fall

It's hard to believe fall is already at our doorstep. Yesterday, as we drove through Meshomasic State Forest, I was amazed at all the trees already morphing into fall costume with red and yellow jumping out amid the remaining green. Little did I know Sunday's bike ride would accidentally end up being a first fall ride. Fallen leaves lingered on and around trail after trail.
So to the ride... The weather was warm and the trails, amazing. We had scoped out Meshomasic (Portland, CT) online...some moderate climbs, some singletrack, some nice technical stuff...looked like our kind of place. It turned out to be a sweet sweet ride. Roughly 4 hours, with a good combo of fire road climbing (our last climb of the day was about 2 miles) and smooth sweeping downhill, plus a couple nice rock gardens. Not so many logs or roots at this place. We had ourselves a little stunt sightseeing as well. It appears the trail building gnomes are aplenty in the woods of Meshomasic. I'm definately taking my camera next time. We found trails with insane stunts...bridges built 6-10ft off the ground. It was a downhill playground. It seems every half hour we found ourselves saying..."HOLY S**T!!! Look at that freakin' jump. Damn!" And these things weren't just natural jumps or ladders tilted against rock...we ran into a dozen or more wooden bridges and ramps connected together for stunts that must have been 50 ft long. It was insane. I walked up one of the ladder bridges and got goosebumps. Very Cool though. I'm hoping we'll catch someone on them one day.

Beer of the weekend: Sammy A's Chocolate Bock (Apparently, the state of Connecticut gets 60 cases of this specialty Samuel Adams brew when it comes out). An excellent beer I dedicate to Nancy and Eric. Cheers.

Also, thoughts (and a beer!) to all those Florida Folks getting ready to weather Rita.