The leaves are almost back on the trees now; we are almost cloaked in for the summer again. Still getting down into the forties at night, and coming up to the sixties in the daytime. Once again, it’s the time of year where we have to start mowing again.

Website(s) are coming along and the living room is now repainted. I just need to relocate the big screen tv and get that all wired up, then we can do carpet and eventually furniture.

That’s my bad text imitation of a fog horn there. No riding today; the visibility here is about 40 feet and it’s cold and rainy. All signs of the coming of summer though!

Unfortunately, ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’ applies here. We are supposed to dip down into the 30’s this evening so it looks like we’ll be building a fire to keep warm!

I’m hanging out here waiting for the temp to go above 60 to go for my ride and I thought I would drop a few lines down.

I’m starting to see a lot of hits on the blogs each day now, so it’s motivating to know that people are actually reading what I take down time to write!

The camera mount arrived yesterday so I’ll start putting up picks of my rides in the GALLERY soon. I’ve also been steadily putting time in on the BlueRidgeTraveler website if you care to take a look at it. I am open to suggestions for content and it is a work in progress so bear with me!

Well, I’m off to put the new camera mount on the bike and then off for a ride. I may post some test pics and video later today or tomorrow.

As always, I welcome your comments!

Well, there was a MAJOR thunderstorm going on when I woke up yesterday- we could use the rain, but man did it come down!

The rain did some good for us though; all around us the trees are ready to burst in to their summer wear of leaves. I can’t wait until the canopy is back. I don’t look forward to the mowing though- I mowed the first time of the season last week and you could hardly tell now!

Anyway, I’ve been busy working on www.blueridgetraveler.net the past few days getting ready to go live with it. The basic site is up- take a look! I’ll be adding more maps of the parkway for people to download soon.

Another day and another bike ride- about 11.5 miles give or take.

I have been riding the route that I call the BAT run, South on the Parkway to Hwy 58 which is about 7.2 miles round trip. I’ve also gone a little distance North, but there is a BIG hill there that I hadn’t been able to make it up. It’s around 1.5 miles long and fairly steep.

I made it all the way up today though, and went past the Chateau Morrisette all the way past Rocky Knob to the scenic overlook of Rock Castle Gorge. There was a hill I went down as I was travelling North that I actually hit 41 miles per hour going down; it occurred to me that if it was that steep that I could go that fast down it, it would be a bear to get back up. It was.

Although it isn’t as long as the hill coming North just before the winery, it is much steeper and I had to stop and walk for about 100 yards to let my legs rest. I think I’ll be using this route as often as possible from now on though, it’s a really good workout and once I can do it in under an hour (1:06 today) I’ll know I’ve accomplished something.

To say the least, I think my Trek bike and I are becoming a pretty good team all in all and I’m looking forward to riding the tires off of it. Maybe next year I’ll look at getting a higher end model with a carbon fiber frame and all the bells and whistles.

Until next time, happy trails!