Saturday Gravel.

Considering my week started out with 3 days off the bike I ended up with a solid week.  Almost 3 hours on Thursday, 5.5 hours on both Friday and Saturday, and 2.5 hours on Sunday.  The best ride of the bunch was on Saturday.  Charlie, Kris, and I headed out for a gravel ride on what was seemingly the best day of fall thus far!
We didn't really didn't have a planned route (the best kind) but I had us running west and south.  Eventually I figured we'd end up in Darwin, home of the biggest ball of twine.  Coming up on a town we assumed was Darwin we got Charlie all excited for a selfie with the ball of twine.  Oops, not Darwin but Litchfield!  I love when rides get you turned around!  After a refuel stop at a gas station without pizza (sorry Kris), but they had minnows, we made our way back north.  We meandered a tad so we wouldn't double back on already traveled roads.
Because there was such little wind it really didn't matter the direction we were going...always a tiny headwind.  I ride most of the time with my Garmin (1000) in the map mode.  I prefer to look at that versus how far we've gone and how fast...I save that for the end.  I did check in Litchfield for the distance.  I was surprised to see we were averaging 19.6.

Having ridden much of my longer rides solo this was a refreshing change.  The time seemed to fly by, as did the miles.  We were shooting for 6 hours but we were more than satisfied with a bit less than 5.5 and 105 or so miles.
A great day on the bike.

I got out and spun a bit on Sunday.  The wind made it hard not to go too deep at times but I did manage to get the gunk out of the legs.
Bagged 12 bags of leaves, knowing I will most likely have to do it again next weekend, and headed off to my folks for dinner.

Not the 4 days Jen nor I imagined but it ended up being just fine.  Two of the kids are still battling colds.  I'm pounding fluids like mad.  So far it's working!

Back to work.