A final few photos

Some foliage.
An awesome shadow picture!
The second of two trains we had to wait for.

Still more photos

Some friends along the way.
Halloween is almost here!
Another shadow shot.

Photos from today's ride

Here we have the sun burning off the morning fog.
Now here's a good shadow picture!
Julie giving the thumbs up for a great ride!

We have a winner!

Or...A Good Day for Shadow Pictures!

Julie and I rode South today in beautiful sunny and crisp Fall weather!

We made it to Centralia and Berry Fields Café. Just our luck, the special for today was hot turkey open-face sandwiches with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Of course, we had to have it! Why? Because, for the last two rides and, now, including this ride, we have had the same thing for lunch. Never at the same restaurant. This is quickly becoming a Fall ride lunch tradition. Now that we have sampled three restaurant's versions of the hot turkey open-face sandwich, we feel qualified to declare a winner. Today's was, by far, the BEST!!! The bread was a thick toasted slice. Then a nice scoop of stuffing followed by a heaping pile of roasted turkey covered with delicious gravy. The mashed potatoes on the side were also covered with gravy. We both devoured every bit of it! Then, when the waitress mentioned they had pumpkin pie...need I say more?

Stomachs sated and water bottles filled, we headed back to the bikes. We were not quite at the half way point of the ride and it was already close to 2:00. Time to burn off some of our lunch before we burned off the remaining daylight hours.

We continued South for a short stretch. I was looking for Salzer Valley Rd., but all the side streets were dead ending at the train tracks. A nice (and slightly enebriated) gentleman gave us some workable directions. Although, we would have found it a short bit further. But, his way, we got to pick up our bikes and carry them across the tracks as a train was coming! Ah, the adventure of it!

We made it onto Salzer Valley and worked our way along the valley in the sunshine. There were very few cars. At one point, I stopped to take a photo and it was almost completely silent. No wind and no cars! Very nice!

We had one longish, but relatively gentle climb then down to Little Hanaford Rd. Then, following Teitzel Rd on the oops-we-didn't-have-enough-chip-seal-to-cover-the-whole-road-so-we-just-spread-it-out road surface, we came around to Big Hanaford Rd.

From there, the shortest way would be to go right and go past the steam plant and over Tono Rd. But, Tono has a couple of nasty climbs that we didn't feel like doing. So, instead we backtracked to Hwy 507.

Back in Tenino, we took Hwy 99 home. The sun was setting as we pulled in the driveway. Really, a gorgeous day!

Total Miles: 68.7 for me
72 for Julie

HUGE Pumpkins!

Still More Photos

A nice sentiment.
Apples
Julie warmed up!

Photos from Today's Ride

Heeeeerrrrrreeeee'sssss Julie!
Fall colors!
Up close and personal with a caterpillar.

It Turned Out to be a Beautiful Fall Day!

The weather report was for sunny skies and 62 degrees. Julie and I headed to Yelm on the road in the fog and overcast sky. Our plan was to eat lunch at a restaurant called Doug's in Yelm. On another ride, we had eaten at the Mt. Tahoma Golf Course restaurant and a couple there said they usually eat at Doug's. We thought we would give Doug's a try. We arrived at about 11:00. It was a tough decision, but we both decided on lunch food over breakfast food. We both had hot open-faced turkey sandwiches. We were not impressed. It was okay, but the food at Mt. Tahoma is better. Guess we should have asked the couple what was good.

After Doug's, we hit the trail and headed to Rainier. Of course, Rainier is home to the Main Street Cookie Company. We stopped. Mindful of the need to not go overboard and order my usual three cookies, Julie and I each ordered one, had them cut them in half and we swapped halves. It's just so hard to choose one variety! This was a good compromise. YUM!

Back on the trail, instead of turning onto the Chehalis Western, we continued on the Yelm/Tenino trail to Tenino. From there we took the road home, stopping periodically to take photos. The sun finally burned off the fog and clouds for a gloriously blue sky. We stopped at Kipperts feed near the Oly airport because they had two HUGE pumpkins out front. One weighted 1142 lbs.!

We cut through Trails' End (this time without the gratuitous hills) to Henderson and over to Julie's.

It wasn't the warmest day for most of the ride, but, nonetheless, it was a beautiful Fall day for a bike ride!

Total miles: 51

A Beautiful Night to Ride to Mah Jongg

As I pulled out of my driveway I noticed the sun was setting and the sky was pink. You know what they say, "Red sky at night..." that's right, CYCLIST'S delight!
As I was riding along Yelm Hwy. on my way to play Mah Jongg (ancient Chinese tile game--not to be confused with the Mah Jongg matching game on the computer), the sky just kept getting more beautiful. At the Chehalis Western Trail bridge, I just had to ride up to the bridge so I could take these two photos. They are not the best as I took them with my phone, but still beautiful. Of course, a photo can rarely do justice to what the eyes see! A lovely Fall evening!