We had a pretty quiet week. Monday was Memorial Day and it poured rain for most of the day. Since it rained so much we watched movies and during the breaks we washed the laundry and fought with the black tank for a while. We can’t seem to figure out what is causing the blockages. Our current solution is to put dish soap down the toilet with the sprayers on. This seems to clear the clog each time but we would prefer to just have everything work nicely the first time. If you have any advice we would love to hear it. Enough potty talk though, we had a relaxing long weekend due to all the rain and having to be quarantined anyway due to waiting on my Covid-19 test results.
Tuesday was also pretty quiet since I still couldn’t go anywhere. Dom went grocery shopping by himself after work and I took a nap since I still wasn’t feeling 100%. We took the puppies for a short walk after we got all the groceries put away.
Wednesday after work we rode our bikes around the neighborhood for a few miles. I was able to use my Omnia Oven to bake some chili chocolate cupcakes for our friends a few sites over to help them during a recovery period after surgery. I was happy to be able to make them a sweet treat even living in this tiny space. I also received my Covid-19 test results back and they were negative. As suspected, I only had a sinus infection. We were very thankful for that.
Thursday was the anniversary of when we got engaged. We celebrated by taking the puppies for a walk and spending time together enjoying each other's company, even after 8 years. We also were able to share the story of how we met with our friends here at the campground. We love telling our story and greatly enjoy hearing the story of how other couples met. Please share the story of how you and significant other met in the comments.
Friday was my last late shift of the month. In the morning I was able to post the week 13 blog to Patreon. We love giving our Patrons early access to content. That was about all that I could accomplish before getting to work.
Did you ever get so many signs that they were too hard to ignore no matter how hard you tried? This weekend we got a lot of signs telling us that it was not the right time to go biking. Saturday started the weekend of the most effort we've put into mountain biking with the least return. We got up early and got ready to go biking. We were pumped to shoot a trail we didn't have a video of yet. We drove to Plano, TX to a trail called Arbor Hills. The concrete trail here is where we started really enjoying biking about 3 years ago. We discovered they had an off-road trail and once we got better at riding off-road we wanted to give it a shot. Well, there are still restrictions in place on how many people can be in the park. There was not a single open parking spot and the line of cars waiting to find a spot wrapped the entire parking lot. We nopped right outta there and headed about 30 minutes away to Horseshoe trail. We were bummed to not get a new video but figured that at least we could get a ride in.
We got to Horseshoe and it was also pretty busy but didn't look too bad. Unfortunately, the extra time of driving around meant that by the time we got there, we didn't have enough time to ride the trail and get back home for my 2pm eye exam. We headed home and went to my exam. We hit a snafu there as well. My appointment had never been confirmed due to the confirmation email not being sent out. They fit me in anyway and I got my updated prescription. We went grocery shopping and spent some time relaxing outside and planning for tomorrow. We got to see a bobcat, probably chasing the rabbits here in the park and on our night walk, we came back to a baby rat snake under our RV!
Sunday we woke up early to make another riding attempt. We drove 45 minutes to Johnson's Branch on Ray Robert's Lake, a trail we've never ridden and were excited to film. This is a Texas State Park and there was a sign at the entrance that stated advance purchase of day pass required. A little further in was a sign that said, full capacity no day passes available. We confirmed this information with the ranger at the gate and turned around again. Not to be defeated we drove almost an hour to Frisco, TX to the trail where we started. We came up with a great video idea, we were going to show you where we got our off-road start. The trail that grew our love of mountain biking.
We pulled up and it was demolished. The PGA bought the land but, we thought the trail had remained open with some changes. There was nothing but bulldozed dirt. We would not let this stop us, we will ride our bikes this weekend. We drove another 20 minutes to Erwin Park in McKinney, TX. We have several videos of this trail but we figured we could get some stills for Instagram and maybe shoot a short video. When we arrived, the parking lot was busy but definitely less busy than some previous trips. We headed to our favorite parking lot, got a spot in the shade and sat for a minute to digest what it just took to get here and to be happy that this trail opened today giving us another option to ride. Mountain biking lately hasn't just been hard because of the actual riding and pushing ourselves but also because of the lack of exercise opportunities causing us to lose stamina, as well as trail population limits and closures.
We got ready and hit the trail. We started in the open field portion of the trail to warm up. As we headed into the wooded section we both felt a little wobbly in our clipless pedals from having to ride the road for so long. I failed to make a corner, that I almost never make, and had just enough time to decide that I was panicking about not being able to unclip (I hadn't even tried, I just immediately panicked) and push my pedal crank one time to keep momentum and grab into the tree in front of me. This gave me enough time to stop, think for a moment and unclip. I got back on the trail quickly and caught up to Dom, who had stopped, and we continued riding. We stopped for some water about 2.75 miles in and discussed how we were feeling. I let Dom know that I was feeling shaky and not great for riding. We both felt a little out of practice with our clipless pedals in the dirt and decided to head to the car and change our pedals back to flats as well as get a snack and more water to keep riding.
Changing the pedals turned out to be a bad decision. Dom's left pedal came off and the old flat pedal went on just fine. The right pedal was another story. We couldn't take the pedal off. It was on so tight that even me holding the bike steady and Dom using all his force couldn't get the pedal loose. Eventually the pedal stripped and we had to call it a day. We packed up and headed home. We tried so hard to ride and it was just not in the cards for this weekend. We understand though that things are not always going to be all puppies and candies, as Dom says. We roll with the punches and keep moving forward. Tomorrow starts another week and more opportunities. See you next week!
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