The thing about Dave is, hiking with him is different from hiking with a normal person. He loves to explore, and he’s not overly concerned with staying on the trail. This can lead to some very memorable hikes, such as this one in search of a pond (which we never really found), or this one on the Old Axsom Branch “trail” that hasn’t been maintained in many years, yet features some of the best views of Lake Monroe I’ve seen.

This outing was not as epic as that one, but as Dave got out maps and showed me where he wanted to go, I realized we would spend plenty of time bushwhacking. His maps showed some trails, but much of it involved statements like “I think we can make our way down this ravine to Crooked Creek Lake,” and “I think we can find a way up the other side, and then hopefully connect with this other trail.” Some of the trails were horse trails, but others weren’t even established trails, just paths Dave spotted in satellite view in Google Maps.

I was intrigued, and ready for adventure. Oh yeah, did I mention it was raining on and off throughout the day?

We started out on what I believe is officially a horse trail, but it had a gravel surface for quite a while.

Logging is always a little disheartening to see, but it did open up some nice views.

We were mostly on ridgetops for a while.

As we hiked through this section, the rain started back up. By the time I got my poncho on (tearing it in the process) it had stopped again.

Soon the trail ended, and Dave didn’t skip a beat. He didn’t even slow down.

We were fascinated by this tree that had decayed so much that there was only a flat outline of it remaining on the ground.

It didn’t take long for us to find our way down to Crooked Creek Lake.

Sarah and I had hiked here a few years back, so I knew it was a rugged hike around the lake, bushwhacking most of the way. In fact, this was the most difficult part of the entire hike, making our way across steep hillsides covered in brush and slick rocks, with many trees felled by beavers blocking our path.

After we made our way around the lake, we started up the ravine on the other side. Dave said something like “I *think* there’s a trail up there …” And thus began the most strenuous part of the hike. I don’t know how long or how high we climbed, but it went on for quite a while, and we went straight up the side of the ravine. I certainly hoped we would find the trail, and sure enough, we did. I had to stop and catch my breath at the top.

From there, it was more easy ridgetop hiking back to the car. The sun was setting over a ridge as we finished our hike.

My GPS is very messed up right now, butit said we hiked 3.7 miles.  In reality, it’s probably a little more than that. I’ll include the map, even though it’s missing some parts.

This hike was a blast! It makes me want to do more exploration hikes, trying to figure out ways to get from trails to places they don’t really connect to, or finding ways from one trail to another, etc. It’s very liberating to realize that you don’t always need to rely on a trail to get you where you want to go.

Neither of us had ridden much for a while, so we decided on about a 27-mile route and moseyed the whole way. This ride was exactly what I needed: a relaxing ride, not too tough in terms of distance or pace. Though there was a decent amount of climbing, it was much easier at our relaxed pace.

It was an unseasonably warm day, probably in the upper 40s. And sunny skies. Aside from a little wind, it was a fantastic day for a ride. We rode a subset of this ride, but we did the loop in the opposite direction. So there were no new roads, but we rode some in a new direction.

Carmel Ridge Road was one highlight, but in this direction, it was mostly climbing.

These folks had their own private bridge. The sign over it read “Rodgers’ Bridge over Branstetter Hollar.” Nice.

As time wore on, the shadows grew longer.

Somewhere along the way, Dave’s knee  started acting up. And then his other knee. He has had some knee problems on and off for a while now, and they certainly were bothering him on this ride. I think it may have hampered his ability to enjoy the ride … which is too bad because I found it very fun and relaxing.

We passed some very interesting barns and cabins.

Another highlight of the ride came after a nice long descent on Lick Creek Road, as the road traversed flat creek bottoms for a couple of miles, following Lick Creek for a while.

We passed this huge house with a beautiful pond in front of it, somewhere along State Road 45.

We saw some lovely hills along Indian Hills Road.

Soon w were approaching Lake Lemon.

The sun set as we rode across the causeway on the lake.

Just one last (killer) hill, and we were back at Dave’s house, where we started our ride. A great end to a great ride. Rides have been too few and far between, but I am certainly enjoying them, when the opportunity arises.

For now, I’m getting to/from/around campus by bus, walking, and rides from my wife. It’s times like this when I’m glad I have some alternatives to riding.

Next week is finals, and then I have a few weeks off before winter semester begins. I’m looking forward to a break, and I hope I’ll be well enough to do some riding by then. I am thinking that I would really like to do some wandering rides — take my time and just enjoy myself, nothing too intense. It sounds relaxing.

It’s worthwhile to check out writeups from Tim and David. From their descriptions, I glean that it was very, VERY difficult, and involved a lot of suffering. I’ve had little time for training lately, so it may be a blessing in disguise that I wasn’t able to ride. Even so, I’m still irked that I didn’t get to go.

Saturday night I came down with a cold or something, just in time to be sick for possibly my busiest week of the entire semester. I’m hoping winter break in a few weeks will allow me to decompress and maybe even do some recreational riding.

Tim and David and I were supposed to head down to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky for a weekend of cycling and camping the weekend before last, but it didn’t happen. I was completely worn down and on on the verge of getting sick and Tim got sick, also. So I’ve been fighting varying degrees of sickness on and off for a couple of weeks now. Finally it blew up into a nasty cold over the weekend, but I’ve still be chugging along on projects and such. I hope to get a little bit of a break tonight, but otherwise my workload looks like it will remain intense for a while.

I haven’t even had much desire to ride, which is a weird feeling. It shouldn’t surprise me, because it happened last semester too, and then I did a lot of riding over the summer. I just can’t do everything at once, I suppose.

Thanksgiving weekend brings the Gravel Grovel, a metric century gravel grinder. I’m planning on riding it with Tim and David and Timothy (all Louisville people). They seem to be training for it more than I am, and treating it more like the race that it is. I am a little nervous about it, given my lack of training, but I am looking forward to a good day on the bike with friends, so I’m trying not to worry.

The upside to the days I take the bus is that I get to walk more, once I get to campus. I love walking, sometimes even more than riding, although it’s not practical when getting from point A to point B quickly is necessary. But walking allows you to slow down more, make more observations, and brood. Brooding is something I do well, and enjoy. I like to listen to music and just live inside my head. It’s wonderful and therapeutic.

I do have one rather significant bit of news to report, and that is that I’m quitting my job, where I have worked for two years. My course load is picking up to the extent that I just don’t have enough time available to make it worthwhile. I’ll do some small contract projects when I have the time, but that’s it. Actually, I’ve had some projects on hold so now maybe I can pick those back up again.

Despite the stress and workload, school is excellent. I love academia, I’m learning a lot, and every single one of my classes is interesting. I’m spending by far the most time on my photography class, but it is extremely rewarding.

So, we pushed the ride back a week, to this past Sunday. This time, we lucked out. It was chilly in the morning: 38 degrees Fahrenheit according to my car. Later in the day, it would warm up to 66 degrees or so. That’s a pretty wide range of temperatures, but it was a beautiful day all the day without a cloud in the sky, and deep blue skies. A chill in the air is ideal, to me, especially for mountain biking.

Tim had never ridden these trails. For Dave and I, these are our home trails, so we knew Tim was in for a treat. By the way, Tim has an excellent writeup of the ride on his blog, complete with some pictures.

When we rolled out, I was in the lead. I wasn’t sure what kind of pace the guys wanted to ride, and it took a few minutes for me to find a  pace that seemed comfortable to me. What I discovered was, I was feeling really good. This surprised me a bit, since my training has been a bit lacking lately, but no complaints here!

The way we rode the trails, they started out easy and more or less get progressively harder. This allowed us a good warmup before we had to deal with rock gardens and other technical features. Also, the easier trails are extremely fun. Even the easiest trails have challenges, really, but for the most part you can open up and pick up some speed.

Since I was feeling strong, I pushed it a bit, and on these trails, any extra energy you put into your riding is well-rewarded in the form of extra fun. If you can keep your speed up a little, a fun rolling ride through the woods becomes more of a roller-coaster ride. That’s exactly what happened. I hope the pace wasn’t too fast. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up, but I was having a blast.

Pine Loop, North Tower, Aynes, and Green Valley were all a ton of fun. Tim said they kind of ran together in his head, and I think for me they did too, even though I’m quite familiar with them.

These shots are from somewhere along the Aynes loop.

Here, Dave and Tim and navigating some rocks toward the top of Aynes.

And there they go!

As I said, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up the ambitious pace. Up through this point we were still moving quite quickly. Most of the way up Hesitation Point was the same way. I love how it feels when I’m riding strong.

Hesitation Point is a “black diamond” trail, one of the harder ones we would encounter. It’s two miles, mostly climbing in this direction. It has a lot of technical features along the way, including tight switchbacks, rock gardens, etc. I made it up the two rock gardens, amazingly — I almost never clear those on the way up.

I felt great! Then, we approached the “rock waterfall,” which is basically a really big rock garden. It looked absolutely daunting. But I thought, “what the heck, I’m on fire today, I’ll give it a shot!” Unfortunately as I entered, something, probably my pedal, got caught on a rock, pulling me to a stop. I knew I was going to lose my balance, and tried to fall in such a way that I wouldn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, my kneecap landed right on a sharp rock.

I got up and walked it off for a couple of minutes. It looked like it was going to swell a bit, but it really wasn’t bad. It hurt, but I walking on it helped. I hoped that riding would help even more, so we got back on our bikes, and I did find that it felt better as I rode. I guess it helps that I basically came to a complete stop before falling.

As we rode on, I had lost a little bit of my edge. I still did well on most of the rest of the HP features, though I did skip the large boulder. I’ve never really figured out how to muscle my way up that one. Everything else went fine, and soon we were at the top, taking in the view, having a snack, and taking some photos.

Now we continued on and on the next trail, the Walnut Trail, I did OK for a bit but once we hit the technical parts, I lost the flow, and my nerve. There are a number of really difficult technical sections on this trail, sometimes several features one right after another, and I just couldn’t do it. I ended up walking large sections of this trail, and getting quite frustrated in the process.

Eventually we reached the end and got on the Limekiln Trail, which is an easy trail, but with sections of pump track, it’s incredibly fun. Here I found my groove again and we kicked ass the rest of the way to the end of the trail. It felt good to get the flow back.

We took a break and refilled our Camelbaks, ate some unappealing Clif bars and such, and then headed back. I felt pretty good as we rode Limekiln again, but we skipped the hardest part of Walnut, and I was glad we did. That trail just isn’t fun to me, and I was getting tired. Tired and technical aren’t a good combination.

By the time we reached Hesitation Point, I was slowing down considerably. I was nervous about the technical parts on HP, since I had messed up on my way up. I was also finding that while I like to keep a loose grip on the bars to allow bumps to be absorbed by the bars, rather than my body, as I got more and more tired, I couldn’t keep a loose, fluid grip. I was gripping the bars too tightly, which made some things more difficult, but I couldn’t seem to help it.

So, I just went slowly and cautiously down HP. I did clear most of the technical features on the way down, but not as fluidly as I had earlier in the ride. Somewhere around the bottom of HP, Dave’s leg started cramping.

Fortunately we were on the home stretch at this point and made our way back to the parking lot. Tim was on fire now, and showed no sign of slowing down. He was just flying. I was struggling to keep up, but still, the return trip was a lot of fun. It helps that it’s mostly downhill. We hit Pine Loop on our way back which is just such a fun way to end a ride.

By the end of the ride, we had ridden every trail in the park except for Schooner Trace, which is an “Expert”-level trail. Too technical for us.

After the ride, we headed into the small town tourist trap of Nashville, IN, and hit up the Big Woods Brewing Company. I had heard a lot of great things about them. I enjoyed an excellent stout and a good, but not great, burger. It was a great end to a great day of riding.

The ride was Sunday. It’s now Tuesday, and I’m still stiff and sore. I forgot the extent to which mountain biking takes its toll on your body, much more than any other kind of riding. But it’s a good soreness, reminiscent of a fun day on the bike. The knee that I smashed is a little bruised and sore, but it’s not bad at all.

View the post on my photography blog.

Anyway, last weekend, Dave and I went for a road ride. We ended up doing something we’ve done in the past. I rode the 13+ miles out to his house, we rode a loop together (in this case, around 35 miles), and then I rode home. I ended up with over 60 miles and 3600 feet of climbing for the day.

The day was beautiful — nay, perfect. 70 degrees, breezy, sunny, and literally not a cloud in the deep blue sky. But even more amazing was the humidity — a mere 30%! That kind of low humidity is awfully rare around here, and I sure enjoyed it while it lasted.

Amazingly, this ride didn’t include a single new road. We rode some roads in a different configuration from what I’ve ever done in the past, but every road was familiar.

This kind of ride — with the long out-and-back sections at the beginning and end, and 100% familiar roads, makes it easy to put in some long miles without feeling like I’m doing an epic ride. It’s easier, physically and mentally, than a 60-mile ride in the boonies in new terrain. There’s something to be said for both kinds of riding, but this day was just an excellent day to turn the pedals for a few hours, with great conversation, worry-free.

Fall is starting to arrive. Some trees have started turning already, and some fields are a beautiful golden yellow color. It’s a wonderful time of year.

On my way out to Dave’s, I had a headwind most of the time.

Once Dave and I connected, it was wide open road for a while.

There are a couple of climbs lined with limestone walls like this one.

We rode up to Morgan-Monroe State Forest. There are a few good hills along the way, but once you are in the forest, it’s easy, gently-rolling, perfectly smooth asphalt, with deep shade from dense forest. It’s a wonderful respite from the climbing, at roughly the halfway point in the ride.

Our bikes couldn’t be more different, but you’d be surprised at how well Dave keeps up with my road bike on his full-suspension bike. If he ever gets a proper road bike, I’ll be in trouble.

We enjoyed rolling down Bean Blossom Road. This is more or less a 1.8-mile downhill. If you ride the Hilly Hundred, a popular annual ride, you’ll ride UP this hill. I’ve done it, but when left to my own devices, I always, always opt to ride down it instead of up.

Then it’s a flat valley for a few minutes.

Dave suggested we take North Shore Road to extend our ride and loop around Lake Lemon. It’s been a few years since I rode North Shore from west to east, and I think I have changed my opinion of this road. I used to think it was better going east to west, but now I think west to east may in fact be better. Either way you go, it’s quite hilly.

We only got a brief glimpse or two of Lake Lemon. I had to stop when I saw all these huge lillypads.

Below, you can see a tree that’s changing a little bit. Soon these trees will be ablaze with color.

The area surrounding the creek, below, was flooded badly, but they appear to be making good progress on cleaning up and rebuilding.

We usually take South Shore to ride across the causeway, and see more of the lake, but we decided to take State Road 45 back instead. It was a shockingly quiet day, and even the highway was incredibly empty. I think everyone must have been indoors, watching the IU football game, or actually at the game (there was a home game that day).

Dave went home and I stopped for a minute to get a shot of the little post office in Unionville. A couple of big logging trucks went by, full of logs probably taken from Yellowwood State Forest.

I had an excellent tailwind the whole way home and finished the ride on a strong note, feeling great and enjoying the push after having a headwind so much of the day.

It was a great ride! I was hoping to get to ride some evening after class/work, but I just didn’t have time. Tomorrow, though, I get to go mountain biking with Dave and Tim. The forecast looks iffy, but it should be another great day on the bike.

Now we seem to be in a middle ground — in the upper 80s the next couple days, lows around 60.

This weekend was a total loss though, I spent Saturday throwing up and otherwise feeling miserable due to what must have been a nasty combination of a hangover and food poisoning. It was truly awful. Sunday I was much better, but still dehydrated and weak … I tried to keep it a restful day, spent recuperating, with a little cleaning around the house.

My mountain bike is now fixed again, I ended up having the shop upgrade my rear brake to an Avid BB7, instead of the BB5 I had before. I haven’t had a chance to try it out, but I’m excited.

I had a couple hiccups with the LHT, the first being a flat tire. I lucked out — I walked out after work and found my front tire flat. It was hot that day but I just sat in the shade and calmly changed the tube, rather than fighting with it by the side of the road. The hole was right by the valve stem, so there was no patching it.

The shifting is getting fidgety on the LHT, as well. I’ve made some adjustments, but the problem seems to be getting worse. So, I just threw my barend shifter in friction mode, and it has been a lot better. In fact, I’m rather liking the improved control I get with friction shifting.

Unfortunately, I think my cassette may be wearing out. The brakes are also not quite right, and my front shifter is stiff. The bike needs work, and it may need a professional’s touch at this point. I’ve done a good job of keeping it tuned up for a while, but it’s getting to a point where it just needs more than I can confidently do. At this rate, I’d say it definitely needs a good solid tuneup before winter strikes, if not sooner. That’s probably a good idea, anyway, I suppose.

Of course, this meant strapping the canoe to the roof of our car. The folks at IUOA helped us the first time, but it took a couple tries to get it right. It was rather precarious, and the nylon straps made crazy noises as we drove down the road. I wouldn’t want to do a long drive in this configuration.

Originally, we wanted to put in at the Crooked Creek boat ramp, so we drove there. We arrived and were about to take the canoe off the roof of our car when a couple came in on their motor boat and said they didn’t recommend putting in there. They had, and they ended up pushing through 12″ deep mud.

That didn’t sound like a lot of fun, so we instead went to Pinegrove, our second choice. We had no problems getting the boat off the roof, everything set up, and heading out. We headed north, toward North Fork State Wildlife Refuge. This is a beautiful area and one that I’ve explored by bicycle before; it would be interesting to see it from the water.

The weather was wonderful. It had been close to 100 degrees two days before, but now it was in the 60s and overcast. We were actually chilly at times, and it was wonderful. Fall is definitely in the air. Also, the wind was pretty strong at times, which certainly made our trip more challenging.

That said, when we got in the water and started paddling, it was just wonderful. In sharp contrast to our last trip, the lake was very quiet, with very few other boats, and we were in the idle zone, so even those boats that had motors were slow and quiet.

Almost immediately, we started seeing many wonderful birds. Mostly herons and egrets, but there were others as well. I’m not a bird expert, so I couldn’t identify a lot of them but I still enjoyed seeing them.

I quickly realized that it was going to be very difficult to capture this experience in photos. Much of the wildlife was distant and hard to get photos of, but looked much more detailed in real life. And many of the scenes which looked dynamic and evolving and changing in person look similar in photos.

But, more than that, so much of the experience was aural: bird calls and squawking, the wind blowing through the trees, the swish-swish of our paddles as we glided gently through the water. Our movements felt incredibly smooth, thousands of gallons of lake water acting like a buttery smooth suspension.

Paddling was fun, but the best parts were when we stopped and looked, and listened, all around us. There was so much to see, and hear. Sometimes we were hearing the same animals we were looking at, and other times we’d hear distant sounds and wonder what kind of creature was making them. And the enveloping sounds far exceed any kind of artificial surround system I’ve ever heard. The depth of the sounds was incredible.

One thing that amazed us was that many of these vast expanses of water were very shallow, under a foot deep much of the time. We did get stuck in mud a couple of times, but were able to work our way out.

I tried to capture the pink/purple flowers in low-lying plants at the bottom of this next photo, and you can see them, but you have to look for them.

We also saw a few deer, and a turtle, though I didn’t get any decent photos of any of them.

The wind was more of a factor on our way back, and we had some trouble with it. I wouldn’t mind taking a class or reading about canoeing techniques, because I’m sure I’m doing everything wrong. Except the enjoying it part. That, I’ve got down.

I guess we paddled for around three hours. We only covered a little over three miles, but it was a gorgeous day to be out on the water, and it was a very relaxing experience, that also happened to have some exercise attached. We discussed how amazing some of this scenery would be in the fall, once the leaves change. It would definitely be worth a return trip.

One thing that was interesting to me about this trip is, I’ve gotten pretty good at capturing bicycle rides and telling those stories through words and photos. But the canoe trip is a very different experience, and it may take a while for me to figure out how to convey it effectively. Video might be a necessity here, and/or audio. Definitely something to ponder.

I have a map, but I’m at a campus computer lab right now, so I can’t post it at the moment. I’ll add it later, when I get a chance.