Rustler's ride

We didn't go mountain biking for almost a month.

There were several reasons for this: a weekend of camping with a bunch of Chris's relatives, a trip to Oregon the next weekend for a wedding, then two weekends and the week between taken up by the rehearsal schedule for a show that Chris was in... On top of all that, it was beastly hot here with a couple weeks of highs over 100 degrees, so even when we could string together a couple of spare hours, we were too busy laying under the ceiling fan panting and sweating and complaining to load up our bikes.

Last weekend we took our boy, our bikes and the camping gear and headed up. We went to the Uncompaghre Plateau and at about 8500 feet found relief from the heat amidst the ponderosas, aspens, and wildflowers. Chris coaxed our ancient, 2WD, little pickup along a rocky rugged jeep road to a secluded campsite. From there he and I took turns biking the dirt roads and hanging out with Cailan. It was great fun until the huge thunderstorm rolled in Sunday morning while I was biking to a high exposed overlook. Chris managed to get the tent down and the truck loaded by the time I returned to the campsite; he was fueled in his hurry by visions of the road we drove in on disappearing under torrents of reddish-brown water in a flash flood. Thanks to his speed we were almost done driving the scary road when the deluge hit us.

So the no-bike spell was broken, as was the weather. It has been notably cooler this week - it's still hot, to be sure, but we're no longer eyeing each other warily for signs of spontaneous combustion. Yesterday it didn't even get above 90, so we went out to Rustler's Loop after work. Chris and Utah took the first lap while Cailan and I hung out, throwing rocks and practicing our outdoor-peeing skills. Then I took a turn (Utah always gets two turns), and Cailan showed Chris how he can line rocks up in order from biggest to smallest. When I got back to the parking lot, there was still time for Chris to get in another lap, but Utah was getting hot and tired so he had to sit out on that one.

I got an old green towel out of the Subaru and spread it out on the ground. Cailan and I pretended this was space, and we made several solar systems out of rocks. It was easy to find Mercury and Pluto, and even Earth, in the gravel parking area, but Jupiter was a bit more challenging. Cailan would stand still, scanning the area until his saw a likely target. Then he'd run over to it and return slowly, carrying the biggest rock he could possibly lift to be Jupiter.

When Chris got back, we started loading up the car. I moved the rock planets off the towel, shook it out, but left it in a heap while I put some other things in the car. Cailan saw it there and said "Can you please make space more flat again?"

We had dinner at Chipotle on the way home. I love the evenings when we do this - it feels a bit like playing hooky to abdicate all our chores, cooking dinner and cleaning up, to enjoy an evening outside exercising and playing together.