Weekend Round-Up: Dreaming of Maine

It's Monday, and that's a bummer, but we've got less than two weeks until we leave for Maine. That is awesome!

We had a nice weekend. I got out with my friend Ben for what turned out to be a fifty-mile long ride on Saturday morning, and if that wasn't enough, we spent the first half of the day climbing!  Granted, the hills of Coastal Connecticut aren't the Alps, but it was still as challenging as we could make it.  We got back to my place just as the day's TdF stage was finishing, watched that, and then Ben road home--another fifteen miles!--while I got my family's bikes ready for a trail ride Saturday afternoon. 

Hannah's been much better on the bike this year, but neither of my girls is what you'd call athletically aggressive, and after Hannah's rather calamitous fall last time we were in Maine, it's been a bit of a challenge getting the girls back out on the bikes.  We finally decided to put Emma on the trail-a-bike for one more season, but Hannah's just too big. She's got to ride on her own.  We've been getting her out as much as we can, and I gotta say, she did really well this weekend. We wound up going out Saturday and Sunday both on the Trumbull Trail, and by the end, Hannah looked good.  I'm pleased with where the kids are, for once.  Hannah's ready.  Emma could ride, but she's about where Hannah was last year, and as we found out, that wasn't strong enough for the conditions in Acadia.  With what we have now, though, I think we're ready to spend some quality time in the saddle. 

That's good. Riding is my favorite part of Maine; my only regret about the whole trip is that we don't have the carrying capacity to bring both the trail bikes and the road bikes. I really, really want to climb Cadillac Mountain on my road bike, but we just can't fit it all on the car. 

Besides which, I don't know what Sally and the girls would do while I was off riding the mountain roads. It's a family vacation, not a triathlon training trip. Hell, I'm not even competing this year, so it's not like I need the work or anything. I like to ride, but that's as far as it goes this year. 

Anyway, we're leaving the day Guardians of the Galaxy comes out. We're gonna get up at 3:00 am, hit the road early, try to get to Freeport by breakfast time, and hopefully get to the cabin by early afternoon. I've been telling myself I'm gonna swim when we get up there, but the truth is that I'll probably just crack a beer, sit out on the cabin's back deck, and enjoy the sweet sound of total isolation.  We're on a dirt-road peninsula at Green Lake and won't even have phone service. 

If you're wondering, my new favorite beer is Kona Brewing Company's Castaway IPA.  It's kind of a laid back West Coast IPA, citrus-hoppy without being overly bitter, and very. smooth. Been diggin' it. Definitely taking some with me for the early part of the week. 

Eleven and a butt...