31 days. 4 states. 200+ miles.

In July I did the 30 day ride challenge hosted by Trailforks and Anthill Films. The challenge was simple: ride each day, including at least one full trail as mapped on Trailforks.

Tijeras, New Mexico trails

My month started off with lots of rides close to home. Luckily, I live close to some of the best mountain biking trails in New Mexico.

I tried to ride some different trails and extend my reach a bit, but there were also a lot of days when I just rode my favorite loop.

While I still can’t ride one difficult section of my fave trail, by the end of the month, I did get to where I could ride the entirety of the rest of the trail which felt like a huge accomplishment.

One thing I’ve noted before about New Mexico is that our roads and our waterways tend to be one and the same. This means it’s a really good thing it doesn’t rain that often.

Out in the desert, we just drive in the arroyos which are normally dry and our towns and cities generally lack good flood planning so when it rains, the streets just flood. Now, I have come to realize that this might also apply to bike trails.

Pagosa Springs, Colorado

I also made a trip to visit an old friend and some family. So I took my bike along and made some people babysit B for me each day so I could go ride. Priorities, right?

Farmington, New Mexico

Farmington is my other hometown. My mom lives there and I went to college there. But I didn’t mountain bike when I lived there, so the excellent mountain bike trails were something of a surprise. A pleasant one.

I was out to ride early on the two days I went on these trails and the sunrises were amazing. Also, sweeping views and bushes that smell like home. And crazy fun bike trails. Not the gnarly, rocky, hardcore trails I’m used to. Smooth, flowy, trails with little bitty hills that are just big enough to be a ton of fun but not a ton of work to pedal up.

One of the joys of this challenge was biking in places I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. Most of the time when I travel, I leave my bike at home, but I may rethink that.

Aztec, New Mexico

I also went for one ride outside of Aztec, New Mexico: The Alien Run. It was a blast. I’m totally riding it again next time I’m in the area.

After my trip, I returned home for a few days and then it was off on another adventure. This time for work, but with a bicycle stop thrown in on the journey.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas

My last ride of the 30 day challenge was at Palo Duro Canyon, which has more pictures than it’s fair share for only one ride.

I have a thing for State Parks with cabins because I wish I lived in an RV and traveled everywhere, but I don’t actually have an RV right now so I need alternative accommodations.

I’m all for tents under some circumstances, but July in Texas is not a circumstance where I’m all for living without an AC and a shower. Also, business trips and tents don’t really go that well together.

Anyway, on this trip, I was staying at the Lighthouse cabin on the rim of the canyon which made me feel a sort of obligation to make it out to my cabin’s namesake and the park icon: The Lighthouse Formation.

I was at the trailhead for this ride before the sun was up. But it was still by far the hottest ride of the month. By nine in the morning, I was totally miserable. Still, my ride through the canyon was worth it for the cool views and the neat rocks.

Tulsa, Oklahoma

So after doing the 30 day challenge, I figured I was only 1 day away from riding every day in July. So I went out for the 31st day in Tulsa.

I loved discovering the Turkey Mountain wilderness area because it is a great pocket of nature in the city. But I felt sad I hadn’t discovered it sooner since I’ve been traveling to Tulsa for work for the past 12 or so years.

The only downside was that it was just so humid. I am not at all used to the humidity and I suffered from it, feeling all wet and sweaty and gross and also missing the cooling effect that happens when sweat can actually evaporate.

Miscellaneous

First off, a few real selfies:

Fitting in a ride every day was tough. Sometimes I rode at sunrise, other times at sunset. A lot of my rides ended up being mid-day because afternoon thunderstorms ruled out the afternoons and left the trails too wet in the morning. Riding during the hottest part of the day was not my idea of ideal. But it happened and I’m so proud I rode every day.

This challenge was amazing. My strength and endurance improved. I lost weight. I saw some amazing places. I pushed through the days that it was tough. And I’m super pleased with myself.

The post 31 Days of Mountain Biking in Pictures appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Today I went out for a bike ride on some of the nearby trails.  These are the same trails where I often go out hiking with B.

While I was riding along one of the Forest Service roads, I spotted some funny looking tracks.  Most of the tracks I see out there I imagine are some sort of big cat – maybe a lion or a tiger- but are really probably just from somebody’s dog. 

These tracks I knew were not from a dog.  Some of them looked like giant paws, but the others looked like funny shaped human feet.  They were shorter and wider especially around the ball of the foot and toes, but definitely made me think of people feet.  But the other ones that looked like giant paws seemed menacing.  The combination of the two together made me very much not want to meet this thing.

I almost rode on past, not wanting to mess up my attempt to beat my best time on the trail.  Then I thought that not being able to stop to take a picture of something cool was not the sort of biker I wanted to be.  Plus, I wanted to find out what sort of tracks they were.  I’m not really very enlightened about such things, but maybe I should learn more. 

When I got home and showed the pictures to S, he said it was probably a bear.  We googled bear prints, and yep, definitely a bear.   The difference between their front and back paws is very distinct. 

It’s not as though I didn’t know that there are bears in the area.  Somehow seeing the tracks made it seem so much more real.

Holy crap.  There was a bear walking right here and sometime in the last 48 hours since I was here last.   Also, this is not very far from where B and I were 3 days ago.

I love finding stuff like this.  One of the things I love about hiking, biking and generally exploring is just the treasure hunt.  A funny looking mushroom, a glance of a squirrel running to hide, a peak at some deer, a tree growing in a funny spot or a cool rock.  It’s exciting to me.  It keeps me going to see what is around the next bend. 

The post Finding bear prints appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Today, I had plans to go out hiking with baby B this afternoon.  But it felt hot and sunny when we walked up the street to the mailbox, so I didn’t feel like hiking.  OK, it was probably only 80 degrees out and I probably should have just gone.  Since I didn’t go this afternoon, after B was in bed, I headed out for a quick hike before the sun set.  By then, it was actually very pleasant out.

Of course, I had to bring the new camera along.

I have been focusing on trying to learn about the aperture settings.  For my simple purposes, this controls how much of the image is in focus.  For example, a large aperture is used in my portraits of baby B where he is razor sharp, but the background is blurred out.  A smaller aperture is often used in landscape photography when one basically wants the whole image to be in focus.

Just getting this basic principle down has opened up a whole world of options for me.

Here’s a picture of the trail I was on with the mountains in the background.  Have I mentioned recently how crazy fortunate I feel to live 5 minutes away from this trail system?

It was so gorgeous out and I easily could have stayed out for another couple of hours if it wasn’t rapidly getting dark.  (I was very impressed with how my camera did with the low light levels after the sun sunk below the horizon.)

A larger aperture also lets more light into the camera which makes it easier to get sharper images.  The picture of the tree above was taken at f/2.8.

I love the effect of a subject that is in super sharp focus with a blurred background.  While aperture has a lot to do with this, I’m finding it to be related to zoom level as well.  For reasons I don’t yet really understand, standing further back and zooming in makes the contrast between the sharp focus of the subject and the blurred background much more pronounced.

I’m sure any experienced photographer knows all about the explanation and some day I will too.  For now, I am just having so much fun experimenting and learning about all of this.

The post A few pictures from a short hike in the woods appeared first on Live Hoppy.

It has been a busy, but fun week.

I recently had a birthday, so I am now officially 30!  It’s kind of a strange milestone, but I feel like I’m ready for my thirties.

I also bought a new camera with some birthday money (plus some).  I have really been wanting a good camera for some time.  For a long time, I was fine with the camera on my phone, but after baby B was born, I wanted to be able to take better pictures of him.  My phone seemed like it did better with landscapes than baby pictures.

I have spent the last few days playing with my new camera and trying to figure out what it’s capable of.  I have a lot to learn about all of it’s settings still, but I am determined to really learn how to use it.

In other exciting news, my mom came and stayed with B for a night so S and I could get away.  I missed B a little, but mostly it felt amazing!  This is the first time I’ve been away from him for the night.

S and I had a great time.  We stayed in downtown Santa Fe, walked around a bit, did some window shopping, ate at a couple of amazing Mexican restaurants (The Shed and Tia Sophia’s- both highly recommended).

Here’s a few of my first pictures with the new camera:

Then the next day we took off into the woods for a hike.  We went up the Pecos River and it was very gorgeous.  Lots of tall trees, some Aspens just starting to change to yellow, moss covering the rocks and fallen logs, wild flowers, and some gurgly streams that we hiked along.

The campground at the trail-head had these really cool little shelters with fireplaces built in.  It’s the first time I’ve seen something like this at a campground and they looked awesome.

At one point, the stream disappeared into a cave and then re-emerged down a bit lower.  We had fun finding the cave and then looking for where the stream came out again.  There were supposed to be some other caves up in the area, but we never found them.

The whole area was so gorgeous and our hike was pretty much perfect.  (We did run into a large, unleashed dog on the trail.  While it’s owner was busy assuring us that it was friendly, the dog was running towards us with a deep, menacing growl.)  It felt great to get some sunshine and fresh air.  Here’s a few last pictures from me experimenting a bit with the new camera:

The post N things of the week – #16 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I’ve been staying busy the last few months.  I suppose that’s no surprise with baby B in the picture and my tendency towards lots of different interests.  Here’s a snapshot of some of what I’ve been up to lately.

Riding the tram

Last month, I took a family member up the Sandia Peak Tram.  I’ve been up it a few times, and yet I still forget just how cool it is!  The tram is a very cool feat of engineering in addition to just being a fun ride with spectacular views.  One of these days, maybe I’ll get a whole post written on it.  For now, I’ll settle for sharing another picture and mentioning that if you’re ever in the Albuquerque area you should check it out.  In my opinion, it is one of the coolest things Albuquerque has to offer.

Programming

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time working on learning Android programming.  By ‘free time’, I mean an hour or two in the evenings after baby B goes to bed and before I’m too exhausted to do any more.  After a couple of months of working on it, I’m really starting to see some progress!  I wrote a whole post about that you can check out if you haven’t already.

Visiting Family

Baby B and I went to go visit my parents for a few days.  S got a break.  The grandparents were thrilled to have time with B.  B was mostly happy with a change of scenery… And the trip left me totally exhausted!

OK, I exaggerate a little.  I liked seeing everybody too.

Reading Michael Pollan

I’ve been reading a couple of Michael Pollan books recently.  He has several books, but the two I’ve started with are In Defense of Food and Cooked.

I’ve been listening to Cooked as an audiobook.  It’s a fascinating book about his journey to learn how to cook.  He spends time learning from some of the best cooks but also dives into the cultural implications of cooking.  The book is divided into four sections – fire, water, earth and air or barbecue, cooking in pots, fermentation, and bread.  I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s been interesting and thought-provoking.

In Defense of Food discusses the rise of the food industry and ‘edible food-like substances’ and why we should go back to eating real food.  Many of the concepts are not new to me, but Pollan puts it in a way that just really seems to hit home.  It’s inspired me to think about cooking a bit more.

Baking Bread

Speaking of cooking, I’ve baked bread a few times recently. Despite my above mention of Michael Pollan books, I was actually inspired by S’s mom to get back to baking my own bread.

I first learned to bake bread around the time I was about 15 or 16 from a book my mom got me called The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown.  The detailed instructions were enough to make my first try a success.  I would definitely recommend it to anybody looking to bake bread- even (or especially) if they have absolutely no experience.

Something about the whole process just feels so special.  There’s the time spent kneading the dough.  The feel of the flour and the sense of being really connected to the endeavor.  There is also the time spent waiting for the dough to rise.  The anticipation as the fresh baked-bread aroma starts to permeate through the house.

It’s something that I thoroughly enjoy and it’s nice to really know all of the ingredients that go into my food.

Baby B

And last, but surely not least, I’ve been spending a lot of time with B.  He is now 7 months old!  He can roll all over the house.  He can sit unsupported, at least for a little while.  He eats lots of real foods- mushed banana and pear, applesauce, blended cooked carrots, mashed sweet potato and more.

He has become grabby- reaching for things off the table when he sits on my lap, and one day grabbing a bag of Doritos while I was holding him in line at Subway.  Gone are the days when I could go shopping without him wanting things!  He is curious- always watching and playing with everything.

He is mostly happy and very good natured.  Every day he’s closer to being a little boy and farther from being a baby.  But for now, he’s still my little baby.

The post N things of the week – #13 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I’m always confused about whether it’s supposed to be botanic or botanical, but according to the internet, the ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden is a Botanical Garden.

I’d been there once before for the River of Lights which is a fantastical display of Christmas lights made into amazing shapes like flowers and bunnies that is held around Christmas time each year.  That was in December at night- a very different experience from an early summer morning.  (The River of Lights was awesome and definitely something I’d recommend going to see if one had the chance.)

This time around I made it there just a little after opening on a weekday, which seemed to be a perfect time.  A few hours later about the time I left the crowds were picking up and it was starting to get hot.

It was just the perfect place to spend a few hours leisurely walking around, looking at plants, and a little ‘wild’ life- a few ducks, some fish, some bunnies and a lizard or two. Hoppy is always a fan of anywhere that has other bunnies for him to say hi to.

Click on a thumbnail to view the larger version

I didn’t see quite the whole area before feeling that I’d had enough, but I’d like to go back and check out the rest of it sometime. It’s certainly an enjoyable place to go walk around and I think I might have to see about bringing a picnic along sometime.

The post ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Moving to Albuquerque one of the things I worried about was being further from nature.  There are things I like about cities, but at the end of the day I think I like nature better.  This weekend, I had a chance to explore a couple of the trails in the Sandia Mountains.  There are trail-heads less than 15 minutes from my new house that head up into the mountains.  While I’ve always known the Sandia Mountains were there, I never quite realized how easily accessible they are from Albuquerque.

While the trail-heads are busy, once I’d get half a mile up the trails the number of people declined a lot. It was so nice to discover how easy it is to leave the city behind and really be totally out in nature. Both of the trails I tried this weekend were very cool (Embudito trails 192 & 193). They wound up little canyons and there were plenty of rocks to scramble up and other small obstacles to keep things interesting.

It was super nice to get outside and do a bit of hiking. Between moving and everything else that I’ve had going on, I haven’t been out hiking and exploring as much as I would like. Hopefully this is the start of that changing. I’m really looking forward to getting out and exploring more of the trails in the Sandia Mountains.

The post Sandia Mountains appeared first on Live Hoppy.

The Catwalk is located in the Gila National Forrest close to the little town of Glenwood, NM.  It was originally built back in the mining days to hold a water pipeline that went to a mine.  Since it’s nestled in a skinny canyon with a turbulent creek, the scaffolding was drilled into the sides of the canyon making a ‘catwalk’.  Eventually the mine shut down and it was re-purposed as a recreation trail.  Then the wood was replaced with metal.

The day we were there was a sunny day in early December. It was a bit chilly at times, but the trees were gorgeous with fall colors. I also imagine that it gets crowded at times, but I only saw one other group that left just as we arrived.

The area has had a rough few years recently. There was a large fire in the area and then parts of the catwalk were dismantled to prevent it from being washed away in anticipated floods. A year or so later, the area experienced unusual flooding. Part of The Catwalk was rebuild, but part of it is still closed due to lots of flood damage.  (On a previous trip we’d tried to stop there but it had been closed for repairs at that time so I was glad to finally get to see it.)

It was an extremely cool place to check out. The area is gorgeous with the stream at the bottom of the canyon and the catwalk is fun to walk on. It is definitely a place I recommend stopping at if one is in the area, although it isn’t in a well-traveled part of the country which maybe actually makes it cooler.  Plus we saw some wild pigs on our hike.  Who doesn’t want to see wild pigs?

The post The Catwalk appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Some years ago, my obsession for travel was really sparked.  Sure, I traveled for work before that and had enjoyed some other fun trips in my life.  When my obsession was really sparked was when I first discovered the Oklahoma State Parks and the fact that many of them had affordable, cozy cabins in gorgeous locations.  For several years, I’d been staying in one motel after another on my trips to Oklahoma, rushing from one work site to the next.  Then I discovered what I had been missing and the worst of it was that the State Parks are all on the map that I had used on all my trips.  Information is available on them at the Tourist Information centers in the state- places I’d never previously thought to stop at.  That made me wonder what I was missing in my own area.

For a while, I developed an obsession with the brochures, maps and magazines made for tourists.  I’d pick up a copy of each available and browse over them later, planning the places I wanted to see on my next trip.  (Eventually, it became clear that this collection wasn’t helping me and I threw away a lot of them.  But I still have a drawer or two in one of my filing cabinets filled with my favorites and I haven’t done away with the related travel obsession at all.)  During this time, I also stopped at the local Visitor’s Center for Socorro and collected the brochures for the area.

I also went to the nearby Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and collected all of their brochures.  One such was the brochure for the Chupadera Peak trail.  I knew then that I wanted to make the climb.  It lingered in the back of my mind for years.  More recently, I ran across the brochure again when I pulled out my information on the Bosque to find the one for the Canyon Trail.  I pulled out the Chupadera Peak brochure at the same time and left it lying on an end table in my living room.

Earlier this month, Sam and I decided we were going to go do it.  The Chupadera Peak trail is starts at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. It follows across mostly flat land for a couple of miles, goes under the interstate, enters the Chupadera wilderness area, goes up a wash for a few miles and then up to the peak.  Having done the hike before, Sam recommended we just park on the interstate and go from there, saving ourselves a few miles.  This is probably not the official thing that I’m supposed to recommend one do, but it seems to be kind of a thing.

This trail winds up through very deserty terrain- filled with cactus and other deserty plants I should know the names of, but don’t.  It is definitely not the sort of hike I’d recommend in the summer.  An early November day however turned out to be perfect for it.  We had gorgeous weather for it- partly cloudy/partly sunny and warm, but not too warm.

The first few miles of the trail slope gently upward, partly following the wash.  Then the trail winds up through a cool canyon with red rock walls that make one think, “I’d like to go explore up in there.”

Once out of the canyon, the trail continues to wind up… and up… and up.  Every time I’d think, the top has to be just a bit further and when I’d get up to where I’d been able to see to, I’d see that I still had further up to climb.  It seemed as though each step higher provided a more sweeping view of the landscape below.  Once you get closer to the top of the peak, it becomes possible to see the Magdalena Mountains to the east.  Looking the other way, I could see the ponds and the fall colors of the Bosque del Apache down in the valley.  It made me wonder if one could see the birds taking off from there.

We ate sandwiches and chocolate mint cookies at the top.  We drank water, and leaned against our packs, soaking up the sun.  Finally, we decided it was time to head down since it was late afternoon and the sun would soon be setting.

Almost immediately upon setting out for the return trip, my left foot hurt.  I tried retying my boot a few times, but nothing seemed to help.  So, I figured that the faster I walked, the sooner I’d be done and I hauled butt back down the trail. The sun dropped behind the mountains and while sun rays were still visible in the distance, we were in shadow.  It gave things the feeling of an ending: the end of the day, the end of the hike, the end of this post.

The post Chupadera Peak appeared first on Live Hoppy.

White Sands National Monument is a really unique place.  It features miles and miles of white sand dunes and, well, really nothing else.  The fact that there is nothing else there is what makes it so cool.  It’s a surreal sort of place.

Sam and I went backpacking there for a night.  White Sands gets a ton of visitors, but there are only 10 back-country camping permits issued a day.  Camping somewhere is a much different experience than driving around and maybe getting out to take a few pictures.  I like that feeling of really being places.

Back country permits are available on a first come, first serve basis, so we showed up at the Visitor Center mid-day to get our permit and then went to the Organ Mountains for the afternoon to avoid being at White Sands for the hot part of the day.  We came back in the late afternoon to hike in to our camping spot.

It was a relatively short hike in, maybe about a mile.  It does require packing in your own water since there is none available out there.  The weight wasn’t a challenge, but making it fit in our packs was.  We talked, only partly  joking, about bringing a sled to haul our stuff in next time.  By the tracks in the sand, I’m pretty sure somebody else had done just that.

We had a fantastic time.  Being able to watch the sunset and sunrise was a real treat.  It’s amazing how the change in lighting can make such a difference in an area.  I had been to White Sands a few times before this, but it was always for short visits during the day.  Frankly, the middle of the day isn’t a good time to be there.  The sun glares down and is insanely bright reflected off of all the white sand.  It was super cool to see the dunes in the soft light during sunrise and sunset.

When we went, the moon was close to full and it reflected off the sand making it bright enough that we didn’t need our flashlights.

Watching the sun rise over the dunes was a real treat.  The light was magical.  My pictures hardly do it justice, and my words certainly aren’t going to.

The only life we saw other than fellow backpackers was a few black beetles and some plants.  We did see a few animal tracks in the sand and heard a couple of squeaky noises at night.

One of the things that I find fascinating is that there are little ‘islands’ of plants mixed in with the dunes.  These islands start to disappear as one goes further into the dunes.  The hardiest of plants manage to hang on, but as the wind moves the dunes, they start to be overrun.

Something I didn’t expect was the total silence at night.  Thinking about it, the silence made sense as there isn’t much in the way of life out there.  We happened to be there on a clear night when the weather was still and silent.  The loudest noise was that of our breathing.  It was peaceful and calm.  It was also very strange because even out in the woods, there is normally noise: leaves rustling, birds and bugs and little animals scurrying around.  Here, it was just silent.

This was a one-of-a-kind sort of experience.  If you ever get the opportunity to go backpacking at White Sands, I highly recommend taking it.  Actually, if you’re interested in such things, I’d recommend making the opportunity. It’s totally worth it.

More information can be found on the National Parks website. 

The post Backpacking at White Sands appeared first on Live Hoppy.