Friday, July 17, 2009

Vacation Report, Day 7…Last full day

Per usual, we started our morning with runs, my legs felt better than I expected once I got them going…they certainly were stiff getting out of bed. Then, it was a relaxing breakfast while we worked out the details of renting bikes for the day. We decided to give mountain biking a go since it’s different from what we normally do, and there are plenty of trails available in riding distance from town. So, off to Hoback Sports we went to get our mountain bikes, then away we pedaled to the trails. We were decked out on some full suspension rides, which were so much heavier and more reactive to the roads than what I’m used to riding…it was slow going, particularly up hills.

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Leaving the paved surface for the trails

The extra weight combined with the built up fatigue from the week kind of sapped our enthusiasm as we approached some technical single track runs. Before we even really got going, we had already decided it would be a short go of things just to get the experience in. After a little ways up the road, we split off on the Cache Creek Sidewalk path for the return trip.

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Me heading onto the single-track trail

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The drop off to the left sure looked a lot steeper when on the bike

After returning to the lot, we decided to use our bikes more for exploring than for trail-riding, so we went a little ways into the national elk refuge (but saw no elk) before turning back and heading into town for ice cream.

The ice cream stop at Moo’s Ice Cream in the Jackson town square (located in the rear of a cowboy store, but worth finding) made up for not getting our reward yesterday. The flavors we tried were: Oreo (tasted exactly like the cookies), Espresso bomb, chocolate cabernet, and chocolate almond. All were amazing and some flavors I’ve never seen before.

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If you see this sign, follow it to deliciousness

To get our money’s worth, we explored the rest of the unseen areas of Jackson via 2 wheels before turning our rides in and heading to the condo for rest. Yes, you heard that right…we rested for almost 2 whole hours before returning to town to do some shopping and go to dinner.

Dinner was at the Snake River Brewing Company, an award winning micro-brewery. Between the 4 of us that drink beer, we sampled all they had to offer except the malt liquor offering. This included the English ale, German lager, organic ale, American pale ale, stout, hefeweisen, and American lager. All were delicious, my favorite was the English Ale.

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Hefeweisen…Hurray, beer!

Now, we’re packing and preparing for an early flight to Denver. The good news is, we’ll be back in Cincy (fingers crossed) by early afternoon, so have time to settle in and see our dog again, but I think I’d still rather be on vacation, especially out here. The scenery is just overwhelming, and seeing it every morning hasn’t taken anything away from the wonder…amazing. Oh well, back to reality.

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