birthday bike ride

This past Memorial weekend included my birthday. One of my requests to celebrate was for a bike ride, and we were able to head out Saturday morning for just that. The weather has been heavy with rain, but the most of the weekend was dry, including that morning. Also, for May, it was coolish in the lower 70's making for an enjoyable ride. 

It has been some years since we rode the bike trail at Longview Lake and we've never ridden the entire length and back with the children since the total miles is twelve. Well, we're more than capable of that distance as family, so we did it all at about a ten minutes per mile pace. 

Due to the recent excessive rain and the trail being by the lake there was an abundance of creatures on the path as we rode. We took the time to stop and check out many of them. Mostly, we saw snakes, crawdads and turtles with a few snails and frogs thrown in too. We have never come across so many critters on a ride and it was fun for the kids to get up close and personal with them. 

Jesse is such a naturalist that he was able to identify them all, and of course hold them. Roone enjoys the hands on experience so he is shown holding them in the pictures too. Ella is like me and is entertained from a distance. We saw one turtle building his nest in the mud. Jesse helped another turtle back to the water since he was so far away from it. 

Roone rode the distance of twelve miles with Jesse before on a different trail, but Ella has not so this was a challenge for her but she met it. The previous two trails have been paved (my favorite), but this one is mostly gravel with pavement in minimal spots. Gravel requires more peddling which means more energy is used on the ride. The distance coupled with the gravel could have been an issue, but wasn't - I was so thankful! Our idea is to increase our mileage on rides throughout the summer just to see how far we can ride as a family and still be happy at the end!

Red-eared Slider

Red-eared Slider

Crawdad

Baby Snapping Turtle



Cricket Frog

Baby Snapping Turtle


Baby Garter Snake

Baby Garter Snake



Crawdad



Also observed on the ride, but not pictured: 
Ring-necked Snake. Box Turtle. Woodchuck. Indigo Bunting



Comments

jbritton3 said…
Fun! We too are enjoying bike riding this spring instead of the kids usual softball. We are only up to 7miles, ha and that is round trip. Stopping for a snack/meal and playground helps to re-energize my littles. We investigated a large snapping turtle on the Blue River Parkway/Indian Creek trail. Happy birthday and I'm glad it was such a lovely day.
Rachel said…
Biking is such a great group activity, isn't it? It's a bit of a drive, but the Watkins Mill paved trail is great at just under 4 miles and mostly shaded. I can see your children enjoying it.