5 Miles of Hiking on a Rainy Day… woohoo!

Yesterday we biked past a small nature preserve called Halls Creek Wood Preserve. It looked like it had some hiking, so we’d been talking about checking it out. Just as we were heading out of the door at home, the rain started coming down. The weather had called for scattered thunderstorms, but instead, we got a constant rainy drizzle…. very Seattle-like. This didn’t bother us at all, ’cause it seems like any time we go for a long bike ride or such, we get rained on and it’s all good!

Today, Penny’s daughter decided to go out with us, so we were glad to see the rain didn’t deter her!

Halls Creek Woods is about 274 acres of mature trees, steep climbs out of the ravine, with a nice plateau with more hiking… all told, about 2 miles of dirt hiking trails.  In addition, we decided to walk up the creek bed for about a half mile, enjoying the slate rock and bedding planes.  It was a great place for hiking, and a good place to practice hiking up and down steep inclines!!

After that, we drove over near Ft Ancient so that we could hike the Little Miami Trail from the canoe livery up to the Jeremiah Morrow Bridge that carries Interstate 71 over the Little Miami River.  This is the highest Interstate to River bridge height in Ohio.

The reason we did this hike was for Penny’s daughter.  Penny and her had driven across the river valley using the bridge.  It’s a spectacular view of the valley, but Penny commented that we bike under the bridge down on the trail.

There’s a parking lot managed by the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources that is just next to the canoe livery, and a short walk to the trail.  Round trip, it was 2 1/4 miles down and back on the paved trail.  Surprisingly, because of the rain, there were very few cyclists out on the trail, so we pretty much had it to ourselves.

All told, it was over 5 miles of hiking on both dirt and paved trails, as well as rocky creek bed…. a nice way to spend the afternoon!

Easy 16 Mile Bike Ride

Took the new helmet/bike cam on an easy ride and set the cam to take pics every 5 seconds. Took the 800+ pics and created a 13 minute video with text narrative.

Instead of just taking the trail all the way to Morrow, then turning around to come back, we decided that about half way to Morrow we would use the road. At Stubb-Mills Rd, we jumped to the other side of the Little Miami River and took Mason-Morrow Rd. What a delight this was! It was freshly paved and smooth as glass! I think we found a nice alternate route around the roots that are popping up asphalt on the Little Miami Trail on the south side of Morrow. These roots and bumps are a pain in the ass, literally… and arms, wrists, hands… well… you get the picture!!

Testing a GoPro Bike/Helmet Cam

I initially wanted to do a 5 or 10k row tonight, but my GoPro Bike/Helmet Cam showed up at the door today, so of course, that became the priority!  After I toyed with it for a bit, I took it out for a test video and did a 3.5 mile once-around of the neighborhood.

Peddling a 30 mile Roundtrip to eat at the Corwin Peddler

Today was a pretty hot day, especially for this early in the summer.  So what did we choose to do? You got it!  Go for a bike ride!  Actually it was pretty nice.  If you stood directly in the sun, you baked and were soaked in short order, but riding in the shade on the trail with the wind whipping in your face, now that was pleasant!

Our seats were still just a smidge tender from the 25 mile ride earlier in the week, but we wanted to increase the miles a bit.  Grabbing a bite at the Corwin Peddler sounded like a great idea, but from our normal starting point, that would be a 45 roundtrip.  For the most part, we are physically and mentally ready for a ride like this, or longer, but our butts just don’t have enough mileage this year for that yet.  Penny says, why don’t we drive over to Morrow and start from there.  Great idea!  That chopped 15 miles off the round trip and let us play a bit with the ride intensity.

We took it fairly easy on the way North to the Corwin Peddler.  One of the things we really appreciated was that all of the bridges in ill-repair had been either paved or had new oak planks thanks to efforts by the Little Miami State Park Friends Group.  This was a major change since the last time we road through here in March.  That last time here, Peddler had been closed for the season, but now if was quite busy, serving ice cream, meals, renting bikes, or selling bike repair items.

Penny posed for me in front of the Corwin Peddler.

After we ate, we were feeling pretty good, so we played some with the intensity, pushing the pace higher than we’d done so far this year.  We got to Oregonia and I asked if she realized that we’d just sailed through 5 miles.

Feeling froggy, we upped the pace a little more until we hit the Fort Ancient section where the I-71 bridge crosses.  At that point we took turns drafting and cruising at 20mph…. not that it’s that high, but we wanted to hold this for as long as possible…. finally settling back to 17mph after a few miles and then a relaxing cooldown when we got within a mile of the vehicle.

It was a great ride and we had a fun time today!

25 Miles Down the Little Miami Trail

We attempted to do a relaxing bike ride down the Little Miami Trail.  While for the most part is was, it’s always tough to hold Penny back, even when she’s tired and needs to go easy.  “Pedal ’til you bonk” is her motto!!   I did manage to persuade her to make multiple stops and stretches so that any other workouts this week would not be hindered by what was supposed to be our easy ride tonight.  I knew my seat was still adjusting to the saddle this year… in fact, the new bib shorts are padded differently and I’m still making a major adjustment to them.

We headed down to Loveland, and then beyond to Branch Hill Road.  It was a fun ride, with a few spurts of spunk from Penny, especially at the end when she made me go 22 miles per hour against my will to keep up with her… lol.  Evenso, it was a great 25 mile ride as we continue to build saddle time this year.

Sailing on the Brig Niagara, a replica from the War of 1812.

Penny wanted to take her father out on an afternoon trip on the Brig Niagara because he likes sailing vessels.  At 84 years old, he gets around remarkably well, so rather than just tour the vessel at dock, we signed up as “Day Students” for a 6 hour cruise around Presque Isle, PA.

The ship is staffed by a few Professional sailors, as well as students that live on her for 2-3 weeks, or the entire sailing season.  Because this isn’t a passenger vessel, anyone that wants to go out on her does so as a “student”, which means that you can participate as much or as little as you want in the operations.

Only those with prior approval and training can go aloft, but there are still many tasks on deck that give you a good feel for what it’s like to have been to crew a vessel in the Golden Age of sail!

We got hit by some heavy down pours and wind, but the Captain avoided most of the T-Storm cells that were lurking around.  At one point, we had to go to anchor and drop all sails because things got a bit fierce, but being able to see and participate in this was a blast!!  Most of the time, the crew doesn’t get to drop anchor much, so it was cool to see the flurry of activity when making the ship ready for the expected squall!

After the storms passed, the ship was put through several maneuvers to demonstrate how to catch wind to isolate and move either the bow or stern around.  The angle on the yard arms was pretty cool to see!

Notice how the yard arm on the left (top)  is at a steep angle and pointed very acutely toward the bow (bottom) mast.

The funding to continue the history is in jeopardy due to the current economy, so support is important if you like this sort of thing.  We hope to do this again if it’s still available next season!

Visit their Brig Niagara website.

Cycling 20 Miles on the Little Miami Trail

Since we have a fairly regular workout schedule involving weightlifting/powerlifting, rowing, and crossfit-style activities, we haven’t been cycling as much this year.  Last year, cycling WAS our only exercise, so we did it a lot more.  So today, we focused on just doing a slow recreational ride and enjoying an absolutely beautiful day.  The goal was to do a 20 mile ride… not ’cause our legs couldn’t handle it, but our wrists and butts didn’t have enough cycling miles on this year, so no sense making this an uncomfortable endurance event.

Penny had ordered us some new cycling clothes in support of Fat Cyclist.  His wife is battling cancer, and this is just one small way to show our support.

Once we got warmed up a bit, we stopped in Morrow for a quick stretch, a Twitter update, and upload a couple of pics to Facebook.

Our game plan was to cruise up to Morgan’s livery and check their rates for canoe trips down the Little Miami River.  This was a great turn around point for our ride today, as it almost exactly 10 miles from our starting point.

After we inquired about rates, we grabbed a chicken sandwich and sat down for a few.  At that time, a lady and her son came back up from the canoes and returned their gear.  They had cycled down from the Columbus area and were just cycling down the trail enjoying whatever whim they wanted, including a brief canoe trip.  She asked if we were from the area and was trying to see what hotels might be available down the road.  We gave her some insight and then ventured back down the trail toward home.

We stopped at Miranda’s Ice Cream in Morrow, grabbing a frozen sugar-free dessert.  About the same time, the skies darkened and it began raining lightly as we got back on the bikes.  The closer we got back to the vehicle, the heavier the rain got, but it was pleasantly warm… and even a bit fun… especially knowing we were almost done with the ride!

What a great day!!

Fay Bainbridge SP, Next Step Conditioning, and Cove 2 Diving

Tuesday, we decided to take a day trip over to Bainbridge Island via the land route around the west side of Puget Sound.  Our motivation for the drive was to find Coach Izzy at Next Step Conditioning.  We knew him from Scubaboard and Facebook and knew that since we were this close we needed to stop in and see him.  In addition to his website, he also has a blog we like to follow!

When we got to Bainbridge Island, we had trouble finding Next Step Conditioning.  More accurately, we had trouble believing the GPS because the driveway led back into the woods, we thought, to someone’s home, we disregarded it and drove down to Fay Bainbridge State Park to visit there, take some pics, and look up the address to Next Step again.

At Fay Bainbridge State Park, we got some shots of the picturesque driftwood all over the beach.

Afterwards, we circled back around and looked for Next Step again.  This time we opted to drive up the driveway…. way back up the driveway.  It was very cool back in there with a few residences, as well as the Next Step building.  We poked around trying to find our way in, and Coach Izzy stuck his head out window and asked if he could help us, then suddenly exclaimed… PENNY… BOB!!! Well… I guess we were in the right place!!

Coach knew that I’d talked about a sore problematic shoulder, so he volunteered to take a look at it and worked me over pretty good.

He worked me over and left me bruised, but much of the previous strain was relieved!  Thanks Coach!  Before we left, we scheduled a return visit to work out with Izzy on Saturday.

We took the ferry from Bainbridge Island back to downtown Seattle, so that we could get back to Bob’s in time to prep for the evening dive.  The ferry was a cool experience and dumped us right downtown.  If someone lived over on the Island, this would be a great way to get back and forth to work without driving around Puget Sound!  In fact, just park on the island and walk around or use public transportation once you reach Seattle.

In the evening after Bob got off work, we headed over to Cove 2 and met up with Colleen, as well as Marc.  Colleen and I weren’t up to diving, so Penny, Marc, and Bob took a tour of the Cove, much to Penny’s delight.  Colleen and I shared coffee and many stories!

Penny, Marc, Bob

You can see in the pic one of the people ferry’s that shuttles back and forth between West Seattle and Downtown Seattle.

Another Great Day!!

Redondo Beach Diving & a Brief Visit to Snoqualmie Falls

We stayed at Bob Bailey’s house in Federal Way, about 1/2 way between Seattle and Tacoma.  His place is known as “Hotel Bob” because of his hospitality toward visiting divers.  Bob is reknowned on many of the scuba forums, and goes by Grateful Diver or NWGratefulDiver.  With over 2000 dives in the Puget Sound area, he is a great guide and source of information for the area!  Visit the link to his website to see the cool things in the PNW!!

On Monday, Bob took us a couple of miles from his place to one of the dives he does the most… Redondo!

Redondo is an easy beach entry, even at low tide.  Here’s a shot looking back toward shore from the end of the public pier.

Bob Bailey

Penny &  Colleen

After the dives, Bob had to run to a dive class he was taking, so Colleen navigated us over to the North Bend Ski area.

This was a beautiful area for driving around, just 30 or so miles east of Seattle.  We got out and did some walking around, marveling that there was still snow on the ground in places that kept a couple of roads closed that we wanted to try.

On our way back to the Seattle area, it started to rain, but Colleen thought we might like the Snoqualmie Falls area.  WOW!! Was she ever right!  Beautiful falls!!

Penny and Colleen on the observation deck at the Falls

So many diverse things to do made for some full days!!

Seattle’s Pike Place Market and Aquarium

After arriving into Seattle late on Saturday night, our first full day on Sunday was one to catch our bearings.  Marc and Dawn called to see if we would want to go up to Pike Place Market with them and walk around.  That sounded great, so we took them up on it!

Pike Place Market and Aquarium

Overlooking Puget Sound and the Cruise Ship terminal from Pike’s Market

After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed over to the Seattle Aquarium and took in the many marine wonders of the Pacific Northwest.  A great display and layout to the place too!  Unique displays that made the experience a good one!

Seattle Aquarium

After the aquarium, we cruised over to West Seattle where Marc showed us one of the local diving sites called Cove 2.

We know that Marc and Dawn had originally planned on laying down flooring in their house, but spent the day with us instead!  Thanks guys!!  It was a great time!