2020 - Great Year for Being Outdoors

 

Although it's been a terrible year in a lot of ways, it's been a good year for people that sell bikes.  For me and my family, it's been a great year to ride bikes.  Not only did we ride bikes, but we were also outdoors so much and did so much exploring on walks and hikes.

This was the first year that I noted just how much I've done on the different bikes that I ride, and I was even able to document the hikes that we've done together.

Total Mileage on my bikes: 3305. Elevation: 248,000 feet! Hours: 304!

Mountain Bike mileage, 1461.  This blew me away.  Almost half of my riding mileage this year was on the mountain bikes.  This brings me great joy, and strains my wallet for new tires and chains!  But man, I love it.

Gravel Bike: 816.  This is actually on gravel, around town, bike paths, whatever.  Kind of generic riding.

Road Bike: 781.  Not at all impressive.  But rarely do I get on a road bike for cruising around.  On the road bike, it's seriously hard and almost always hilly.

BMX Bike: 253.  I love this!  Generally speaking, most people don't put many miles on a BMX bike.  But I ride it like my other bikes, albeit jumping curbs and bunnyhopping obstacles along the way.

Other highlights of riding this year were the places we went and getting Eli out on a mountain bike.

We rode our mountain bikes at Cliff Cave, Greensfelder, Lost Valley, Bluffview, Brommelslick, Indian Camp Creek, Forest City in St. James, Klaus Park in Cape, Route 66 in Litchfield, SIU, Castlewood, Eureka Mountain Bike Park, St. Charles Pump Track, Rhett's Run in Columbia, Council Bluff and Berryman.

Besides riding bikes, I also spent a lot of time outdoors with the Beautiful Mrs. K.  She and I started hiking and walking our Hound Dog just as the plague got underway.  We went for 15 hikes for a total of 35 miles. We hiked at Pickle Springs, Don Robinson, Hawn State Park, Rockbridge, Emmenegger Park, Whitecliff, Mastadon, Hickory Canyon, Strawberry Creek, and Valmeyer.

And for good measure, we kayaked on the Meramec and bought a bike shop.  In a couple of days, we will be the proud owners of South Side Cyclery in St. Louis.  

Onward and upward!

Hound Dog Christmas

Remi the Hound Dog's first Christmas was awesome.  He opened up a huge gift bag full of squeaky toys and bones and snacks. Oh, and he also received a snappy looking red bandana. 

About an hour and a half later, with almost all of his toys destroyed, he still had on the bandana.  

Visibly upset at his lack of squeakies, he also had another worry on his mind: we were leaving for Grandma and Grandpa's house to open presents.  No way Hound Dog was coming with us for that.

 He has a bad case of separation anxiety, so when he knows we're leaving, he gets moody.  Or he hides under the bed.  It's hard to resist this face, isn't it??  Not to worry, we were only gone a little while, and when we returned he had so much to do.  The college kids came home and played with him, he played with his girlfriend between the fence in the back, and he chewed up perfectly good household items that didn't belong to him.  Perfect Hound Dog Christmas.

Christmas Eve Mini-Adventure - Powder Valley

Despite the bone-chilling temps, the Beautiful Mrs. K and I were determined to get out and have a small adventure on Christmas Eve.  We've been working hard to prepare to take over South Side Cyclery and that hasn't left a lot of time for frivolity.  Knowing that we couldn't bring the Hound Dog with us, we chose Powder Valley in Sunset Hills. There are a couple of short trails there, just enough for a quick day out.

We were greeted with sunny skies and 23 degrees.  And...a fully paved path!  Whaaaat?  But this isn't just any paved path.  It's pretty narrow and STEEP.  There are switchbacks on this path that would be fun on your mountain bike, and I dare say the gradients would be super hard on any bike.

We were so happy to be out, we ignored the blustery winds and low temps and set off on the first trail.

Then we got cold.

The sun and hard climbing helped warm us a bit. It was truly a beautiful day out there.

It's hard to capture gradient on camera. But this pic might give you a better idea of what we were working with.

We finished Broken Ridge pretty quickly and walked across the lot to Hickory Ridge next.   It's a little longer and it has longer hills, too.

At the very lowest point of Hickory Ridge is a little creek and a lot of rock.  There were really well-made bridges to get us across the many ravines and creeks.  I would not have thought that a paved path would be so interesting, but it really was a lot of fun and a welcome break from our current busy schedule.

Hound Dog Hikes - Whitecliff and Laumeier

A really cool park close to our house is Whitecliff, technically in Crestwood.  Such a neat place tucked in between the subdivisions that grew up around it.  It has an old quarry that is now a pond, and the forest around it has a lot of interesting stuff.  Remi the Hound Dog has been driving us up the wall lately, and we've been quite busy, so we had to take an opportunity Friday to get him out.  Whitecliff offers a close and fun hike for him and for us.

I can never get enough of the remnants of the old quarry.

Curiously enough, our giant puppy-Hound Dog still had an enormous amount of jackass waiting to get out.  So much so, that the Saturday morning sun saw us driving to nearby Laumeier Sculpture park for a short hike.  Another hidden gem tucked in between subdivisions, Laumeier is a fun place for a dog walk.

Remi was in rare form this morning, repelling any attempts to have a smooth, relaxing hike.  Although it appears as though he's dragging the Beautiful Mrs K through one of the sculptures, she has his number.

I stopped and admired the wooden structure, carved with a chainsaw from a Redwood trunk.

The pool exhibit has always been my favorite at Laumeier.

Originally, this was a spring-fed pool from the 1920's.  It's ruins were built into an exhibit.  What a grand pool it would be if it were fully brough back to life, I always think. Remi is standing still at this moment.  Not a common sight.

At just about the lowest point on the trail, there is this little rock structure built around a small spring.  

Coming out of the woods and onto the main grounds, there are different art displays.  This one is industrial steel molded into a knot of what looks like pool noodles.  Curious.

And this young lady looks like she is cleared for take-off, having a lot of propellers at her disposal.

I bet you're wondering if we finally wore out the Hound Dog?  No.  We did not wear out the Hound Dog.  Not.  Even.  Close.
 

A Bit of Christmas Cheer

We took 4/5 of Team Kakouris on a little joy ride the other night.  Mostly around South City and near-South County.  There are some pretty impressive Christmas light displays out there.  We used to have an entire street a few blocks up from our house that went crazy with the lights, but it seems like they dropped out.  No matter, still plenty of sights to enjoy.  This craziness is just behind Grant's Farm on Eddie and Park.

...it goes on and on.

The blow-ups have gotten better and better.

This South City street was off the hook. The variety was nuts!

A curtain of lights.  I don't think I've ever seen this before.

Santa head, made out of sand.  Why, you ask?  Well, why not?

Whoa.

Wouldn't it be great if the streets were normally lit like this?  No need for headlights!

And there were angels.

Angels plus Super bright lights here.

This set-up changed colors as you watched.  One of my favorites.

Buck for Bucks.

 It makes our time on the dreaded extension ladder look paltry.  Oh well.  We won't attract anyone driving around looking at lights.  In comparison, our house and lights are similar to a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. We think it looks nice, and we didn't fall and break a hip.

Mini Adventure - Strawberry Creek Nature Area Hound Dog Walk

Sometimes we like to go on all-day adventures, and sometimes we just feel like mini-adventuring.  Today was a mini-adventure day.  The beautiful Mrs. K and I took a look at the All Trails app and came up with this nature area right down in Arnold.  We had passed by this gem a couple times while riding road bikes from the shop.  It seemed like the perfect place to take the Hound Dog for a good hike.

The kiosk at the trailhead seemed straight forward enough.  In reality, the red signs taper off once you get far enough back and you just have to wing it.  So, we did.

The trail immediately descends down a gravel double-track path.  Very pretty with the sun coming through the trees, warming us up a bit.

The gravel double-track gave way to a powerline cut,  Pretty dramatic scenery, not what we expected.

And down again we went until the trail bottomed at a series of creek beds.  Remi had a blast in the water, of course.  He was quick to get out, though, as the water was COLD.

More cool creek shots.  If you look closely, the white tree center-left is growing right out of a crack in the rock.  

From the creeks, we went almost straight up.  Quite a workout, actually.  The hill topped out at a wonderful little pond.  A closer look reveals a bench on the far side of the pond.

Up and down and up and down the trail went.  Creeks at the bottom of most of the hills.  All told, it was right at 2 miles and 260 feet of climbing. As I said, it's a bit of a workout.  In reality, most of the workout was from Remi.  He's the hardest dog to walk.  He is either pulling hard or stopping indefinitely to sniff something.  He actually pulled me to the ground one time, albeit slowly. Our new life mission: tame the Hound Dog!
 

Eli and I Explore Route 66 Trails in Litchfield, Illinois

I've made it a point to take Eli to as many different mountain bike venues as possible.  He's very good technically and loves a challenge.  Lately, I've been seeing posts about Litchfield, Illinois having a nice little trail system.  Perfect timing.  I looked it up on the map and there they are, nestled right next to Lake Lou Yaeger.  Well...forgive me, but I've never even heard of the lake.  But off we went!

And boy, were we surprised.  It's obvious that a LOT of work went into transforming this little plot of land into a fantastic network of single-track trails. Swoopy, tight, with features and...elevation!  Lots of elevation.  It's always up or down on the Route 66 trails. Never very long, the climbs are punchy and over quickly, only to be followed by a cool downhill.  Rinse and repeat!  Eli's favorite part of riding trails these days are the features.  Jumps, bridges, logs, etc., and Route 66 has quite a few.  And someone has recently blown the leaves.  It was buffed!

We stopped at the southern edge of the system to pose for a selfie.  The view of the lake was spectacular.  It's a super-clean looking place, and although there was hardly anyone on the lake, there were quite a few riders on the trails. If one just rode the trail from north to south, there are only 4 miles or so.  However, you must trust me when I say that it's a different animal in the opposite direction, and most things you'll want to hit again and again.  Especially the Galena Loop.

Once done with riding (Eli was knackered from all the punchy climbs!), I thought it best to check out the lake.  Blue skies and powerful sunlight made 52 degrees feel downright balmy.

My last view was from the boat dock.  This looks like it would be a fabulous place to be in the summer. I want to bring the Beautiful Mrs. K back soon, as I think she'd love the twists and turns as well.

Thanksgiving Day Adventure - Rockwoods Reservation

We've tried over the last dozen years to make some Thanksgiving traditions of our own.  Sure, we have normally gone to Thanksgiving dinner with family, but we wanted to have more of "our thing" too.  We have hiked and biked, and that gives us the feeling of really taking advantage of a day off.  This time around, we wanted to try hiking at Rockwoods Reservation.  As many times as we've ridden past on our bikes, we've never checked out the trails.  First up was the ancient Lime Kiln at the trailhead.

Just a hundred yards into the walk, Remi got into a staring contest with the Llamas across the road.

Being a true Water Hound Dog (like there is such a thing) he really enjoyed the rapid little stream next to the trail, fed by the previous day's rain.

We had no idea that the rapid little stream came from under the rock bluff.  Such a cool sight.

The easy-going trail soon gave way to a very rugged and steep climb.  It went up and up and up. Remi pulled the Beautiful Mrs. K up the jagged rocks with his all-wheel drive.

Now that all the leaves are gone, there are sights to behold.

Once we were done with the climbing, we walked along the ridge, seemingly at the top of the world. In total, 373 feet of climbing over 2.91 miles.

The Hound Dog was still full of energy and eventually, the smooth ridge began to tilt downward and along with that came more rugged rocks.

Ledges galore.

Almost at the bottom, this hearty tree found a nice niche between the rocks.

When we started the hike, we had no idea where the trail went.  We were just going to walk until we figured we had enough.  To our surprise, there was this handy map, right about where we parked our car and started our hike.  That might have been helpful to notice before we started, but we figured it out anyway.

 Finally tired and thirsty, Remi drank a bottle of water and slept all the way home.