It was in the upper 60s and sunny — fantastic riding weather. It felt great to be back on the bike after a few days of rain, and only commute rides. My road bike made me feel strong and fast. I savored the feeling of the sun warming my face, while the cool wind felt refreshing.

Riding on 446

I enjoyed a fast descent toward the lake and rode across the causeway. An SUV passed me and leaned on their horn as they did so, startling me and almost detracted from the exhilarating feeling of riding across the lake. I’m not sure what they hoped to accomplish by blaring their horn.

Fishermen on Lake Monroe

I started the climb away from the lake and really took my time. It’s over a mile of climbing but by not pushing it, I manged the climbing without too much difficulty, and even enjoyed it. I saw a lizard sunning itself on a rock. As I rode by, it looked at me curiously, then darted under a rock.

Looking toward the climb on the opposite side of the lake

Looking back; Leaving the lake below

After the climb, 446 is fairly flat and gently curves; it’s easy for a few miles. I turned on Chapel Hill Road, which was a fun ride. Parts of this road are flat and easy, while others have some rolling hills and tight turns.

S&M Bait & Tackle

Handlebars


Front wheel in motion


Old Chapel Hill Church

A car passes with plenty of room on a curvy road

Cresting a hill

Rolling farmland

I took a break at the intersection with Coveyville Road.


My bicycle at Coveyville Road

Barns, etc.

About to ride downhill

I flew down the hill, hitting I believe 41 mph. It’s a short hill, but it’s steep. After that it’s flat for a couple of miles, and it’s a bit of a shock to the system to suddenly find yourself in wide open fields. Then there’s a big climb.


Fields yellow with wildflowers

Bottom of the Valley Mission climb

Getting a sense of how far I’ve climbed

My ride back from this point was about 15 miles, mostly uneventful. I mostly stopped taking photos and focused on riding. I did, however, have to get a shot of this:

Buddy Bill’s has an interesting way of handling bad checks.

All told, I rode a bit over 40 miles.

Sarah drove, which is unusual as she is just learning to drive. Country roads afford a lot of opportunities to practice the mechanics of driving without a lot of complicated intersections, or traffic. This also freed me up to navigate. I opened our Indiana Atlas and Gazetteer to the area where we were and started looking for interesting things to check out. The first thing to catch my eye was the Cataract Falls Bridge. I didn’t know if the bridge was noteworthy, but waterfalls are rather unusual around here, so I thought we should check out Cataract Falls. As it turns out, Cataract Falls is the largest waterfall in the state of Indiana.

A couple of normal shots of Cataract Falls

Cataract falls in infrared

Infrared bridge

The falls in infrared, another perspective

Normal shot

Small falls by the main waterfall. Black & white infrared.

Lower Cataract Falls

After visiting Cataract Falls, we took the long way to Patricksburg, a small town we’ve gone to before and liked. On the way, we stopped at Cagles Mill Lake.

Cagles Mill Lake

We drove through Patricksburg but only stopped a couple of times on the outskirts of town.

Barn

Hill

Hill, in infrared

Field

Road and fields

Old Bethel Church

Chris and I were pretty close friends through high school, and I’ve only seen him a few times since we both returned to Bloomington. It’s always interesting catching up, especially since he has kept in touch with more people from our high school than I have. Our conversation topics ranged from politics to former classmates from high school to other rides we’ve done, etc.

Riding by these cows sparked a conversation about steak

There’s a great descent down Old 37 just north of Bethel Lane that’s a blast. We hit 39 mph on this hill, and it felt fantastic. I was glad to be out riding without a bunch of layers slowing me down. For a while it looked like it was going to rain, but the dark clouds quickly blew over.

Bryant Creek Lake

We stopped by Bryant Creek Lake to rest, drink some water, and stretch a bit. Throughout this whole ride I was surprised by how green everything is getting. There were probably a dozen butterflies sunning themselves on the bank. I didn’t get any decent shots of them, unfortunately.

Plants growing in the lake

As we rode through the state forest, many trees were losing their petals, and the wind was blowing them about. We were riding through a cloud of petals, and really got covered in them.

Riding through the forest

Petals on the ground

We stopped again at Cherry Lake. One thing I like about riding with Chris is the more relaxed pace of our rides. We tend to ride at a conversational pace, and stop frequently to check out the scenery. When I ride alone I usually hammer it more of the time.

Cherry Lake, with people fishing at the other end

Unidentified wildflower

The bikes

We saw this couple on recumbent tricycles a couple of times

We enjoyed a blistering descent down Bean Blossom Road. The road was flanked on both sides by wildflowers. White dogwoods and purple rosebud trees, violets and blue and yellow flowers on the ground.

Many fields are covered in yellow flowers, giving them a yellow-green glow

Approaching Anderson Lane

Our ride back was a little harder since we were riding into the wind for parts of it. We decided to go back via Cascades park to avoid riding into the wind for the last 4 solid miles of our ride. I saw a large bird (a turkey vulture, I think) with two smaller birds following it around. At one point one of the smaller birds flew right over the big one and — I think — landed on its back. Maybe it just hovered there, but it sure looked like it had landed on the bigger bird. Very weird to see.

Sometimes we had clear skies, sometimes they were more like this
All in all, it was a great ride. 42 miles or so.

Strangely enough, within a few blocks of my house, the rain stopped and didn’t start back up again until after I got to work. I should’ve ridden.

Ready?

I went mountain biking at Brown County State Park with Dave and Casey, one of his boys. I hadn’t met Casey before, so that was cool. He was fun to ride with. At one point a turkey was running on the trail ahead of us. We quickly caught up to him and he ran off to the side of the trail. That was pretty amusing.

Later, during a blistering downhill run back to my car, I came around a turn to see a raccoon right in the middle of the trail. I got ready to bunny hop (err, raccoon hop) over it if necessary, but after freezing for half a second, the raccoon ran out of the way and climbed straight up a tree.

If you guessed “raccoon,” you win. If you guessed something else, what was it?

The flipside of this has been increased productivity in other areas. I had more time for some geeky projects (and even made a little extra money), photography, hiking, and music. I am looking forward to getting more time in the saddle again, but I may need to find a better balance between riding and … well, everything else.

All told, I rode 135.10 miles in April. That’s least I’ve ridden in a full month since I started tracking my miles. That’s breaks down to 47.30 road miles,  54.30 commuting miles, and 33.00 mountain biking miles. Oh, and one half-mile errand.

Dogwood

Dandelion

Fence

Another dandelion

Hinkle-Garton farmstead

Gas

Great detail on this flower

Fire hydrant

I’m looking forward to trying this lens on some landscapes, more flowers, and at my nephew’s baseball games.

Saturday, Dave and I hit the trails at Brown County State Park. This was our first mountain bike ride together since his accident around New Year’s. It’s great he’s finally back on the trails, and we had a gorgeous day for riding, in the upper 60s and sunny, with a breeze that felt great. We rode the North Tower Loop 3 times, twice clockwise and once counterclockwise. I wasn’t as sluggish as I expected after two weeks with basically no riding. There were a few muddy spots but overall things are in great shape. We rode for about two hours.

Sunday was a very full day. After getting some breakfast, Sarah and I headed to McCormick’s Creek State Park to take some photos and do a little hiking. I borrowed a Tamron 28-300mm lens from a coworker and wanted to try it out. I’m thinking about buying one, or something similar. It has some macro capability, and having that range of zoom is great. Here are some of my better shots. First, we went by the waterfall.

Falls at McCormick’s Creek

Another shot of the falls

Redbud. These are everywhere.

Ferns and moss

My favorite shot of the whole day

Foam in the creek

Stairs

After spending some time by the falls, we decided to head over by Trail 2, which we hadn’t hiked before. We looked at the map and saw it had a side trail to an old quarry. That sounded interesting, so we went for it. There were wildflowers everywhere by the trailhead, so we spent a while getting some shots of them.

 
Wild Blue Phlox

Virginia Bluebells

Mayapples — these are all over the place, too

Trail 2

The old quarry

Hardy plant

Huge frog

Quarry ruins

Creek

Another creek

 
Trail 2 again


Fiddlehead ferns, partially unraveled

Trillium

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

After our hike, we headed home, got the dog, and headed out for another short hike in the forest in my old neighborhood. We hiked for about 30-45 minutes.

Rob

After that, we went back home and I went for a brief road ride, about 14 miles. It was a full day and at the end of it I felt tired, but great. I’m glad that spring is here, and I’m finally able to properly enjoy it.

I’m hoping to do some riding this weekend, if I can breathe well enough to do so. It’s been over two weeks now since I’ve gone for a ride, a couple of commutes notwithstanding.