My 37th Birthday was last week, thanks to everyone who reached out it’s always nice to feel the love from folks I talk to all the time and some I talk to all too little. The day before my Birthday I was treated to an early present as I found a pair of Handup Gloves in my size in the ditch next to the road. You never know what you’ll find in the ditch.
In the past I’ve just kind of let birthday’s slide by, and in reality I still don’t make a big fuss about it as that’s just not my style and I’m kind of uncomfortable in the spot light. However after having kids for a couple years now and seeing just how busy life can get I’ve decided that some of the holiday’s/birthdays/etc. that I used to not really care about really do make great excuses to do something kind of out of the ordinary. It doesn’t have to be big or extravagant, but take a min and do something you don’t do every day.
This year we had a couple things going. First, Katie was able to organize a baby sitter for the night so we could go out and have an evening without the kids, 2nd I was taking Friday off of work to get a slightly longer ride in and then get packed up for #3, which was a quick camping trip to Devils Fork State Park on Lake Jocasse. It was set up to be a great few days. The camping trip wasn’t really just for my Birthday, mother’s day was also on Sunday and we’d been talking about trying to get out to camp for a while now.
The night out was great, we kept it simple and just headed out to WolfBrew in Brevard for a beer before we went out to dinner. If you haven’t been to WolfBrew and you enjoy unique beers it’s definitely worth the trip. I had a hazy NE style IPA from Westbrook that I’ve not seen anywhere else and it was delicious. We followed that up with a trip out to the Pavilion at Key Falls which is an awesome little restaurant a little out of town in a great scenic setting. The food there is also really quite good and the service is hard to beat. It’s not our everyday place to eat but really nice to get out to with visitors or special occasions. All and all we had a really good night a big thanks to Katie for making things happen.
The next morning I decided that I’d take Lizzie to school with the Mac Ride and then head into the woods for a ride of my own. If you have young kids, like to ride, and haven’t checked out the Mac Ride it’s worth a look. If you’re in Brevard and want to try it let me know. Anyhow, I dropped her off and headed into Pisgah. Made the long slog up Clawhammer, up and over Rich Mtn on the Black Mtn Trail to Avery Creek. The top of Avery Creek is in pretty special shape right now, the first couple hundred yards have been beat up pretty bad by all the heavy rains over the winter and early this spring. They are about to start some major work on that trail and I’m honestly pretty excited about that.
I finished up Avery and headed up the Gravel on Avery Creek road over to Bennet Gap, down Bennet, and at this point I didn’t have too much time before I needed to be back to pick up Lizzie. I was out of water though so I went up Clawhammer a little bit to the spring and grabbed some water and then turned around and headed for Grassy road to get just a little more trail in. Quick loop on Grassy to upper sycamore and back to get Lizzie right on time. A Nice 30 mile Pisgah Jaunt in between drop off and Pick up sure makes for a nice Friday.
Once I got back it was time to pack up the car for our camping adventure. We were pretty excited to get down to Devil’s Fork State Park, however with heavy storms in the forecast there was some concern. We don’t like to base plans off of forecasts though so we went. We got the tent set up, extra tarp for rain protection, had dinner, and a pretty nice evening for the most part. We had other campers close though, close enough that we could hear them and presumably they could hear us. Getting down to sleep was a little interesting as Lizzie’s sleep spot wasn’t ideal, she ended up in bed between Katie and I. This is really the first time she’s slept with us, and now that is interesting, I think she slept ok but man do 3 year olds move a lot while they sleep. Then Chris woke up early and wouldn’t settle, I think he would have if we could have let him cry it out for 5-10 mins but we didn’t want to wake up the campground. These things on top of the pouring rain for half the night.
Needless to say not a lot of sleep was had. We got up, surveyed the situation and I checked the radar. There were some big storms on the way that were going to last a while. We made the call to cut bait and head home with a stop at a good breakfast place. Neither of us really like to bail on plans but sometimes you’ve just got to go to plan B. Honestly, it stormed most of the day, some of them really heavy, it would have been fairly not fun in our tent so I think we made the right call.
Anyhow, no bikes on the weekend for me, which was odd but good. I’m looking forward to getting a few quality shorter rides in this week and start thinking about what’s next. I’m hopeful to do an event or two that I haven’t done before this summer, which means it won’t be in my backyard so I may have to spread the events out a little bit more but that’s alright. We have so much going on with house projects, work, and the little ones that that’s ok.
