Biking

My Dad discovered a great biking trail not too far from our house, and we decided to try it out today. We had quite an adventure! The trail is about 7.5 miles long. Here is the before picture of this intrepid gang..... (above & left)

The rest of the pictures are during and after the trek. The top 3 pictures are "after." The kids wanted to act exhausted! The second to the last pic is of Madeline and her unhappiness. At 3.5 miles into the ride, her nose started to bleed. I had a small first aid kit, but was not really prepared for this. We used wet wipes, not ideal, but did the job.

We made it to our destination and completed 7.5 miles. The trail ends at a nice park and all was going well until Jim and Marney "daredevil" Brown decided it would be fun to ride down a steep washout. Meanwhile, the rest of us were resting and Madeline was investigating the local Mulberry trees, when she stepped in a nest of ants! They were crawling all over her, and like any 10 year old girl would do, she screamed her head off and scared us all! She did a little dance and brushed them off, all was fine. It was then that we heard Marney crying. Jim and Owen (on the tag along) had done just fine on their little adventure, but Marney's second run ended in the bushes. Poor Jim, he thought at first Marney's arm was broken. It wasn't, much to his relief! She was a little shaken and a little scraped up, but fine.

We decided then we all needed a little break and some lunch, so we found a place to grab a bite to eat. That did the trick, our ride back to the cars was uneventful. I think I even saw a smile on Madeline's face.

Our total mileage for the day was 16.25. I was very impressed that the kids made it that far, they did awesome! It was a fun day, and a great trail. We will do it again soon. Only next time we will pack a bigger first aid kit (complete with ant spray, really?) and a healthy lunch.