I could have sworn we rode 30!

Not having a job certainly has it's advantages (along with it's disadvantages, but lets not even go there). Leah and I decided on Tuesday to go on a bike ride on Wednesday. I hadn't ridden my bike for real in a while and I was really looking forward to it! So around 2:00 we started pedaling towards the church in search of a bike path Judy told us about.

It felt so good! Not only the exercise but just the relaxing familiar motions of riding a bike! I was feeling very proud of myself being as out of shape as I am for how good I felt. We found the trail by church, but I'm not sure we followed it exactly how Judy was describing it. Oh well. We got to the point where we were pretty close to Joe's work so we decided to go see him! (approx 5 mi. so far)

After visiting Joe, we were still feeling good so we decided to bike to a trail that Leah used to ride when she was growing up. I don't know exactly where we were but I know we got onto it somewhere off of Tejon. We ended up at Goose Gossage park. (add approx 3 mi.) At that point, we decided that we would keep going on the trail to a bike shop that Leah used to ride to. We both needed to relax a little and refuel with a Power Bar. So the journey continued.

I can't say that I was still feeling quite so awesome at this point. I was out of water and I was pretty tired. I was thankful that we were nearing the bike shop. We kept riding. As we went further we realized that the bike shop was actually much further North than we had thought. So we took a turn off the trail thinking it would lead us to a park where they would have restrooms and a water fountain. No such luck! It was not a park at all! It was a new shopping center that was being built along Nevada! There was no drinking fountain in sight! (add another 2 mi)

Instead of continuing on we decided to turn and head for home. We began to head South on Nevada until we hit Mt. View Lane. We turned and what did we find?!? Oh Thank Heaven! A 7 eleven! We stopped there to share a Power Bar and each get a Gatorade. (add 2 mi) Although I wasn't feeling the same energy as when we started our bike ride, I was feeling much better after this stop. We continued east on Mt. View until we came to Austin Bluffs (another mile) and got to ride down the big hill!

At Austin Bluffs we caught the trail we had started on and decided to take the bridge that took us right to Flintridge. Now I don't know if it was just me yesterday, but I never knew how long of a street Flintridge was! We rode from Flintridge to Westwood and took that to Leah's place. (adding another 3 mi) After we locked up my bike and she carried hers up the stairs we collapsed for a while and did some stretching. We were wiped out!

Did you do the math? As far as my map quested guesses tell me, that's 16 miles! Craziness! A little too ambitious for my first time on a bike in about 2 years. I could have sworn we rode 30! Yea us!