river(-adjacent) cruises

 Spring in Moab is usually pretty awesome (which is why it's such a dang busy time of year) and we were recently lucky enough to spend a few days down there.  Less lucky was that we hit a pothole on the way down (Utah's roads are appalling right no) and the truck ended up in the shop for a few days.  This stranded us somewhat but we were able to rally: H did a road ride each morning and we also put our cruiser bikes (his: 1989 Fuji Club, hers: vintage 1960s-ish Schwinn, recently christened "Alice") into action. 

This is from mid April (Milton is not pooping)

The paved town bike path is fantastic, running from beyond our house, through town, past Arches National Park and up the hill to end at Route 313, which is the road to Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park.  There is also a spur that goes up along the Colorado River, almost to Grandstaff Canyon.  On Saturday, we went from our house to the end of the river spur and back, veering to cross the river on the foot bridge to check out how high the water is.  It's high, and moving quickly, and is only likely to get higher at the snowpack in Utah and Colorado keeps melting.

Also mid April - note sign

Other Saturday activities: a short hike on Pipedream (more on that later), yard work, washing bikes, resealing our picnic table, walking to town for a beer and the Kentucky Derby.

Early May.  Same sign.  Lots more water.

I had so much fun with that cruiser ride on Saturday that I wanted to do it again on Sunday.  So we did, and I got a flat tire not long after we turned around to head back - nearly as far away as possible.  I did have a spare tube, and H did bring the pump, but Alice predates wheel quick releases and we had forgotten to bring crescent wrenches.  So we did the only thing we could do: walk the bikes back, with a stop to refuel at the newly-opened Proper Brewing.  

In the second photo above, you can just see those

 pipes on the far left (not Milton swimming btw)

Proper Brewing (which has a couple of locations in northern Utah as well) looks to be doing quite well.  It was busy when we got there, sometime after 1:00 p.m., with tourists and MTBers on their way back to town from the Porcupine Rim.  We had vegan burgers (pretty good) and beers (of the twenty or so on tap, at least half of them had fruit, which is not really our thing).  Thus replenished, we were able to make it the rest of the way home.

Got my shoulders right up there around my ears

Ride stats: H's road rides - Friday 12.03 miles/0:42:09 time/17.1 m.p.h. average speed/28.8 m.p.h. top speed; Saturday 18.5/1;00:58/18.2/28.3; Sunday 19.09/ 1:05:03/17.6/26.4.  Cruisers - Saturday 12.87/1:16:00/10.1/17.8; Sunday 12.53/2:04:00/6.1/21.2.