Labor Day Weekend

Hmmm… where to start. It was definitely a great weekend!

Original plans were for Ryan and I both to leave Friday afternoon then camp to nights at Lake Sylvia and meet some folks at the Womble trail on Saturday and Camp Robinson trails on Sunday. However, I couldn’t find a dog-sitter, and I accidentally let the dogs get past due on their shots (read- they couldn’t be boarded), so I ended up leaving Ryan at home.I also left my sleeping bag at home and had to sleep under my giant changing towel Friday night. Oops!

Saturday was great. I met up with some local guys and we did about 3 hours worth of trail riding out on the Womble.

Pre-Ride:
prewomble

Overlook on the North end of the trail:
overlook

Stopping to talk to some other riders along the way:
meeting

Afterward, we visited a nearby pump track:
pumptrack
pump1

I managed to get “good” enough to barely make a non-pedaling lap on two separate attempts. I found it to be much easier on a rigid bike than on my full suspension. Needs more practice!

In the midst of this, my phone ran out of batteries, so it wasn’t until I arrived back to my car late in the afternoon (I’d left it in Perryville and carpooled to the trail) that I got a chance to plug it in and give Ryan a call to let him know that I wasn’t dead or in the hospital with multiple broken bones. My plan was to go pull up camp from Lake Sylvia and drive back to Conway to spend the night in someone’s RV since it would be more comfortable (especially since I’d forgotten the sleeping bag)

I became frustrated when the call to Ryan dropped a couple of times. I figured I was just driving through a spotty service area, so I switched to text messages:

A: “Service is spotty. I will call you in a couple of hours once I am at Lance’s in conway”
R: “Conway is lame.”
A: “Yeah, I know”
R: “Lake slyvia [sic] is a better place.”
R: “Much more private.”
A: “?”
R: “Probably pretty quiet out there I bet”
(after a minute….)
A: “Be there in a minute”

Yeah… turns out that Ryan had left Memphis earlier in the day to bring himself, the dogs, and my sleeping bag out to the campground. That was a pretty awesome surprise.

The next morning, I wasn’t meeting up for Little Rock trail riding until around noon, so Ryan and I drove/hiked to a nearby overlook (North Fork Pinnacle for those of you that know the area) to watch the sunrise/clouds over the Ouachita Mountains. It was great to be able to show him one of my most favorite spots to visit when I’m out that way… (photos on his blog)

Afterward, we packed and headed to Conway for lunch. From there, he went back to Memphis and I followed someone to the Camp Robinson trails in Little Rock to preride for a XC race coming up in October. They were pretty easy compared to what we’d encountered on the Womble the day before, so I didn’t stay for too long (I was especially ready to leave following my run-in with some nasty greenbrair vines that made me feel as if I’d run head-on into a beehive).

Monday (Labor Day), we had breakfast then headed out for a couple of laps around Herb Parson’s Lake. We probably would have gone for a third, but we had to get back to civilization and help my dad with some packing…

nosfer

He and my mom just bought a cabin in Arkansas… about 4 miles from the Syllamo Trails! From what I’ve heard, the trails are not in the best shape, so I guess I’m adopting a nice 50 mile chunk of singletrack to tend to (with a little help from my friends, hopefully!)