Today, as most of you probably know, is the first day of spring. It's a day welcomed by many who are ready to say goodbye (or maybe even "good riddance") to the crazy winter of 2009-2010. I actually didn't mind the winter - I thought it was great to finally have a snowy winter again, like the ones I remember from my childhood growing up outside Chicago. But I'm also quite happy to welcome spring back today.
Well, today was about the best day you could have asked for, if you were wishing for a perfect first day of spring. Beautiful blue skies, a slight breeze, and temperatures hovering around 70 degrees! OK, so that's actually more like late spring than the beginning of spring, but I haven't heard anyone complaining yet!
Several of my friends and I were discussing Saturday's forecast earlier in the week, and we agreed that it sounded like a perfect day to begin another season as well - bicycling season! We made plans to meet at the Cumberland Valley Rail Trail, and then we decided it would be even better if we brought a picnic lunch along!
So, that's exactly what we did. We met in Newville around 11:30, got our bikes ready, and headed down the trail.
It really was a gorgeous day for a ride. And I was so happy to see signs of life returning to the fields and trees. I may be wrong, but it seems like some of the trees are greening up this year earlier than usual.
I even got a couple pictures of my Holstein friends, which made me very happy. (You see, in addition to liking groundhogs, which I mentioned in my last post, I also like cows - especially Holsteins - and have since I was really young. I even have quite the collection of cow items - but that's a story for another time.)
You might think that our first ride of the season would be a pretty short, easy one. Well, it was pretty easy, since it was very level, but it was not short. In yet another first today, we rode all the way from Newville to the Shippensburg Township park! Of course I had to take a picture of the park pavilion as proof that we made it there.
OK, so the trail from Newville to Shippensburg is only about 9 miles, but then, of course, we had to ride all the way back! So on the first ride we've done in I don't know how many months, we went 18 miles! And to put this in a little better perspective, the longest ride I have ever done was 21 miles - and that was in the middle of summer after many weeks of riding. Today my quadriceps were crying out for a large portion of the ride back - it's a good thing we were on level ground, because I don't know how I would have handled any hills at that point!
When we got back to our cars, we broke out the picnic fixings and started eating with reckless abandon. And because I was too busy feeding my face with things like peanut butter and jelly, grapes, exotic crackers, cheeses, and ham (the last three items courtesy of our friends EB and Rob), I didn't take any pictures of the spread. But rest assured, there was a nice assortment of goodies to help us refuel after our long ride!
So, it's been a good day. I was so glad to be able to get outside and see the signs of spring arriving across the countryside - and to not yet be affected by the tree pollen, which is the one bad thing about spring. And hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get out of bed without groaning in agony!
