getting into the swing of things

We actually made a plan for this year's May vacation, planning out what we would do each day ahead of time, instead of flailing around each morning, trying to figure out where we wanted to go.  Since it's starting to get hot in Moab, it made sense to have a plan so we could get up and get going each morning - we even got our stuff ready the night before on occasion, which really streamlined things.  Plus, we set out to alternately hike and MTB - including hikes that Milton could do - as well as leaving room for siestas, afternoon beers and general chilling-out.  After March and April, I was looking forward to some time to chill.

As we like to do, we started our week with a Saturday morning MTB session at MOAB Brand Trails.  Utah, not so hard hit by the pandemic as other parts of the country, is starting to open up (although not the Moab-area national parks or public camping yet) and we were interested to see how busy things got as the week went on.  We got out of the house at 8:30 a.m. and there were about fifteen other vehicles at the parking lot; there would be 30+ by the time we finished. 

Riding the line (sort of) on the Circle O trail

After H rescued a couple of pretty girls with a flat tire (I noticed the full-face helmets; he noticed the short shorts), we did the first part of Lazy EZ to Rusty Spur, to the back half of Lazy EZ, to the parking lot cut-off, reversing on Bar M to Circle O, then finishing out on Bar M to the Copper Ridge [jeep] Road.  Even with the increasing crowds, we really didn't see many folks out on the trails. 

It was getting hot by the time we finished, but not too hot for parking lot beers, of course.  The rest of the afternoon was spent back at home with Milton, chilling out.  That's how I like to start my vacation.

Ride stats:  13.21 miles; 1:45 hours; 7.5 m.p.h. (average) and 23.8 m.p.h. (H's top speed)