Black Friday Bike Ride

Forget shopping! We're going for a bike ride!

We did a nice, long bike ride today! Here's our route, well, not exactly, because I can't get Google Maps to have the correct end point, which is the (Falls Lake) Rolling View Recreation area at the end of Baptist Road, and I also can't get Google Maps to show that I went down Santee Rd until it dead ends, and then turned around and rode back out to Baptist Rd, and then continued on to the Falls Lake recreation area. This map makes it look like Santee Rd connects with some other unnamed road that connects it to Baptist Road much further up towards the lake, but there is no road this way, unless that road is cutting through someone's private property.

So I packed a lunch (leftover Thanksgiving dinner) for us to share once we got to the park. There's a fun playground there right by the swimming area. Eliza napped for about a half hour during the ride there. She loves having Zealie the sheep next to her in the bike trailer! Here we are just as we were arriving to the swimming area/bathhouse/playground area:

A view of our lunch, kept warm in my Starbucks perfect oatmeal insulated thermos! Mashed potatoes on the top, and stuffing on the bottom. Yummy!

Speaking of the Starbucks insulated thermos, I should point out that I love this thing! I got it from my Mom a couple years ago as a gift and I've used it quite a bit to transport soups and other better-if-warm foods. I don't think Starbucks sells it anymore, but I did a quick google search and found a Blogger who wrote a great review of her experience with this thermos.

After eating lunch, Eliza played on the playground there, and I just sat and rested mostly, knowing that I'd need to conserve my energy for the ride back home. Here are some cute pictures of Eliza playing:

I made a quick video of Eliza on the tire swing. She's so cute!

After playing for about 30 minutes, it was time to head home. I rode the same way I rode there, except I didn't take the Santee Rd out-and-back like I did on the way there. I was tired and I knew I would barely have the aerobic capacity to ride home as directly as possible! The first 5 miles (the portion on Baptist Rd) was okay. I rode at an average pace of 11mph, at least that's what my Strava Cycling app told me when I was done. But the last 5 miles were brutal. I was so tired, I wanted to just give up and call a cab to come pick me up! I had to stop at least 3 times during these last 5 miles to stretch out my back and my hamstrings which were very tight. By the time I got to Mineral Springs Rd on Wake Forest Highway, I seriously almost pulled over and locked up our bike and trailer, and took the DATA Route 16 bus home! But...I didn't. I trudged on. Slowly. Very slowly. This portion of my ride was at an average of 8mph. Blehhh... But, I finally did make it home and the rest of the day, I swore to myself that I'd never bite off more than I could chew, cycling wise, again! It took me a few days before I felt normal again.