Another Ride with Family

It was summer again and that meant biking.  This summer, in addition to all the biking we've done here at home, we also took our bikes to visit Blaubeere and go on a ride with her and her kids. This has become a bit of a tradition each summer. 

This was kind of an experiment, too.  I got my recumbent last year, and earlier this spring we got one for Brombeere.  So this was the first time we had ever tried to load them both into our car and take them anywhere.  After all, they don't fit very well on a conventional bike rack; we had to figure out how to make them fit inside.  But at the time we bought Brombeere's and loaded it in the car I kind of "eyeballed" it and figured it could be done.  And, sure enough, we did it! So we loaded them up and made the trek to where we planned to begin this ride.  

It was a bit of a drive for both of us but we both arrived at the designated park pretty much on time.  We were starting at the Menominee Park in Oshkosh.  Parks are a good starting place since there's always enough parking to leave the cars.  This park was also a nice distance from where we wanted to ride to.  The destination was Asylum Point on the west shore of Lake Winnebago.  Asylum Point has a long and interesting history but we're not going to get into that.  What drew us was the little lighthouse there.

The ride from the park to the lighthouse, which is in another small park, was entirely city riding, very boring.  In fact, some of the "curb-outs" where downright brutal.  They'd been made back before making cities bike friendly was a thing.  But we made it.

It was just under six miles from the starting park to the ending park, all city.  Some of it was residential, some was business, all of it was plain, with one exception.  As we rode along through the business area, we passed a vacant lot that someone had seeded with wildflowers.  That was really pretty.  I don't know that anyone actually seeded it, but it had a wide variety of wildflowers and looked real nice, it was a pretty big area.  As nice as anything I've ever seen outside of the city, out in the wild. 

At last we arrived at our destination, a small park on a small peninsula that stuck out a little into the lake.

On a small island was a little undersized lighthouse.  It's not open for public tours or any such, but I think it is still operational. The lake is a big lake and gets a lot of boat traffic. But the island the lighthouse sits on is open to the public.  It's a great fishing area, there were several people there fishing while we were visiting.  There is also a small park nearby where we could have picnicked, but we didn't.

So we walked across the bridge to the island and looked over the lighthouse.

It was a fun ride, even if it was a bright, sunny day (there were a couple of sunburned people when we were done).

A tranquil setting on the lake.  It's fun to listen to water.

It's a big lake but you can see the other side, unlike the lake a little farther to the east.

While we were at the lighthouse the grandkids each wanted to try the recumbents out.  They tried mine, but I'm tall enough that riding mine was difficult for them; adjusting for size is more difficult on a recumbent that a regular bike.  But Brombeere's bike was a little smaller and they each took turns riding around the parking lot.

They both agreed that it was a bit different than riding a regular bike, but they both liked it.  Enough so that we finally had to tell them it was time to start back.

The trip back always seems to go faster, maybe because it was no longer new territory, there are "landmarks" you remember from the trip out.  At any rate, it seemed pretty quick getting back.  On the whole trip out and back I only took one wrong turn at that wasn't so bad, It only added a dozen or so yards to the trip.

Anyway, once we got back and had the bikes all loaded back in the car we drove through the park and picked a nice, shady picnic table to have lunch at.  It literally was right on the lake.

We had a good lunch, Brombeere and Blaubeere spent most of the time talking about quilts and gardening. It was a good time, picnics are always fun.

Then we let the kids play at the water's edge for a little while.  Sorry, we hadn't come prepared to swim and there was no beach where we had our picnic, so nobody got wet.

But it was a good time, the perfect way to finish off a very nice ride.

Both parks were really nice, very pretty.  We ended the day thinking we might need to get together again this summer for another ride.  Who knows, it could happen!