Tax Day

With three day of summer weather, finally, I'd been looking forward to taking this road bike out. A donation to Brooktondale Bikes, it took me a while to figure out what to do with it. A wide cyclocross bar, 32c tires, and a wide ratio freewheel gave it some wandering potential. As a congratulations for doing taxes all by myself this year, I told myself I could go for a ride as soon as I finished.
We're having a baby, which I'm really happy about. My wife not so much, she's suffered through weeks and weeks of nausea. So our taxes were my deal this year. We sold the fixer upper that we bought in 2002, and the one here locally. The one that now makes me take a glowing reference to "stick built" with a grain of salt. Try "dirt sill". And then we bought our current house, which I call "the last fixer upper".
So taxes were a bit more than last year. But at 4:00 pm, April 15th, I rolled down to the Post Office and dropped everything off. And headed towards County Road 250, which leads to the base of Mount Shavano.
Old schoolhouse, a project of the Colorado Historical Society.

. . stop and feed the horse along the road. A welcome break from the very sturdy west wind.

That saw blade seems to be connected to the drive shaft. Conversion kit?

Finally, the dirt.

I like these shots.

Breathing a little heavy, passing one of many side roads.

And here's a snow bank. Followed by another. Sun's setting, time to turn around.

The sturdy west wind provides. A short section of highway to County Road 160, I note how slowly I'm getting passed. Not just courtesy, but relative speed as well. Nice when the winds don't shift on the way home.

A last little bit of dirt, in a small low valley along the Arkansas. Dust picking up, making the sky a bit hazy.