Some more forest roads

Today I headed out for a ride around the Peaks and it turned out to be a pretty nice day. I made sure to stop and take a few photos especially when I saw that Snowbowl still had enough snow in places to actually get a few runs in. The back side of Humphreys looked very ski worthy also with what apparently is a pretty hefty snowpack.

Updating the ride list for the past week

Since it is Everest climbing season right now I decided that an attainable goal at the beginning of the month would be to try and climb the height of Everest on my mountain bike in the month of May. So far I am about 1000 feet away from my goal. I have been getting out a fair amount even with Henry as the newest member of the family. Anne has been working many evening shifts so it allows me to get out even if it is for a short ride. Yesterday I got to go on a long ride (cleaning the house the day before helped my cause) and I found myself down by Mormon Lake and Mormon Mountain and managed to get home right around the 60 mile mark. I really enjoyed my homemade ham and egg rice cakes and nutella/peanut butter rice cakes along the way.

I wrote the previous rambling a few days ago and am planning on heading out for another long dirt road exploration tomorrow. There is something soothing to the soul about these ride that differ from the sweet singletrack rides that abound here. I believe that although physically taxing this type of ride allows for more of a mental clarity due to less of a need to concentrate on the riding and more of opportunity to take in the natural environment. Nonetheless I urge everyone to get out on a bike and enjoy themselves no matter what the distance traveled ends up being.

The dog

Yampa may not get as much attention as she did before Henry came around but she still is pretty spoiled. We are very fortunate to have a shelter dog that is such a great family member. She likes to sit atop her dog house and watch out over the neighborhood.

When I don't have to take on baby duty (doodie)?

I have not have too much motivation lately to post anything new here but today I have a couple of minutes while Henry is sleeping to throw up a few photos of some of the rides I have gotten in lately. I am trying to make the most of the bike time because it is definitely harder to come by these days. My longest ride of the year so far was a whopping 35 miles but there was 4000+ ft. of climbing so I guess that is alright. It consisted of the Elden road, Shultz Pass road and the Ft Valley Trail (Lower Moto). Today I rode up to the bubbling puddle of Orion Spring through a couple of my favorite drainages around Flagstaff. They are really nice now with the water flowing. We were in KC for 5 days so I am slowly shaking the lack of strenuous activity and the abundance of eating off.

Start of the growing season

This year I decided to try a couple of container growing experiments. I found these cool self watering containers that will allow for a bit of veggie gardening that is mobile. I planted already and since the containers have wheels on them I just wheel them into the garage at night and back out to get some sun during the day. I actually only have one so far but it has some arugala, romaine, chives, cilantro and some chard seeds planted in it. A tomato planter of the same variety is one the way with a smaller planter for some misc. things and perhaps some edible flowers. I will periodically update the condition of these plantings until I am eating the deliciousness or it is a total disaster.

Time to post is short these days.

March has seen some interesting times. We took Henry to NM and then promptly down to Tucson for his first "out of belly" trip to the Old Pueblo. He is pretty good for the most part. I do wonder how he is seemingly the only baby in the world that bawls and bawls when he is in his car seat riding in the car. Anne went back to work yesterday so it was my first shift as stay at home dad. All in all things seems to go pretty well. I will leave you with some random photos of happenings around the Pacheco universe.

Just a quick post after returning home from New Mexico. We were able to meet up with my brother's family in Albuquerque for a quick little trip to Turtle Mountain Brewery where I snapped a photo of my sister in law with Henry and my niece with Henry. I also threw in a photo of Henry on my chest and one by his lonesome.