My Saturday morning gravel ride was glorious! I got up that morning feeling somewhat cruddy, and I thought “If Em cancels, I am not going by myself.” This was in part because I felt cruddy and exhausted, but also because Mr. Ink had to work and I figured it would be best to have him available on the phone for a solo ride.

But, Em didn’t cancel, and so we set off that morning on a ride. I had a route in mind, and it’s one she knows well. She brought her ebike, as she’s recovering from some surgery and this is a way that she can participate in biking during her recovery. This actually made things so perfect, as I was seriously going to worry about her the entire time if she hadn’t brought her ebike. But, because she did, I was able to just do my gravel thing and she was easily able to keep up with no pain and exhaustion. Plus, she could chat at me from time to time, and we were able to catch up, as we hadn’t seen each other in a while.

Now, Em likes to stop and take pictures. Adventure pictures. She thinks one of the best ways to show people the joys of biking is to take photos of the things we see on our adventures. I admit I didn’t take a ton of pictures this time, but I did take two. The first was an old abandoned barn and house. I love a good broken down barn photo.

Next was a real gem, we’d stopped at an intersection, crossing a paved road. She pointed out a fabulous fountain, and once pointed out, we had to ride up the pavement to see it!

It’s as charming as can be and so unusual!

The entire ride was fantastic. My little scoped out route took us on a 23.5 mile gravel ride. A perfect route for something I could handle solo. Lots of hills, but also lots of good scenery.

It was also the kind of ride where despite really working hard, once I got home, showered, hydrated, and fed, I was able to continue on my day without feeling completely exhausted and unable to do anything.

And as such, I got a bunch of spinning. I concentrated on the red 2 ply yarn as I really was feeling the need just finish up that project. And I did! Between spinning on Saturday and spinning on Sunday, by Sunday afternoon I’d completed the project!

I can’t even begin to tell you how good that feels. My final total is 2,085 yards. 4 skeins, all of them in the 500 yard range! No, I have no clue what I’ll do with them, they’ll just go in stash for now. Actually, they look pretty good sitting on top of the stash cabinet waiting for some space to free up for all of them! I’ll work on freeing up that space by knitting this fall.

Next up, finish the cram-pot dyed locks project and then see what other “secret stash” project could be started, since that’s the entire goal of TdF for me this year. But, today is a rest day, and I am going to use it as such.