Another Birthday - This is getting Ridiculous!

Yep, there it is. My first pro number was 54.  And that's how old I am.  Seems a little fishy to me.  Every year, they just keep adding a number.  Is that ok?  Should that be a thing?  I'm going to look into it.

Just like every year, my family makes me feel like a superstar.  My in-laws brought us lunch at work and some tasty snacks.  Hanna had some sinful treats delivered via some exotic courier dude.  Then Deanna and Eli presented me with even more snacks and these awesome pop-up cards.  I just love pop-up cards.

This morning, I was lucky enough to break free from work and the pressing obligations of the day and do a really cool ride on the gravel roads around Steelville.  Honestly, the ride kicked my ass but I've been unable to ride much so I took my beating like a stud.

And because he really wanted to go, I took Eli to the Eureka MTB Park after I got home from the gravel ride.  Oh, trust me...I was so creaky and my now-54-year-old body really, really wanted to lay down.  But I can't really tell the dude no.  It was fun, and he finally got to use his GoPro camera.

There are worse things that can happen to a middle-aged dude.  I may be old, but I'm living a pretty good life.  Never grow up.  Never grow old.  Onward and upward.

 

Finally a Hike for 2021

 

We have been so busy for the last couple of months with the shop that we haven't had time to take a single hike.  We changed that today by taking a short hike at Strawberry Creek in Arnold.  Of course, the Hound Dog was ready to go, and we even coaxed Eli into it.

We were all excited to try out our new hiking kicks, too.  The Hound Dog stuck with his original equipment all-paw drive.

Remi is all over the place on hikes.  His extra sensitive sniffer takes him in all directions the entire time.  And now that he weighs in at 80 pounds, you kind of just have to go with it.

The otherwise blissful wilderness is interrupted by series of power line towers.  Which are kind of cool in their own way.  I continue to resist my compulsion to climb one.

The one thing I wanted to visit again on this hike was the small muddy pond.  Remi resisted the urge to jump in.  I'm very thankful for that.

Toward the end of the hike, Remi caught the scent of something.  He pulled poor Eli down the trail at a full run.  It was a deer, whose tracks we had just begun to see in the soft dirt.  Sorry big guy, we couldn't let you go after it.

And one last photo, a selfie, courtesy of a tree stump just close enough for me to set the timer.  Let's hope for more hiking days in 2021!

 

Eli and Me, Back to the Trails

Sunday was, of course, glorious.  The St. Louis version of Spring has landed and it was amazing.  Best of all, it's been dry enough for a few days that Eli and I were able to start hitting the trails together again.  He's not a fan of riding in cold weather.  What can I say, he's my son.  As such, he's not been off-road in two months.  He dove into the deep end with me at Greensfelder and we rode 11 miles of trails for 1100 feet of climbing.  His riding skills haven't diminished at all, but he was pretty knackered at the end.  I'm proud of him.

On a side note, he broke a spoke in the rear carbon wheel that I put on his bike.  I did note that I put nearly 1500 off-road miles on that wheel before handing it over to him.  He's actually a pretty smooth rider so it was just time for the wheel to give up.  I'll fully rebuild it when I get time off at work...which seems like it might be a LONG while.