50 miles of smiles

Met up with Squirrel and Jordan for some "urban" putt-putt this morning. Left the house at 9 AM with a thermos of coffee and a flask of whiskey in my camelback in case we got cold while riding around. Boogied downtown on the pave trail, talked briefly to Luggs and Mike Baker and then hurried downtown. Heck of a good time was had by all of us. We rode along the south side of the river amongst the trees, the homemade shelters of the homeless, as well as some quad play ground. We found a handy route across the river courtesy of Union Pacific and proceeded to ride around and explore the north side of the river and the bottoms. We discovered lots of well maintained quad playground and proceeded to just have a hell of a good time riding the double track, railing berms and popping up and over some fun whoop-de-doos near the levees. We finally hit a spot where the quad playground came to and end and had to turn around and head back. Stopped at El Bait Shop for 30 minutes for a burrito and a couple of beers (I went with the Rogue Smoked Porter). Squirrel and I rode home along the north side of the Raccoon river, through Lost Planet and then back to Waterworks park. I took side streets over towards 100th in Clive and rode home. About 5.5 hours of riding time and 50 or so miles of fun. I never really noticed the "cold" once were moving. That's the sign of a good ride this time of year.