I did my first ride of 2009 today, and it was quite unpleasant. I’m still sick, and medicated, so I did an easy ride of about nine miles on the Levee Trail. I won’t go into detail, but I was hacking up ungodly quantities of grossness throughout the ride. I just hope I managed to cleanse my system of the remains of what ails me.

It’s been tough choosing my favorite rides of 2008. At first I came up with a few favorites, and realized that “a few” was 35. I narrowed it down, counted, and I was down to 28. Eventually, I whittled the list down to 10 rides. I left a lot of great rides out — I had no choice, there were just too many incredible rides to fit them all into one post.

Here they are, in chronological order. This is highly subjective — I have no specific criteria, so each ride might be memorable in a different way.

1. An Unintentionally Epic Ride
   
   This ride was in Fort Wayne. I intended to ride about 40 miles, and ended up going close to 70. I rode from Fort Wayne up to Chain O’ Lakes State Park, expl0red the park, and rode back. One of my first mixed terrain rides, and it was on the road bike. A little sketchy and a lot of fun.
2. First Bicycle Camping Trip (S24O)
   
   My first bicycle camping trip. And sadly, the only one I did this year. It was great, and I hope to do more trips like this when time permits.
3. Mixed Media Ride
   
   This ended up being a defining ride for me. Probably my first intentional/serious mixed-terrain ride, I rode from Bloomington out to Yellowwood State Forest, and through the State Forest lands on gravel roads. I intended to ride back, but a sidewall blowout stopped me. Sarah saved the day. This experience was a revelation: riding on platform pedals, wearing sandals, stopping to wade in the creek to cool off, taking in the gravel roads — all these things made me rethink how I approach my rides.
4. Bloomington to Jackson-Washington State Forest
   
   This was an experiment. Sarah and I were going camping at Jackson-Washington State Forest. I rode there, she drove, and we met once we arrived. It was a fun trip and a great ride.
5. Brown County Breakdown
   
   This has been my favorite ride of the year the past two years, and the same was true this year. It covers a lot of fantastic trails, and it’s a great way to spend all day out mountain biking.
6. Lehigh Gorge
   
   This was the most fantastically gorgeous ride of the whole year. I loved the rushing Lehigh River, the brilliant fall foliage, the mountains, and 40 miles of rather easy yet very enjoyable riding.
7. Bunker Hill, Mt. Zion, Lake Louise, etc.
   
   My first longish road ride in Pennsylvania, this was a real eye-opener. I saw a lot of beautiful scenery, but this ride really reinforced for me how much more difficult the riding is in this area.
8. Harvey’s Lake
   
   Even though I had to ride a shorter distance than I had hoped, this was a breathtakingly beautiful ride. Brutal in terms of climbing, though.
9. Black Friday Mountain Biking - Inadvertently, Snow Biking
   
   My friend Dave and I typically do a ride on Black Friday, but since I moved, I had to find another option. I rode with the Hubbard Bike Club near Scranton. I wasn’t expecting snow at all, as there was none at home, but I arrived to find several inches of snow on the ground. This was a very difficult ride, but also very scenic. It was a great group of riders, to boot.
10. Larksville/Plymouth Mountain
    
    This ride had me inadvertently riding some gravel roads that I was very happy to have found. It was warm-ish in the valley, but on top of Plymouth Mountain the trees were covered in a good layer of ice that crackled as limbs swayed in the wind and refracted the sunlight like thousands of frozen prisms.

Thinking back on 2008, it must have been the most eventful year of my life. Here’s a rough outline of major events in chronological order — some good, some bad (I’ll do a separate post with riding highlights soon).

1. Found out that my riding buddy, Dave, had a wreck and injured his spinal cord (he is recovering very well, and is back to riding the trails)
2. Got engaged
3. Had my wisdom teeth removed
4. Celebrated Sarah’s graduation from grad school
5. Took a trip to North Carolina and Virginia, to explore some job possibilities for Sarah.  While there, I was hit by a car (which then “ran”). I had some scrapes and a broken/dislocated finger, which still hurts sometimes (it happened in June). Then our car broke down. We did manage to see some beautiful sights while we were there, but the trip was pretty much a complete bust. Sarah did not get either job. Actually, we thought she was getting the one in Virginia, and just as we thought they were going to make an offer, they told us they had a hiring freeze, and could not fill the position.
6. Got married
7. Moved to Pennsylvania, since Sarah found a job here. I kept my job, and have been working from home.
8. Found out I’m getting laid off from my job. December 31 (tomorrow) will be my last day.
9. Took steps to form my own company providing Web development and other services. This is the first I’ve mentioned it on the blog, I’ll say more later.

Well, I’ve been sick since Monday now, and it sure is getting old. We even had a heat wave, two beautiful days this weekend, today reaching somewhere around 60 degrees.

But alas, going upstairs too quickly throws me into a coughing fit, so I am unable to take advantage of this crazy weather to ride or hike.

I feel like I’m on the upswing now, and since my last day at work is December 31 (this coming Wednesday), I may have too much free time on my hands. Of course, at that point, I will need to put a lot of work into finding work. There have been some developments on that front, but I don’t want to make any announcements just yet. Stay tuned.

Last year, Sarah and I hiked at McCormick’s Creek State Park, in southern Indiana, with my family. That day was unusually warm, at 47 degrees — I wore a sweater, for a hike on Christmas day!

Well, it looks like the Christmas hike is becoming a tradition. This year was a lot different, as it was just Sarah and me, and here in NE Pennsylvania, we had snow and ice to contend with. We both were (and still are) sick, but it was great to get out anyway.

We went down to Nescopeck State Park, where mom and I hiked when she came to help us move in. Sarah and I had never been there together. We decided to hike the Creekside Trail, and now that we have done a little snowshoeing, we felt confident enough to bring the dog with us.

Rob

Sarah

Snowshoes

Wide trail, mountains

Creek

Another view of the creek

Rob, running alongside the creek

The trail was wide and easy for a while. It had snowed, warmed up, and then re-froze, so there was a fairly thick layer of ice on top of the remaining snow. It was very slick, but no real problem with our snowshoes. The crampons dig into the ice and have a very strong grip.

There was one thing we hadn’t counted on, though, that caused us some problems: with all the melting snow came some flooding. Parts of the trail were underwater, and we had to find a way to cross the water where it wasn’t too wide.

Flooding

A thin layer of ice hovered above the water

Wide creek

Sarah found a good way to cross flooding in a couple of different places. She was a really good sport about it. We managed to step over/through the water without getting wet.

We reached a point where we were ostensibly supposed to continue in the direction we had been heading. However, the arrow pointing to the Creek Side Loop in that direction had been painted over, and there was no trail visible. We had to instead head back on the Fern Trail.

What happened to the trail on the left?

Another view of the creek

The icy/muddy/slushy Fern Trail

At one point as we hiked, Rob was clearly watching some kind of animal. Eventually a rabbit jumped up and Rob took chase. He didn’t catch it, but it was good to see Rob acting like more of a dog (he normally just lays on the couch).

Rob, stalking a rabbit

Shortly thereafter, we saw some tracks that I can only assume were bear tracks, unless there was some kind of bow-legged guy with weird boots hiking there previously. Can anyone confirm this?

Bear tracks, maybe?

Fern Trail

After a while, the Fern Trail reconnected with the Creekside Trail, and we headed back toward the car.

Creek

Sarah and Rob

Another creek

Back at the car

We really enjoyed our hike, despite the flooding problems and disappearing trail. I hope we can keep the Christmas hike tradition alive, as it’s a great way to celebrate the holiday and spend some quality time together.