Evening Ride

Today was a very hot day. We set a record reaching 91 degrees! I could tell it was going to be a HOT day the moment I woke up this morning at 7 AM and saw that the outside temperature was already 78 degrees! Joe had some things to do in the morning so we planned an afternoon ride. He left around 8 AM and returned home at noon. The temperature was 89 degrees when he walked through the door! We canned the afternoon ride and decided to do an early evening ride instead. It was definitely way too hot for a ride in the middle of the day.

So I did laundry and cleaned the house up a bit. I started dinner early, around three so that we could eat before our ride. At 6 PM we decided to get ready for our ride. The temperature had begun to drop and just like the weather report predicted a cold front was moving in. Of course that meant there would be wind on our ride this evening but that was okay with us. We just wanted to get out and ride. We were on the road at 6:30. The sun was still up but not directly overhead. Big difference! The winds were picking up and the temperature was dropping. It was 84 when we started our ride.

We followed the Carbon River for about 10 miles. Allowing the wind to blow off the chilly glacier fed river and cool us off. It felt wonderful! At mile 15 we left the river and headed inland. The slowly setting sun cast long shadows. We entered a wooded tree lined road and the scene was surreal. We past pastures saw great views of Mount Rainier, and sparkling sunlight dancing off the river. We got 30 miles in and finished our ride around 8:30. It was still light out (I love this time of the year with the long days) and arrived home happy that we got a ride in on this hot day.