Vacation Days

I don't think I will be going on any real vacations this year. I definitely don't want to get on a plane anytime soon. I could drive some where for a vacations but a lot of the surrounding states have travel restrictions that would require us to quarantine for 14 days before doing anything so I really don't see the point. If the restrictions get lifted in the fall we may consider going to Cape Cod or maybe down to the outer banks. But for now I'm using my vacation days to take a days off from work to do some riding.

This past Tuesday I headed towards Princeton. My main goal was to try out the new Alexander road bridges that had recently been completed. I had tried to get across a month or so ago but was stopped because the construction wasn't yet completed and a crew was still working on the bridge. Tuesday I flew right over the new bridges. These are definitely an improvement as they are a lot wider and have a large shoulder. I don't normally ride on Alexander road on any of my normal rides but this may be an option at times if the traffic stays low.

After Alexander road I headed along Carnegie lake towards Kingston sticking to residential streets. One of my other goals of this ride was to check out a path through the Herrontown Arboretum. I was inspired by Jim who was trying to map out some of the interesting paths in this area. The path was paved and not too bumpy. The Arboretum wasn't much to look at except for an nice pond.

However it was a good short cut to get to Kingston and back towards home. It ended up being a good 30 mile ride even though I got rained on a little.

This past Saturday I led the posse to Round Valley. Because of the hot and humid weather I went for a shorter route than usual from Hillsborough. It ended being a good choice. I did a lot of sweating during the ride so would have probably cramped if I did my usual 58 mile route. It also helped that there was a little less climbing.

Our rest stop was the boat launch at the reservoir.

Even with all the rain we had the reservoir is still low. I didn't understand why they would keep it so low until we tried to ride the rest of the way around the reservoir. As the picture at the top of the post shows there was a gate across the road. Since the gate was open we were going to ride through but there was a guard there telling us to go around so we did. It looks like they are working on one of the dikes on that side of the reservoir which might be why they are keeping the water low.

We had to briefly ride on 22 and then through Lebanon before getting back on course but the detour only ended up added about a mile and a half. We cruised back quickly to Hillsborough and were back close to noon.

I may not be able to travel away from NJ to do any riding trips this year but there is plenty of good riding here so its not a bad place to be stuck.