Back behind bars

The whole point of moving house was, in my opinion, to be closer to the James River Park System and it's variety of trails. Something about getting in the truck and driving to a trailhead never sat quite right with me. I once tried to ride the northbank trail starting from our Westend rental, but the last two miles home were absolute agony. I was chugging Gatorade and Redbull and the only thing stopping me from passing out was the pain in my legs. That was fun and all, but I much prefer being on dirt about five minutes after shutting the garden gate.
It's taken me a little while to really take full advantage of my new location. On Saturday the dog (more on which later) woke me up at about 6.30am. After wearing him out with a game of catch, it suddenly occurred to me that it was 70F and I had the whole morning to do whatever I wanted. The day before I had walked Boudin along some new trails in Forest Hill Park and wanted to try them out on two wheels. In the end the route was Buttermilk from 22nd street lot to Reedy Creek. The gravel road from Reedy Creek to Boulevard. Forest Hill Ave via the Suntrust ATM (hey, I can still run errands!) to Forest Hill Park. Rode most of the trails I know of in the park, then back along the gravel road from Reedy Creek to Belle Isle, off the back of Brown's Island to the pipeline (note: the railed section is not wide enough to ride - the un-railed section is just flippin' scary!), over Mayo's Bridge to the East section of the floodwall walk, checked out the Manchester Slave Trail (a bit depressing, but I was rather impressed that the information board alluded to the protection Sickle Cell anemia affords against Malaria), hung out at Ancarrow's landing (never been down here before, just wanted to see what the sitch was -- watched a couple guys launch a boat out the bed of a pickup!), took the other half of the floodwall walk back behind the Suntrust buildings and back along Riverside to the Homestead! Phew! Loved every second of it.