Slow Roll 505 Bicycle "Tour the Farms." Rancho de Albuquerque, NM 9/29/19

 Slow Roll 505 community bike ride. My thanks goes to riding companions Katy and Marlin for providing encouragement and support during the ride but also for loaning me one of their bikes.
No car transport for the bikes... so we rode back and forth to the event location. 
Strolled by four farms during our ~7-mile tour. Here we are starting the ride at the Agri Nature Center and Rio Grande boulevard.  

 First stop, Jim's Pumpkin and Green Chile farm,  reached after riding through the North Valley for about 5 miles. 

 NM style low riders???

 Stopped at a regenerative veggie farm, and a hops growing farm, before stopping at Los Poblanos Lavender farm to admire the llamas.

and hear about the plight of bees. 

Cape Falcon trail, Oswald West State Park, OR, 8/20/19

The Oregon coast is known

for its large trees, with the Sitka spruce being the most well known.  We were greeted by this giant at the start of our hike to Cape Falcon, just north of Manzanita. 

The 2.5-mile section of the Oregon Coast Trail (OCT) runs through the rain forest along the beach and up to the cape. 

After leaving the beach, the trail slowly winds up to the cape along ferns, salal and salmonberry. 

Nehalem Spit trail, Nehalem State Park, Manzanita, OR, 8/19/19

Just South of Manzanita, OR, is a 2-mile long sand spit.  We walked the 2-mile trail to the ocean entrance of the bay, flanked on one side by the ocean and the other side by the bay. Except that we walked along overgrown sand dunes the whole time and could not see either the ocean or the bay.  It was sunny and hot, and probably the most monotonous hike we every did, all 4 miles of it, round trip!

Start of the hike with views. 

End of the hike at the bay entrance. 

Seaview, Long Island, WA, 8/16-18/2019

After reading an article in the travel section of the Washington Post in the spring about vintage trailers, we decided to rent one in Seaview, Washington.  Yes, that's our trailer. 

We made the rental decision without having any idea about the location.  Little did we know that the beach was a 1/3 mile down the road and that a trail called the Discovery Trail runs along the beach and through the dunes for 1/2 the length of the 28-mile Long Beach peninsula. In short, a biker's, walker's and runner's paradise!

On the Discovery trail north: 

Memorial for a grey whale (skeleton) found by Lewis and Clark in 1805. 

All that is left is the jaw and a section of the spine. 

In addition, we were treated to a spectacle of kites flying over the dunes and beach.  

And not just any flying; 

it was training time in preparation for the National Kite Flying competition to start the following Monday. 

My favorite kite at the World Kite Museum. 

East Fork of the Jemez River, NM, 7/28/19

Sunday afternoon walk along the Jemez river after an overnight camping trip in the Jemez Mountains with our Cohousing group.  Strolled along the lush banks of the Jemez river for about two miles round trip. 

Oops! Obstacle on the trail.