Surprise & New Hobby at home

So I made it back home safely - with my luggage :) Overall, it was a good trip since I got to get to know some other coworkers and I got to be in my favorite city. Also this was the first trip I was leading other people around - and now feel very confident in my getting around skills - so I look forward to trips with better weather to explore more places!

Then I got to come home to a surprise - a new bike for me. Paul had found a great deal on a barely used hybrid bike for me and more used bike for him. The hybrid bike was exactly what I wanted - so it won't be too hard to ride on the street but will handle moderate mountain bike trails. He also got everything we needed - helmets and a bike rack for the end of the car.

Although in the end his bike didn't work out... so we opted to find him a better one... which was challenging. All the bike shops around here start with bikes at $350 (more than we want to spend since we are just biking casually). Then we went to Walmart, and after 30 min of waiting for a sales rep which we called twice, we left because we couldn't reach the adult bikes on the third shelf. We tried target, but after a test drive, the gear changer broke... finally we remembered Academy, where although not very knowledgeable, they actually had someone to help us, and a much larger selection - so we got a moderate Mountain bike from Columbia (I didn't know they had bikes - but the suspension is great - and they are reasonably priced). Plus, it looks cool!

So then we took off for the trail, and went to our usual (as in used to be usual) running trail. What used to take us 45 min to an hour took us 15 minutes... so we went off exploring other parts of the trail and rode past a small skate park and disc course! Not that we're going to pick up those new hobbies as well - but we had a great time checking everything out. Hopefully this will be a great way to get in some exercise too - I think some of the past excuses are out. If I'm tired I can take it slow and coast & even when it's hot, you pick up a breeze & don't overheat as easily!

I'm also excited because there are a lot of great easy level mountain bike trails within 2 hours of us - so we'll have some more adventures coming up!