it was going to cloudy and breezy Wednesday morning and with no arm twisting we decided to meet at 7:30 am to go sailing, what a nice way to spend half of a day. We had gusty winds a 3 ft swell running and the lake to ourselves, with the clouds keeping it cool and filtering the sunlight we hove to for a lunch beak and called it a day

Last night I drove out to watch some of my friends race in the Thursday night crits in Sunnyvale, my riding buddy and sometimes personnel trainer Heath Lambert won the cat 4/5 in only his 3rd race. Well its back to work for me with the summer heat turned back on 98 to 101 for the next 5 days.

Ready to ride the trail

Dennis

New addition to the family

The month of June has been hot, averaging 10 degree's above normal and almost no rain. The heat has caused my business to be good and I have had little time for sailing with Bobby or even riding the bike. When I got to ride it was a sweat fest.

July has arrived and with it cooler than normal temperatures and rain, a much welcomed relief from the temperature and from work. The garden has responded well and I have undertaken a new project to make room for our new toy.

When we bought this house it had a 40 year old 30 ft wide carport that was in bad shape and it would not allow anything tall to be parked in the driveway. It did have some nice benefits but we decided it had to go.


One piece at a time we took it down and saved the pieces for a friend who wants build a small one from the parts, the job went faster than planned and we were done in about five hours.
Well, now that we can park larger items and the cooler weather has allowed me to shop, look what I brought home.

This our new to us Surveyor SVT210 travel trailer. This trailer is a 2006 model that was very lightly used and everything works perfectly, it also fits nicely in our driveway.

We now plan on setting things up to our liking and planning some short trips, more to come as we move in.

Dennis

New wheels for the Tandem

Since we bought our tandem the wheels have been an area of concern, the front wheel was warped and the manufacturing weld was a problem area causing a bad pulsing when applying the brakes.
We bought this bike used and it had been stored for many of its years in unknown positions, this may have caused some of the trouble with the wheels being out of true.
We purchased this set of custom wheels made by a friend of ours, and I think they look good and from the little I have ridden them they also seem to perform. The most important gain is they are true and smooth and greatly improve our stopping power, not to mention they are 2 lbs 10 ounces lighter than our old ones and are tandem specific wheels.

The search for a nice small travel trailer continues, we find them available but we have been unable to strike a deal I am happy with. With the continued heat I have been busy with work and would not have time to camp anyway, but come fall that should change.

Dennis

The Garden/ The Wall/ No camper

The garden is going great guns, however we are in an extreme heat wave for this time of year, and very dry. The rain barrel is empty and the garden cries for more water.It is still yielding green beans, potato's, lettuce, spinach and squash as well as peppers. The snow peas are done in this heat and the leaf crops are now just about toast also, we love our fresh food.

This morning, Memorial day I went on a nice little run and visited the traveling wall of the Vietnam Memorial. This was a moving experience as people placed flowers with name tags and traced the names of lost loved ones. I was fortunate to be born just late enough for the draft to be over, I did have to register but there was no active draft. Today I thank all of our veterans for their sacrifices and service to allow me the freedom I have.

Saturday we went to Liberty Fest in our little town of Farmers Branch where 20 thousand people listened to a band from my youth, REO Speedwagon as we celebrated our liberty here in the USA.

As for the no camper situation, we sold the pop up and are now shopping for a nice fairly small hard sided travel trailer. We have looked at new and used ones and today we found the one we wanted and I negotiated a very nice price. This deal never happened, when I asked about the title before putting down a deposit it was signed and ready to go except the seller was not the person named on the title. You have to be very careful about these things and I demand a drivers license for proof, well they did not match and out pours a long story about his friend who signed it over to him and does not want to be involved in the transaction, nor do I. This could be the truth but I am not willing to gamble with that kind of money.

Still looking

Dennis

Fort Richardson State Park Trip

We had a full weekend at the end of April, we started by taking our Treck tandem to the German fest bicycle rally in Muenster. This is a great rally and your entry includes admission to the festival and 2 drink tickets for soft drinks or beer(Shiner Boch). We were going to ride the 65 mile route but with extreme winds and the many challenging hills we wussed out and rode the 42 miles, the upside being we got to the festival early. After the Rally we took the pop up camper to Fort Richardson State Park, we were pleasantly surprised, I thought it was just an old fort site, it is that and much more. We toured the fort that dates to the 1860's, took hikes and rode the mountain bike trail.
We stayed Sunday night and in the lower camp ground we had only one other camper in the valley. we picked a spot that backed up to a limestone bluff with this little spring fed creek gurgling right by our trailer, nice to sleep by.

We rode our bicycles on the 9 mile off road trail to Lost Creek reservoir and back for 18 miles of nice improved trail with great views and a few challenging area's. At the Lost Creek Park where the ride loops through the park and then returns we met the camp host. This guy lived in a nice motor home and said he started as a host working about 12 hours a week for a free campsite for a 3 month term. Some 2 years later he loves this place and now works part time for the park system receiving a free full hook up campsite and a small pay check for doing work he likes.

On our bicycle ride around the park at dusk we saw 24 deer like the one in this picture.

We also took Sprocket on a hike to Rumbling Springs where he drank and splashed around and seemed to have a great time, a short video follows, or is supposed to, my first try at this.

I caught bass in the quarry pond, hiked all the trails, had a great bike ride and will return again to this park less than 2 hours from home.

Who knows where we will go next.

Dennis

Caprock Canyon State park Texas

We loaded up the pop up and headed Northwest to caprock canyon, nice weather was expected along with a little wind. A little wind was a big understatement.
After setting up camp on Friday we decided to hike to Fern Cave, I noticed the map had a little note that said extremely steep and rough but downplayed this to Michele, as the photo show it was extremely rough and steep. We made it to a point on the trail that required inching along a ledge with nothing to hold on to and a huge drop if you fell. With the ledge being buffeted by gusty winds we decide to retreat and just make a really nice hike.
Saturday morning we woke to wind gusts of 55 mph trying to rip our pop up apart, we took it down and decide to do the lower canyon loop. The lower loop is fairly well protected in the bottom of the canyon, as we parked another couple pulled up with the same game plan. Doug and his wife are from Canada and are two months into their RV trip, they had a dog named Miles that was about the same size as our dog Sprocket. We all hiked together for the 7 miles and since it was obvious no one else was around the dogs got to hike the entire trail off the leash. We are very careful to keep our dog on the leash even though he is a friendly 20 pounds but in this case they had a blast. This canyon is full of incredible geology and Doug was a very knowledgeable man making for a really special hike.

The wind had most of the wildlife hidden in the box canyons out of the wind but I did spot these mule deer and got a picture before they ran off.

We kept waiting for the wind to die enough for us to set up the trailer but it was not to be so we decided to head home Saturday evening instead of Sunday. For the first time ever i drove through a dust storm in which I could not see and had to slow to 20mph.

Even though our trip was cut short and we did not get to ride the rails to trails on our bicycles and go through the 750 ft. bat tunnel we had a great time and will return to ride the trail and visit Fern Cave.

While we really like our pop up and it tows very easy with good gas mileage we may look at a 20 something foot hard sided travel trailer.

Well that's it for now since I need to recover from my 60 mile bike ride this morning with a group of hammerheads.

Some of the pictures are clickable, some are not, I don't know why.

Dennis