Hitchhikers and Egg-layers

After busy times, hot weather, rainy weather, and bad backs, we finally got back out on the bikes yesterday and did about 50k of trail riding. This trail, as do many, traverses an old railway bed and has lots of long, gentle grades with a 20-25 metre differential between the top and bottom. Although these slopes are gentle, they are long and sufficiently demanding to cause us two oldies lots of sweat, tired muscles, and achy knees.

Dedicated to Swamp and Rurality who can probably both identify this sucker and tell us what time it got up that morning, just by looking at the moss on its back. (I jest, of course.)

We spotted this turtle laying eggs on both parts of our round-trip. She seemed to be on her third 'laying hole' on our return trip. Why she would choose 'to lay' on the hard, gravel bike path is beyond me.

On the whole, it's a good trail that, apparently, eventually connects into downtown Ottawa. It would be a heckuva trip, though. The trail is wide enough for us to ride two abreast and is kept in pretty fair (ie smooth) condition. But it's $%^# buggy, at least at this time of year. For much of the journey, I had numerous deer flies hitchhiking on my helmet, but it wasn't until we were almost home that I got a few bites on the arms. Perhaps it had something to do with my rather slow speed near the end of three hours of pedalling.