An active recovery from a busy and active vacation...It was definitely nice to have a 3-day weekend. Time for relaxing, getting caught up on sleep, watching the start of the Tour de France, and getting some decent rides in too! Saturday was the start of the Tour, and the (prologue) time trial was scheduled to be on OLN at 11:30 - so for me it was an early morning ride day. I won't be able to watch the tour live most days, but I made an exception for the first day. Sunday was a long ride day - 53 miles in total, a big loop from home to Newburyport and Plum Island. I was amazed at how crowded the beaches were, but the roads (other than the one leading to the beach) were lightly traveled. Nice.
On Monday - our extra day off - I did a beautiful loop ride not too far from home, then added another (different) loop to come up with a reasonable and acceptable amount of mileage for the day. This was the second or third time this season that I did the initial loop, and this was the first time I realized that I could be quite happy doing this loop twice to get in a close to 40 mile ride. Usually when I ride 40 to 50 miles I do a big loop, but sometimes I'd rather stay a little closer to home. I suppose it's possible that I could get bored with this loop, but somehow I don't think so. It's nice to have another close-to-home alternative!
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| Finding this stable with a couple of young horses enjoying the grass made me smile. I wonder what this young horse is thinking! |
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| Gazing inland from the bridge to Plum Island |
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| I found it interesting that this "WAY TO THE RIVER" was clearly marked as a DEAD END. If you really wanted to cross the Merrimack River the right road to take was the next one! |
