ALL TRAILS LEAD TO ICE CREAM

Backtracking is something that use to bother me...especially when mountain biking.  I'm not sure if it was a sense of failure..."Crap...we went the wrong way...we need to head back"...or if I just simply liked looking at my Garmin and Strava maps and seeing a big loop tracing my route.  Backtracking, however, can be helpful.  By teaching me where NOT to ride, that sense of "failure" that I mentioned earlier can also serve as a learning tool...or, in some cases, it can even introduce a whole new path that can be taken on future rides and hikes.  As of recently, backtracking has become increasingly part of my rides.  Riding the same trail in opposite directions changes everything about it...the view is different, the ups and downs are reversed, and the twists and turns flow differently...completely altering the usual dynamic of the trail. Taking a break during an incredibly peaceful solo ride at Rocky Ridge County Park . -- December 23, 2019 As 2019 sl...

Once Daylight Saving Time comes...the race is officially on.  This isn't a race with another competitor...but with the sun which, as Autumn fades into Winter, sets earlier and earlier each day.  If I'm going to ride after school during this time of the year my afternoon calendar has to be free...I can't be scheduled to work at the bike shop...I can't have any appointments...and, heaven help me...there can't be a faculty meeting.   I was scheduled to work on November on this particular day...but Jay ended up giving me the afternoon off.  I had just enough daylight to squeeze in a ride at Rocky Ridge.  -- November 12, 2019 Best case scenario this time of year...I get home, throw the Stumpjumper on top of the Cruze, and get a good hour of riding in at Rocky Ridge (the best option because of the park's proximity to where I live)...or, more conveniently, get on the Roubaix and tool around Manchester and Mount Wolf for as long as I can.   Bas...

There was a fresh dusting of snow on the lawn when I went outside this morning.  That is the reality of living in Pennsylvania in December.  Technically, it is still Autumn...but the cold has pretty much set in...and even if it is not official yet...winter is here.  All this...making the sunny, seventy degree weather that Robin and I experienced last week in Florida...seems like a distant memory already. Robin and I designated our last full afternoon in Florida as our beach day.  -- December 6, 2019 Every few years I'm able to save up enough personal days to join my wife, Robin, on her yearly, post-Thanksgiving Day trip to West Palm Beach, Florida.  The years that I can't go, she will fly down...but when I can...we make the 1,100 mile long drive from Manchester, Pennsylvania to South Florida.  The two of us found out a long time ago that we travel well together and...when we make this particular journey... we enjoy choosing a new place to stop ...