It don't stop...
I got home from the Condor and (literally) laid around for 2 days. But, Spring Break won't wait. Now, no one in the family but me is enthusiastic about Henry Coe, they claim it's too steep (OK, true) with no redeeming value (false!) and decline to return. So we loaded up the Surly Big Dummy and drove ourselfs over to the Arroyo Seco side of things.
The boys and I rolled out mid-afternoon, to be joined by our queen bee around dark. She brought burritos out with her. That's how seriously we take this adventure stuff.
How could things go smoothly? While packing the bikes I decided to cram the 26+ front wheel in the Big Dummy, since it would be all dirt and that's a muuuuch cushier ride. Hey, I've done it before. But- and there's always a but- I neglected to think about the fact that since the last use, I'd re-installed the front rack and it didn't clear the top of the 26+. So we lingered in the buggy parking lot while I tried to raise the rack. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that barring a complete removal and re-installation it would not be perfect. There was a buzz twice a revolution. Of course I attempted to run it. We got onto the dirt road before I cracked and removed it entirely. With such a load on such a bike, it doesn't really matter if the front end is weighted in terms of balancing things, so NBD. I sent D back to the car to stow it. J and I continued lumbering onward.
D caught up with us a bit later, and I asked him where his pack was...
...so he went back to get it. He's been there enough he knows the way.
This type of thing.
1st things 1st, I sent J down to the river to make a corral for those beers. The boys got a 40-piece container of gum and chewed up the whole thing in 2 days. Which reminds me- _ick had some fancy Japanese caffeine gum he'd pull out on the Condor, and every time I scrambled over to nab a piece like a trained monkey. That stuff was clutch in the darker moments of bonk...
Still kind of dismayed at how imposing this monster tent is...
Some folks just like to read in comfort. Their adventure is a bug-free zone and a nice book.
Other folks like a good game.
...and that damn bocce set must have weighed 12lbs. Not kidding. So it was 3 days, 2 nights of lounging. We hiked some, and played games some, and sat on rocks in the middle of the river after demanding that our youngest child go somewhere else so we could enjoy the peace and nature sounds and coffee undisturbed some, and enforced some swimming (well, the water was still pretty cold- and actually fairly silty too, from the recent rains) some, and watched the campfire burn some, etc. Mellow camping.
Kids these days...
I got home from the Condor and (literally) laid around for 2 days. But, Spring Break won't wait. Now, no one in the family but me is enthusiastic about Henry Coe, they claim it's too steep (OK, true) with no redeeming value (false!) and decline to return. So we loaded up the Surly Big Dummy and drove ourselfs over to the Arroyo Seco side of things.
The boys and I rolled out mid-afternoon, to be joined by our queen bee around dark. She brought burritos out with her. That's how seriously we take this adventure stuff.
How could things go smoothly? While packing the bikes I decided to cram the 26+ front wheel in the Big Dummy, since it would be all dirt and that's a muuuuch cushier ride. Hey, I've done it before. But- and there's always a but- I neglected to think about the fact that since the last use, I'd re-installed the front rack and it didn't clear the top of the 26+. So we lingered in the buggy parking lot while I tried to raise the rack. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that barring a complete removal and re-installation it would not be perfect. There was a buzz twice a revolution. Of course I attempted to run it. We got onto the dirt road before I cracked and removed it entirely. With such a load on such a bike, it doesn't really matter if the front end is weighted in terms of balancing things, so NBD. I sent D back to the car to stow it. J and I continued lumbering onward.
D caught up with us a bit later, and I asked him where his pack was...
...so he went back to get it. He's been there enough he knows the way.
This type of thing.
1st things 1st, I sent J down to the river to make a corral for those beers. The boys got a 40-piece container of gum and chewed up the whole thing in 2 days. Which reminds me- _ick had some fancy Japanese caffeine gum he'd pull out on the Condor, and every time I scrambled over to nab a piece like a trained monkey. That stuff was clutch in the darker moments of bonk...
Still kind of dismayed at how imposing this monster tent is...
Some folks just like to read in comfort. Their adventure is a bug-free zone and a nice book.
Other folks like a good game.
...and that damn bocce set must have weighed 12lbs. Not kidding. So it was 3 days, 2 nights of lounging. We hiked some, and played games some, and sat on rocks in the middle of the river after demanding that our youngest child go somewhere else so we could enjoy the peace and nature sounds and coffee undisturbed some, and enforced some swimming (well, the water was still pretty cold- and actually fairly silty too, from the recent rains) some, and watched the campfire burn some, etc. Mellow camping.
Kids these days...
