November, 2023 continued

 It's been a crazy last few weeks as first my younger brother Chuck passed away, he was a medically retired Army Vet and served in the OIF military campaigns. RIP Brother!! Then both my Mom and my brother Bob have been in and out of the hospital! My Mom lives with Bob so he is her main "caretaker", Jo and I had to take over and check on him at the hospital!

Things have very slowly returned to a "kinda normal state" so we have got a few rides in.

Nov. 15

We rode the Vincent Frontage Road Loop as we call it, stopped at Panera Bread for our unsweetened iced tea and brown bag lunch. We've been a bit lucky as the November weather has been nice! 70 F and sunny, the route is PP Greenway, a little bit of the Cottonwood Creek trail, the Vincent Frontage Road over to the Nevada Ave. Frontage trail. Felt so good to be back out on the trikes! 

Nov. 16

Cascade St. bike lane to downtown, then back streets over to America the Beautiful Park to pick up the Midland Trail and head west into Manitou Springs and the Creek Walk Trail. Headed back down the trail to 30th. St. and stopped at the Starbucks for our unsweet iced tea and brown bag lunch. Midland trail back to the Weber St. bike lane and headed for the Barn!

Nov. 18

We haven't rode all the way to the Cottonwood Regional Park in a while so that was the days ride! Cascade St. bike lane, Templeton Gap trail west, PP Greenway over to the Cottonwood Creek Trail junction. Over the bridge and through the short tunnel, over lot's more little bridges. Cooler day with some clouds but still partly sunny, the ride is all uphill grade heading northeast to the park. LOL, besides the ride, we wanted to check out what the CITY calls restroom improvement. The park used to have a old full restroom, they tore it down and put in a 4 porta-potty stall with cover set up. The city said the old one was too expensive to upkeep, I say BS, but it's still a place to GO when needed and unlike a lot of our parks it at least has a restroom facility! 

As the cloud cover was getting thicker, we decided not to do the upper portion of the trail and headed back. Again stopped at Panera Bread for the brown bag lunch and iced tea but we decided it was chilly enough to share a bowl of their excellent Tomato Bisque soup, YUM! From there, back down the PP Greenway over to Shooks Run Trail. On Shooks, heading north, we rode to check out if the concrete finally re-connection the Shooks Run and Rock Island Trails had been completed. YEA, it was so we rode the up the Rock Island Trail for a bit to the Templeton Gap Road bike lane. Headed back west on back streets over to Cascade St. bike lane and back to the storage unit to tuck away the trikes.

We've got a really mean looking COLD front coming and they are talking snow, YUCK, a bit warmer days on Tue. and Wed. so we hope to get in a FOOD run on Tue. and a ride on Wed. then the weather turns bad for several days so we will be riding the exercise bike, BUMMER!