Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Day Ride

Up at the crack of dawn, courtesy of my sons who at least waited till 0620 before their noise woke my wife up who in turn woke me up getting out of bed.

The traditional tearing into the presents under the tree (from friends and family) and presents at the fireplace (presents from Santa Claus) occurred at its usual frenetic yet somewhat controlled pace so that my wife could get pictures of each present being opened.

The rest of the morning was spent exploring all the stuff the boys got, mostly video games, some books and clothes and some weird plastic balls that transform into robots or something. Apparently, they're the "in" thing now among the younger kids.

Shortly after noon I headed out with my eldest son's new "youtube quality" video camera/MP3 player. I took Maria since she's outfitted with a camera RAM mount so I could shoot some video. I went the E470/C470 slab way to Wadsworth Avenue where I got off and headed down Deer Creek Canyon Road.

I went up and down the road once, shooting several film segments (I thought) for eventual editing and posting. Well, not sure what I did wrong but the only segment that recorded was about 5 seconds at the end of my last shooting sequence! So, no video today. Sorry. Just as well as road conditions did not facilitate one riding "briskly" through the twisty parts.

The twisty curves of Deer Creek Canyon road were not too bad in terms of remaining ice/snow but the gravel used for traction was very much in evidence and kept my speeds slow through the curves. Couple of spots that were in the shade all the time had enough ice/snow/gravel to leave just narrow lanes that were clear pavement, I went real slow on these.....so, perhaps video of curvy roads will have to wait till Spring of 2009.

I headed back towards home by way of US85 which I got to from Waterton Canyon Road. I took US85 past Sedalia and got to Castle Rock in short order. From there it was the usual, crowfoot parkway to Parker, and from Parker it was county roads all the way back to Smoky Hill Road. I spotted the clubhouse built for this housing development and went there to see about taking some pics.

It's a pretty fancy clubhouse, for these here parts that is. Much bigger and fancier than the small poolhouse that my neighborhood has!

A metal sculpture to the East of the main clubhouse


By this time, I'd accumulated perhaps 110 miles of riding and a couple of hours in the saddle. I was beat from the very strong and gusty winds that had been pretty much my constant companion throughout the ride. The temperatures were in the high 40s to low 50s with sunny skies so pretty good riding weather.

Hope you had a great Christmas morning, and now, back to the video games!

1 comment:

Micah said...

Merry Christmas!!