I managed to keep myself occupied for the rest of this weekend, though unfortunately a lot of it did involve yard work. I helped my mom with some yard work yesterday, and Michael and Bradley even pitched in because my mom’s back was giving her problems (a condition which I inherited from both her and my dad). After giving her a hand, I went back home and mowed and watered the grass (which needed it very badly), then mowed the weeds down in the very back yard. Once the weeds were taken care of, I helped Traci assemble the trampoline that we bought a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t really want to get a trampoline, but apparently that’s the price I have to pay for getting a mountain bike. I’ll admit to having fun jumping on the tramp, but I still don’t want all the other headaches involved with owning one. Making “tramp” jokes has almost made it seem worthwhile.
I spent nearly all of this morning and early afternoon jumping on the trampoline with the kids. I jumped so much that I started getting mild shin splints. The last time I jumped on a trampoline was about 20 years ago at the Sanchez’ house. I used to be able to land a front flip then, and though it took me several tries today, I was able to do the same, though probably not as gracefully as when I was a teenager. At about 3:00 we all rode our bikes to the park for my nephew’s birthday party, and it was nice to just relax and hang out with my family for a bit. When we got back home everybody headed for the trampoline once again. Torrey was feeling left out, so we stopped jumping long enough to let her up for a while.
Around dinner time I decided to go for a bike ride, so Traci took care of dinner for her and the kids while I hit Luke’s Trail (check out the ride photos here). I plowed through the trail a lot faster than my previous ride there–the only stops I made were to take photos of the many wild flowers along the trail. Upon reaching the north end of Luke’s, I continued across the gravel road and started following another singletrack trail. I expected it to lead immediately south toward where my truck was parked, but instead it went north for quite a distance before turning south. The sun had already set and I was running out of light, so at the next chance I got I bailed out of the trail and took a gravel road back to the truck. I’ll have to hit the trail again when I’m not pressed for time because there was at least another mile and a half of singletrack left that I didn’t get to ride.