Colors of Yellowstone

We walked a few of the paths in Yellowstone and snapped many photos! These are a few of my favorites. The color of that water! Just wow!

The white in this formation is not snow.

The Geysers were way awesome!

Still amazed that things can and do live there.

Test Drive before you Propose (or the Saga of Two Bikes)

We’ve been biking a lot lately. We’ve always liked to bike, but a few years ago we got rid of our bikes since we were in the middle of house building (for those of you who don't know, we built a 3000 sq ft house with our own four hands) then I had cancer so we kinda quit biking. Two falls ago we decided to buy new bikes and while Dennis still got a mountain bike he suggested a cruiser (comfort bike) for me. We rode twice that fall before the snow fell. Then we got them out once last year.

This bike got 80 miles on it last week alone. And I really love this bike! It is a dream to ride!

It’s a Giant Suede metro series. Very comfy! But the thing doesn’t really fit on a rack well at all!

Check out that nice padded seat! Yeah, a dream to pedal! It’s a 7 speed and I keep it 6th gear generally - take ‘er up to 17 mph on a flat surface - like 25 down a hill.

Not many miles on it overall. And I think it will be getting baskets so I can ride to the store and such.

But, we discovered some mountain bike trails near our home and, well, a comfort bike just can’t do them. Heck the handlebars wouldn’t even fit through some areas. So, it was necessary to get me a mountain bike.

I wanted to make sure it fit on the rack for travel so I told the saleslady I wanted a guys bike - but who knew Trek makes a women’s bike with a frame like the men’s!

The seat is cute, not quite as comfy as the Suede’s but still good. I do wear biking shorts anyway.

Check out the tires on this baby!

I barely had the bike 5 hours when the guys decided it was time to hit the trails. I had only rode it around the parking lot where we bought it. This is me after the trails, hot and sweaty, dirty and just a wee bit bloody.

I was terrified! I haven’t been on mountain bike trails in about 6 years! So I was still in my 30s. Is it legal for a 42 year old to go mountain biking?! Around one of the tight, downhill curves with stump on one edge and rock on the other I almost fell and my knee hit the pedal. Ouch! But I didn’t cry - nuh-huh, Dennis test drove me before he proposed, making sure I was up for things like this. Heck our first vacation together was spent traveling 14 states in 10 days hiking, biking and camping (in snow even!). It was awesome!!

I did finally take a fall. Coming around another steep-loose-soil downhill curve I was confronted with a tree trunk across the path. I braked and swerved and got in leaves and fell - crash. The crankset (thing with the chain and pedal) bit me on my way down. . .

And a tree got my arm. But all bruised up I still felt good and am ready to go again!

From day one, I have done anything Dennis has suggested, (within two weeks of knowing him he took me skiing, I was on my butt more than the skis but whatev‘) why stop now! So, Hon, when are we going bungee jumping?

We conquered the circle

First, before anything else, I have to tell you that all the photos in this post were taken with my little point and shoot and I am not happy, at all, with the quality, but I did not feel like lugging the huge camera along. You’ve been warned.

We had this brilliant idea to travel the Green Circle Trail yesterday. Last year we only got our bikes out one day and it rained on us. So we decided that we would conquer all 30 miles of the trail. Sounds simple enough, right? This was about mile 6, and that’s Haden back there. I shot this without looking, just held the camera over my shoulder while I was pedaling away. So that might have something to do with the quality? . . .Nah.

We’re about 7.5 miles on our journey here, and I had to stop and go back to snap the fire hydrant. It had us shaking our heads. There’s a river to our right and woods to our left and well, a fire hydrant. What the heck?

There were little patches of snow in the trail and well mud and bike wheels, well you know where the mud ends up. We came home looking like we’d pooped our pants, lol.

Have you seen the movie, “Yes Man”? We laughed so hard about the running and photography combo. Let me say that it inspired me to snap while riding today and while it was fun, I don’t think it was very good, probably not even average.  But this photo makes me laugh because you can't see Haden's bike and it looks like he's a mime. :)

That hill doesn’t look as big from the top as it did while I was trying to pedal up it.

About halfway there - 15 miles.

Mile 26 - We had a truly great day! It was 54 degrees, sunny, and nice! But by this point in the trail we were ready to be home, our bums hurt - and still do. We never thought we’d ride the entire trail, but now we’re thinking we’ll do it every week or two.

Then we’ll sleep like babies.

It was a much nicer day than about a week ago when we went caching. Just look at the snow - can’t you tell it was cold? I did cross the log with Dennis the day before, but this particular day I decided to just wait until he came back.

And take a self portrait.

And some cool fungus.

HAPPY EASTER!! And Mom, if you read this - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Eat some cake for me. :)

Fun Monday Paths

This week’s Fun Monday assignment is to share our favorite path/walk. Well, probably my favorite area to walk near home would be Iverson Park. You’ve seen the park before if you’ve seen the photos we did of my kids last fall.

These photos were taken Dec 31st, 2006. It looks quite different than when we shot the kids’ photos, doesn’t it?

This bridge is also in Iverson Park and if you cross it, you can follow some animal trails and find Skunk Cabbage:

And maybe my owl friend.

(These were taken last year with my point and shoot)

But Wisconsin is full of great trails just about anywhere you go.

And even though it decided to spit snow (no accumulation thankfully) on us all day on Saturday, I took a few more photos for you with my new 15mm fisheye lens. It was in the low 30s all day, brrr!

And I took one last one Sunday, although I had the macro lens on. We had a semi-sunshiny day in the 50s.

Thanks for the fun assignment, Angela! Hope I didn’t overload you on too many pictures.