In Which We Enjoy A Spring Day

It was a beautiful day-it still is, in fact. Steve got the bikes all ready, tires pumped up, and secured to the Jeep, and around lunch time we drove out to Kokomo to pick up Kaylee's bike and helmet from the hangar, then went on to a little bike trail out by Cassville. It's called the "Nickel Plate Trail", and it was formerly a railroad which was taken apart and replaced with a gravel walking path, and then eventually paved for a walking/biking path. It's a very nice trail that wanders in the middle of nowhere back there, sometimes through farm fields, sometimes through woods, sometimes through the middle of small towns I never knew existed back there. I believe it goes all the way to Peru (uh, Peru, Indiana for you non-Hoosiers). We ended up taking it for three miles in, giving us a nice six-mile bike ride. Kaylee wanted to keep going, but we warned her that you don't ride until you get tired, because then you still have to get all the way home. It worked out that 6 miles was about the perfect distance. She was just starting to wear down, and we made it back while she was still having fun. We took water bottles, and I took my camera, of course, and it was just a beautiful day for a nice ride.

I did notice that taking photos while riding one-handed was a little trickier than I remembered it being, and I about fell over when I took my own picture. I went up ahead and tried to ride handless for awhile where Kaylee wouldn't know what I was doing, but I wasn't overly successful. Age, lack of practice, and a shift of weight and center of gravity all didn't help. ;)

We even ran into an airport guy out there on the trail on his bike too, so that was pretty wild. The trail was mostly empty, but there were hikers, joggers and bikers making use of it here and there. When we first started out, I had to laugh because there was a woman jogger ahead of us, and she'd stop and walk, then jog, then walk--and it was taking us a Long time to catch up to her. We weren't exactly burning up the pavement to start with there, but we picked up the pace later. We got back to our Jeep and got everything secured, and stopped at Steak-n-Shake on the way home for that lunch we never had. They serve mac & cheese now, which excited her greatly, until they brought the plate out. She looked at it, looked at me and said "I expected a little more on the plate." It did look like a tiny serving compared to any other restaurant, but it ended up being actually an appropriate amount of food, instead of enough for three kids, like usual.

We came on home, and Steve set up the fire pit in the back yard and had a friend over, and we had a nice little outdoor relaxation. Mostly. There is an idget who has a 4-wheeler with a serious noise issue who ran back and forth in the alley behind our house. It was so loud we couldn't even hear each other talk, and he just kept going back and forth back there. Other than Mr. Considerate though, it was lovely. We enjoyed the fire, the blue skies, the almost-60-degree-day, the cool drinks and good company...