Ah to be back in my quiet lifestyle again!  After a pell mell week, it was good to go for a relaxing ride on Saturday.  I made the mistake of trusting weather.com that it would not rain, but other than that it was a good day.

Come along with me for some peaceful photos!

I missed my bike!  One thing about Vegas – not bike friendly.  It gave me the willies thinking about trying to get to and from the Strip to get to work there.  Not that we saw anyone on bikes doing that, but they should think about making the city itself more bike friendly.

It was a little chilly in the 60s for the first part of the ride, but the sun was out and it was nice to be on open roads with very little traffic.

I had decided I wanted Martha’s ice cream today, so I made a large loop around towards Lake George.  I didn’t actually want to go all the way to the lake because there was a big car show going on and I had no desire to be around a lot of people after being in Vegas.

I had to shed my jacket after a while.  This part of the path goes through Glens Falls.  A lot of stop and go, so it kills your average speed, but it’s pretty.

Lots of fall blooming flowers.  Goldenrod and Joe Pye Weed:

Rest spot!

I sat on a rock next to my bike and caught movement out of the corner of my eye.  Little tiny toad!  He was maybe an inch long and very cute.

I will make him look big and fierce, though.

After some rest, I headed to Martha’s.  I had asked my mom if she wanted to meet me there.  I gave an approximate time with a half hour window because you never know when riding what can happen.  We ended up getting there within 5 minutes of each other!  Perfect timing.

I had a scholarship sundae:

That’s hot fudge, raspberry sauce and cookie crumbs.  Yum!

Mama Radiance:

My dad wanted to burn leaves instead of come for ice cream, can you believe that?  Doesn’t know what he is missing.  Anyway, we chatted for a long time since I had to catch her up on all we did in Vegas and the skies started to cloud up.  I figured it was best to head home.  Sure enough, a mile or so in going home and it started to sprinkle.  I almost thought about pulling over and waiting, but then realized it probably was a rain that wasn’t going to stop.  So, I pulled over and put my jacket on.

Frowny!

I then saw this and had to pull over, rain or not.  This is newly painted because I know this wasn’t here a few weeks ago.

It was mostly light drizzle at this point, so I changed my route home to go on the path and get under some tree cover to keep dry.

We have been avoiding this part of the path all summer because it dumps you out into construction, but it was worth keeping drier.

Done!  I cut the ride a bit short because of the weather, but still a good ride.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  38.5

Ride time:  3 hours 5 minutes

Average speed:  12.3 mph

Top speed:  22.1 mph

Calories burned:  1317 – good enough for a big sundae!

And irony? I was so glad to get out of the cold and drizzle and hop into the shower

Thanks for all your nice comments on our house!  I love to see before and afters of home improvement as well.  Of course, the front took quite a few years and trial and error to get to this point.  I need to see if I can find some pictures of my first year where I pretty much did all annuals and it was sparse looking LOL!

We had another gorgeous weekend.  For all the rain we have been getting this summer, Saturdays have been pretty good for riding.  It was just perfect, too.  Upper 70s, no wind, sunny.  Seriously – it’s perfect.  We chose to do a Saratoga ride for some frozen yogurt.  This time, we took our old way, which is down route 9N, a designated bike road.  We don’t ride this way very often anymore because we like the scenic back ways we take, but it was nice for a change.  We do avoid the interstate on-ramp and go by the Moreau State Park.

This is around 11 miles or so into the ride and we stop for a stretch and I had a date:

Yes, I was trying to give John a date head.  I am 5, you know.

This is really the nicest part of the ride.  The rest mostly looks like this:

Although not as much traffic before this.  We are pretty close to Saratoga in this pic.  We arrived at Congress Park around mile 22.  We packed lunches to have:

I am surprised my banana held up so well being in my bag on the ride down.

There was a squirrel eating out of a garbage can near us, too.  Free lunch!

After eating, we strolled around town before getting our yogurt.  A new bookstore opened up called Northshire Books.

It’s a very cool store. Hope they do well.  I sometimes feel guilty at all my Kindle reading, but I just can’t afford to buy a book every time I want to read.

Next to the new bookstore is a new Kilwin’s chocolate shop.  Amazing looking fudge here.  I almost got some, but didn’t.

I know, right?

One of the mineral springs:

People will fill up all kind of water containers to take this stuff home.  Personally, I think it tastes like drinking salt water out of a cast iron bucket.  Yuck.

More Saratoga ballet shoes:

Then it was time to hit up Plum Dandy.  They have several kinds of yogurt and lots of toppings to choose from.  This was 1 of 2 topping stations.

I have to remember not to get much fresh fruit because that stuff is heavy.  You pay by the ounce.  My bowl.

Why yes, that is Cap’n Crunch on there!    Our bowls were expensive, too.  It was $13 for both of us, which is just too much for frozen yogurt.  In my opinion, of course.  I would rather have a coffee and cupcake from now on.

Riding home!  My legs felt great.  I remember when riding this route was really challenging for me a couple years ago with the hills.  Now we breezed up them.  Not that you don’t get out of breath from the effort, but we recover fast and can get up the hills much faster.  Feels pretty good to do that.

We stopped around mile 31 or so after the hill section for a rest.  John was trying to ignore me here:

😀

More open road:

All in all, a nice day for a ride!

Home!  Note my nail art.  Again, 5 years old…

Ride stats:

Total miles:  44.7

Average speed:  13.7 mph

Saddle time:  3 hours 13 minutes

Calories burned:  1487

Then it was girl’s manicure tonight (said goodbye to my strawberries) – which I will post about this week with my nail stamping kit!

Saturday was just the best day for riding!  Upper 70s and sunny, not much humidity.  It was a bit breezy, though – but I could deal with that 😀  Too bad John was away for the weekend and missed this.

I wanted to get 40 miles in, but I decided I didn’t want to go all the way to Saratoga by myself and face the track crowds.  It is track season and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the Saratoga horse races and it is crowded, crowded!  So, I chose to do 2 separate rides.  The first one was to the farmer’s market.  Here is the historical marker of the day.

I guess that you can figure out how far I was from home at this point 😉

The market had lots of pretty stuff, and an usually large amount of baked goods!

Flowers.  I don’t need any of those.

Except I kind of wanted these.

I didn’t end up buying anything at the market, but it was a nice place to stop and look around.  I continued my big loop around and got a 15 mile segment in.

The other ride I wanted was going to EspressoHuis in Schuylerville.  I ate lunch at home and then decided to head down a little early since I knew there would be some sort of music playing as part of a summer series.  More sunscreen and I was on my way!

Look at the beautiful skies!

I was singing Ella Fitzgerald most of the way down.

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see

Saturday was still somewhat warm in the 80s and humid, but way better than the rest of the week has been.  Since rain was in the forecast and it was hot, I decided to stick closer to home for my solo ride and hit most of the trails and designated bike routes around.  So join me, okay?  It’s a bit of a long post.

This path has a cinder surface.  Not my favorite to ride on, but it’s pretty.

This goes through Hudson Falls into Glens Falls.  Once it gets to  Glens Falls, it is paved.  Crossing over Quaker Road:

Good thing I took that crossbow class at BOW as apparently we have a date for the zombie apocalypse.

Here is part of the designated bike route.  Just a shoulder, really.  There are posted “Share the Road” signs.

This is at the end of someone’s driveway.

Circling around to near SUNY Adirondack.  This used to be Adirondack Community College, but just recently joined the SUNY system.

There was a motorcycle safety class going on.  These people were just circling and circling:

At mile 15, I arrived back in Glens Falls and stopped at Coffee Planet for my mid ride treat!

I have been dying to try a salted caramel cream puff, but normally a Glens Falls ride isn’t long enough to justify it LOL!  It was today.

Worthy of the miles, too!  With an iced latte.

After a rest, it was back on to a different trail.  The canal heritage trail.  Back on cinder with some company!

Then near the dam:

It would have felt really good to jump in there, too!  I took this opportunity to put on more sunscreen.  Gotta keep that pasty white look year round 😀

I back tracked and hopped over the bridge to the Betar Bikeway.  This is only about 1 mile long or so, but very quiet and pretty.

I was hoping to see some cool birds, but only saw a goose.  Usually this trail is good for at least a heron.

Back out to route 9 and Uh-Oh

I did decide to go for it and ride to the right of the cones and the roads were actually okay.  The work was being done on the curb so the road surface was still good.  Not to mention it was nice that there was a barrier between me and the cars.

Back around to home and this is just road riding. Not designated for biking, but this is really the only way to get back home from here.  Here is the Hudson Falls Hydroelectric Project:

See that nasty old building in the background?  That is part of the GE property and not used.  The same corporation that pooped its PCBs into the Hudson and contaminated it and then dragged their feet for years before finally agreeing to clean it up (dredging photos from last week).

Here is a photo of the old bridge people used to go over.

You can just see the current bridge to the left.  I am glad they haven’t torn this old bridge down because it is very cool looking.

One last stop at a farm stand to get some blueberries and it was home.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  31.7

Average speed: 11.9 (city riding)

Top speed:  24.5

Calories burned:  1169 (cream puff worthy!)

Oh, almost forgot the obligatory selfie!

Hope your weekend was just as good!

I know it’s July and all that, but it sure feels like we skipped forward a month with this heat!  Not to mention the humidity.  None of the doors in our house open and close right because they are swollen from the humidity.

That puts a bit of a damper on riding because it is too much to be on the open roads in the sun, so we have to settle for closer to home.  We biked to the farmer’s market on Saturday for fun.

Roz – you should be here this week – this week’s word is kale!!

I would have loved to buy a bunch of produce, but we were riding for a while after this and it would have all wilted (not to mention been heavy).

This is some good peanut butter!

I sampled the s’mores butter.  Yum!

The bouquet lady was just about sold out.

We then headed out towards the lake, although were weren’t going all the way there.

New sign at our ‘decision point’:

There has been a problem between snowmobilers and the city with maintenance of the path because they ride over the bare path in winter and it gouges it up.

We decided to climb a few hills and then turn around.

It was lunch time and we decided to stop for froyo.  Turns out we weren’t the only ones having a lunch like this!

This was bigger than I probably needed, but I ended up finishing it – probably because it was lunch LOL!

It was pretty hot and John was a little tired, so he headed home and I peeled off to do a few more miles. I wanted to get close to 30 on the day.  I went road riding:

Go me!!

I wound around some on the path as well.  The canal is pretty high right now with all the rain.  This lock usually isn’t gushing like this:

Then I went by what I call Covet House – because I do covet it.

I love this house and it’s big gardens.  If it went on the market, I would be first in line to buy it.  I like to make my riding route go by this house because I love to look at it.  I wish the picture was a little better, but I didn’t want to be a total creeper.

Home!

Ride stats:

28.1 miles

Average speed 13.1 mph

Top speed 25.6 mph

Calories burned – 907.

Since it was a shorter ride, I really pushed the hills and felt great! I’ve got good legs right now.  With riding on Sunday, I cracked the 1000 mile mark for the season already!  If I do 100 miles a week, I can hit my 2500 mile goal before November.  That sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. Just a few rides during the week and then 50 miles on the weekends, which is pretty standard.

Phoenix has made himself quite at home.

Pixie has been a real trooper through having the kitten around.  Phoenix and entourage will be going home on Sunday some time in the evening.  Pixie spent a lot of time up on the cabinets to get relief from his pestering.

He is on the floor and you can just hear her thoughts.  Sigh… still here…

A big heartfelt thank you to all who have served in the military, those who gave their lives for our freedom and those who continue to risk their own lives!

I worked a little bit this morning, but it was finally nice enough weather to get out and ride!

We decided to go down to Saratoga and have lunch.  John planned the route (as he usually does).  We chose to bike down route 9 since they repaved the bike lane. YAY!

It was a little chilly in the morning, so I needed a jacket.  Look – it matched my nails!

Well, almost. We stopped around mile 8 so John could shed his jacket.

This is a side road we take to avoid biking by the entrance to the northway.  Even though the bike lane goes through that, I feel uncomfortable with cars merging on and off the northway. Imagine that. 🙄

Back on route 9 and I needed to shed my jacket.  Everything is greening up nicely now!

See this freshly paved bike lane?

It’s so nice.  This was all rutted and in horrible condition, so we stopped riding on it.  Nice to have another option for variety to get down to Saratoga.

We were booking on down.  We averaged 13.6 miles per hour down there.  Any time I can get over 13 mph on a hilly course is happy time.

At mile 24, we stopped for lunch at The Local.  We tried to use a Groupon, but the fine print said no holidays.  Lame!  It wasn’t crowded, so it didn’t make sense, but oh well.

Lots of beers on tap, but I didn’t partake.

I decided on a grilled cheese sandwich.

After lunch, we strolled around downtown and enjoyed the weather.

Working clock.  This was really the time.

This must be Beyonce’s cousin:

oink, oink m********

I saw some roses blooming, which is really early!  These are  called Julia Child.

Then we hit up Spot Coffee to have a sweet before heading back.

I had a peanut butter and jelly bar with cafe au lait.

Yummy, although I kind of was craving a cupcake LOL!

There was a bit of wind on the way home.  Okay, a little more than a bit.  It made for some tough going at times.  We didn’t stop too much.  About mile 35 or so and we hit the last of the longer climbing segments.

I kind of got a second wind after resting here.  Must have been the peanut butter and jelly bar kicking in 😀

Arrived home in good shape at mile 46!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  46.3

Average speed:  13.3 mph

Top speed:  24.2 mph

Calories burned:  1423

Good ride indeed!