Another Fabulous Friday Fling

Friday's Roundabout APRS Tracking
Fridays are turning into some of our favorite days so far.  It's a lost day for doing anything to or at the house, since we have to arrive at the UNM LDS Institute by 9:30 or 10 AM to have time to heat up or cook the Friday Forum Food for the students.  But, watching these young folk eat and interact with each other is a real pleasure - and also saddens us a tiny bit since all OUR kiddos are now middle aged and no longer eligible to mix with this age group.  We DO have at least one granddaughter in this age group.... sigh.
To counteract any guilt for reaching such advanced age, (at least in my case, Jacque is refusing to age), we take the trike on the roof rack in hopes the weather will allow us to take a ride after the lunch activities are over.

Sure enough, yesterday was again beautiful so we changed into our silly looking biking duds and took off down Martin Luther King Blvd, through downtown, to Old Town, but didn't stop in Old Town this time.  We had already eaten too much of Jacque's Posole, ice cream, and chocolate chip cookies hand mixed and baked by Yours Truly.  So we felt no need for our usual ice cream break in Old Town and headed toward Mountain Road which is now pleasantly signed as "Bicycle Boulevard" and used that route to intersect the Bosque Trail and rode south from there.  Even though it was Friday, there were few other cyclists on the roads and trails at this time of day.  We rode as far south as Bridge, where we stopped for a drink-break at our favorite attraction along the Bosque Trail:  Sonic Drive-in
Since there are narrow hairpin obstacles blocking the bike trail just south of Bridge, which are not easy to navigate on a normal 2-wheel  bike and excessively difficult (requiring lifting, grunting, and struggling to avoid vulgar language) for even  a 2-wheel recumbent, we decided to not even TRY getting our ten-foot trike through such difficulty.  Normally, street entrances to bike paths are blocked to vehicles using simple vertical posts spaced about 3-4 feet apart, which just BARELY allows trikes such as ours to squeeze between and continue riding.  Why the South Valley end of the Bosque Trail requires such more difficult entries is a question.  It occurs to me it must be to prevent motorcycles and scooters from accessing the trail, which of  course is an occasional problem everywhere in the area, not  just in the South Valley.
ANYWAY. Be forwarned.  Although we love Sonic, the dirt path leading to the Sonic entry has mats of ICK! GOATHEADS! that cannot be avoided, especially with the wide stance of our trike.  Sonic could improve sales markedly by paving and maintaining that short pathway, but it's part of the Rio Grande Irrigation District, so it's highly doubtful they care about Sonic's business prospects nor our personal revulsion for goathead puncture vine problems.
When we got back to the trail, we took 20 minutes or so and elevated and rotated each wheel carefully, pulling all thorns and stickers found in the tires.
There were several of course, but none seemed deep enough yet to penetrate the too-thin inner tubes inside.  We have "thorn-proof" tubes ordered online and coming from Amazon, but when on the trike it's doubtful we'll make that transition to Sonic again.  Too much trouble.  BAH
We turned north and rode up towards the Paseo bike pathway, intending to ride up to Balloon Fiesta Park just to look around and enjoy the RV cities that spring up each year for Fiesta.
The Paseo Path is where David Anderson was crushed by a lunatic sppeding driver 2 years ago, and a memorial bike and lots of flowers mark the spot.  Jacque was a juror just last week in the court proceeding that convicted the killer of careless driving, so we stopped and she described some of the grisly testimony and photos she had experienced during the trial.
One might think that a sentence of careless driving and a sentence of 90 days in jail is a frivolous price to pay for killing another human being with a car as a result of speeding and ignoring traffic laws, but if you follow bike vs. auto incidents at all you realize it's seldom any charges against drivers who kill or injure cyclists are filed AT ALL, much less a trial, and even more rare for a driver to suffer any punishment.
Afterwards, to make sure we could call our Friday afternoon and evening a "Date",  we went to see the movie "Won't Back Down", about the  Parent Trigger Law supposedly allowing parents to take over failing schools and implement changes.  Apparently this law has never been successfully implemented in spite of several attempts around the USA.
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles:  27.07
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
6.3 MPH                                  9.0 MPH                    25.7 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
 4 hours 17 mins                     3 hours  1 min         1 hour 16 minutes