Fooding

Connor likes to to on a bike ride.  We got a swing bike that makes my mountain bike into a kind of tandem.  He started writing notes at school "requesting" we do some such activity.  His latest note was to take a bike ride to Wendy's.

Seeing as how there is not much for a Vegetarian bent on weight loss to eat at Wendy's I negotiated going to Burger King (The BK Veggie, sans Mayo 240 Calories).  This is the first outing this summer and since I started my quest to limit gravitational pull upon my mass.  I was curious to see how it would go.  We have a nice City park, Stewart park, which goes along the I5 Freeway, the Umpqua river and two other traffic corridors.  It has a good size trail.  Connor wanted to head from the "train tracks" which is a pathway that follows the river for a good stretch.  

We parked at a local pharmacy's back lot, hooked up the bikes, helmeted up and started riding.  Connor likes to say hello to the people walking the trail, there was quite a few for him to offer salutations towards.  He also has control of a bike bell, to warn those ahead of our path.  This ride has tree's on one side with the river, the right side is a field that bluffs up to various businesses and cell towers.  The train tacks parallel the path for the first section, unfortunately no trains for Connor to enjoy.  The trees then over hand the pathway, giving a woodsy feeling with small park like alcoves along the river.  Some blind curves as well.  This opens up to the baseball park complex and the first real challenge. 

So far the ride had been nice gradual up and down, now the section that goes under the I5 bridge over the river.  There is a nice downhill prior to the climb which allows you to get some speed in which to aid the primary ascent.  This was going pretty well until my downshifting threw the chain.  In not much time at all, I had the chain back on and we had walked to the top of the first hill.  The path go's down a bit with a gradual snake like curve left then right as it goes under the freeway, on the far side of the bridge it bears right and has a steep climb to the park proper.

Without a repeat of the chain incident we low geared it up to the top.  Connor was very helpful as a bit of an extra boost of leg power.  

This put us into the grove like wooded section of the park, where there is a rather large and popular Frisbee golf course.  This is a tee intersection Connor chose to head South which takes us back by the river.  This was also nice as it has a downhill section.  Then it got a little interesting.  Connor wanted to ride through the Veterans Hospital grounds.  This is a rather palatial looking brick building estate.  It has a large looping driveway with a 15 MPH posting.  Surrounded by an 18 hole golf course.  It is tree lined which kept me out of the sun even longer (I tend to burn).

This brought us to the crosswalk on the busiest street in town.  Connor pushed the button and we crossed and made it to BK.  I was good and did not consume any of Connors fries's.  The entire ride was about an hour, fed Connor and provided me with exercise and him with a big smile.

I really need to get him a bike.