Monday, June 7, 2010

Curt Gowdy weekend.

I've been planning for this trip for quite awhile. The destination was picked because I'd heard great things about the Mtn.Bike trails that were there. I'd been to Veedavoo before and really enjoyed the scenery there, so I figured Curt Gowdy couldn't be all bad. We had a hard time picking a date. We finally nailed one down and stuck too it. Unfortunately we didn't know we had just picked "Free park" weekend and "Free fishing" weekend, plus! Kids Xtream weekend. I did know that Specialized bikes were doing demo's that weekend but that was it. Plan is a plan and we were still going.

I had planned on leaving early on Friday to get a good spot. When I heard the news about kids day and free camping I debated on leaving on Thursday night. However I wasn't anywhere close to ready on Thursday night. I had a lot of last minute things to fill, fix and pack. However by Thursday night I was ready to pull out first thing in the morning. Alarms went off on Friday morning and we hopped out of bed, took showers, loaded bikes and called Donovan to see when he'd be ready. We waited for the bank to open so he could drop of the paper work for his new old truck purchase and then hit the road. Besides my phones GPS wanting to turn us around in Cheyenne the trip up was great. Clifford got better gas mileage then I thought and everything stayed where it was suppose to. Upon arrival we found that it was already pretty busy. We pulled thru a few loops and didn't find any really good spots. We finally settled on a flat, grassy area at the base of a short but steep loop. At the time we only had one neighbor. We got the camper set up, bikes and canoe off, and started a fire. Mike Dornbier showed up shortly after and set up his small camp also. We took a few bike rides, and got the bikes tuned up.(or so I thought) We hiked all over the side of a hill that was close where the archery course is. I say course, not range, because it was a HUGE course. One after another great targets set up on the course that stretched over the side of a mountain. Jake was the only one with a bow on the trip. That will be remedied next time. Jen showed up and we had a almost uneventful evening except for a couple slightly agitated puppies that wouldn't settle down. Jen ended up taking them to the car and sleeping with them there cause they wouldn't be quiet. We got up the next morning and made a big breakfast. Mike took a early ride and I slept in a little missing him on that one. We got ready after breakfast and headed out to the trails. We met the rest of the Cabela crowd that came down for lunch at out camp ground. Where we made a huge bunch of spagetti. It was really good and very energizing. We rode shoreline again and did some more fishing. Sunday we were finally able to test ride some of the bikes Specialized had brought up. I instantly fell in love with the Epic. Wow...what a bike. It just made you go fast. Everything my bike did it did faster. Joab and I rode a ton of bikes. Donovan and Jake rode a couple also and then we packed up and headed home. Great weekend and a lot of smiles all around.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Mountain biking in the Panhandle.

Yes it can be done.  After a day of getting things ready to go to Curt Gowdy, we decided to take a ride. I don't remember the pasture being this much fun on a four wheeler! We had a blast.