Bike Ride!

16 June 2011--Went bike riding yesterday and today, but before we get to that I wanted to show you a couple pics of these baby mockingbirds that are all over our RV Park. I know this pales in comparison to the national parks we have been to (haha), but I think they are cute, so there you go! What is funny about these babies is that although they can't fly yet, they are either on the ground or have hopped up on things like my bike while they wait for their mothers to feed them. I don't know how they survive, but they do.




This 1st pic shows our surge suppressor where our electric is hooked into for the RV...it is propped up on that little black crate. If you look closer inside the crate, there is another little baby in there, just chillin'! There were 2 of them in there but one went scooting out when it saw me coming with my camera.



So, on to our bike rides. We went out to the Medina River Greenway today, identified by the red dot in the lower, left hand corner of the map of the city of San Antonio. Yesterday we went to the Salado Creek Greenway, midway and to the right on the map. The Medina River trail is a 7 mile trail that runs along the Medina River (thus the name--haha) and through a mostly forested area of the city. If you look at the map, all the areas in green are now, or will eventually be, riding trails that they ultimately hope will all connect.



These are some of the animals, etc that can be found in this area...all I saw was one orange butterfly!!!




They have a couple Overlooks carved out where they tell you something about the history of the area, like at this overlook they told us about the American Indians that used to populate this area.



The Medina River behind us.



Here we took note of the fact that Cathy is again the workhorse for our group!!! haha She is carrying not only the cooler with all the extra water on the back of her bike, but on the front she has the cell phone, GPS machine, the snacks, the bike chain and lock, etc. We figured she had an extra 12-15 pounds while at most Barb and I had a bottle of water. God love her!!!



Today got as high as 100 degrees, so of course that means cactus. Look how tall this one is. I don't know what is happening to it, but if you blow it up you can see that the left of the cactus is almost petrified, while on the right it is still flowering.



There were about 5 areas that had quite steep roads, in a switchback fashion, as you descend/ascended the hills. This sign was actually at the top of the switchbacks as we approached, so you can imagine how steep it was trying to bike back up these monsters! Needless to say, we had to walk up most of them.





Here is a little video that Cathy took of me walking up one, and then a triumphant pic of me when I actually rode up one to the finish!!!



So, that was our day! Trying to stay active, going a few places we haven't been before. Saturday we are going a couple hours north of here to Texas State Park called Enchanted Rock, and then next Friday we are going "zip-lining"!!! That should be a blast!!!