Thanksgiving Family Bike Ride

Thanksgiving Day turned out to be a gorgeous day. A little chilly, but beautiful and perfect for a family bike ride. So, after breakfast and morning playtime, we readied ourselves for a bike ride.

We didn't have to bundle up too much, but we brought a few blankets just in case it turned out to be colder than we thought.

It ended up being a slow and short bike ride to and through downtown Durham. We stopped for a mid-ride picture near the SunTrust building. Hi!

Nearby, there's a plaza with the famous Bull statue, and we figured it would be nice to let Eliza run around a bit. We posed for a couple pictures by the bull (his name is Major), but Eliza was kind of scared of the statue.

Look at this precious baby face looking out at the cars driving by! She didn't even notice that I was trying to give her a kiss!

After hanging out for a bit at the Major bull statue, we decided to just ride to Central Park and let Eliza play around on the animal structures there, maybe run across the bridge, or up and down the big hill...She wasn't a big fan of the giant-sized cardinal (which needs to be repainted soon!) or the giant-sized turtle, but we took pictures anyway!

She did enjoy running around the sidewalk, though! She and Rob were playing the "chase" game, where we say "I'm gonna get you!" and then she runs away from us and we catch her a few seconds later and give her lots of tickles and kisses!

Up the hill from Central Park is the City's skate park, so we pushed our bikes up the hill and went to go watch the skateboarders. There were only 3 adults and 2 kids at the skate park that day. 1 of the 3 adults was an old co-worker and cycling friend of ours, so we just chatted each other up while Eliza watched the others on skateboards do tricks and stuff. Here's a pic of Eliza climbing up one of the skate park features:

After leaving the skate park, we headed home and pedaled through the Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood, one of our favorite historic districts near downtown. So we were just meandering and pedaling slow, talking and having fun together. When we finally had meandered east enough to be close to home, I suggested we stop at Food Lion to pick up a couple of last minute essentials for our Thanksgiving dinner. Eliza had fallen asleep sometime in between Cleveland-Holloway and here, and she just looked so peaceful that I had to snap a picture!

While Rob ran into Food Lion, I stayed outside with Eliza and our bikes. I really enjoyed how my bike shifted flawlessly today! Rob put a new XTR shifter and derailleur on my bike about a week ago. My old shifter/derailleurs were kinda junky, well, they were Deore level, which is okay, but they didn't like to stay adjusted well for very long. I kept getting "chain suck" and just unclean shifts quite often, so I complained enough and Rob came to the rescue! Here's a pic of my new handlebars, stem, shifters and new front brake (XTR hydro brakes!) -- our friend we met at the skate park commented on how awesomely funny it is to be riding an "XTR equipped hybrid bike"!! Hahaha!! He's so right!

Also, while waiting for Rob to finish up in Food Lion (the lines were extremely long!) I noticed I had a little critter crawling up my leg. It was a TICK! Yuck. And I'm shocked I found a tick on me this late in November. Usually ticks are long gone by Halloween out here. Good thing I was wearing my full-leg tights over my cycling shorts! I almost wore my knickers and knee warmers, which would've exposed a little skin on my lower legs, and this little guy may have decided to make lunch out of my yummy blood!

We had a great time riding together as a family today! We went home and fired up the grill. We smoked a 3.5 pound turkey breast on the grill with apple hickory chips for flavor, made some homemade mashed potatoes, our favorite carrot souffle, and some cornbread stuffing. It was a delicious Thanksgiving!