The Summer That Never Really Was

Whew, what a summer...

The Mini-Me's Camps never happened so like the rest of the US, to retain some sanity we went outside, a LOT

The Mrs.OA even joined us, occasionally

I ran two Dad Camps, we went

Hiking and rock scrambling

We biked the whole Minute Man trail

They were sore after that one!  We also biked the Lexington Battle trail, saw where the first casualty of the revolution took place, where Paul Revere got caught, we went to Highland Mountain Bike Park and more...

We hiked the highest mountain in East Ma (Watchussett) and part of the highest in Ma (Greylock), and some of the Appalachian Trail

Watchussett is on the Midstate trail so we went to the most Northern hills (Wattatic) and had lunch on top.  The Mini-Mes are Scouts/Cub scouts so they made lunch on a hiking stove

We also (takes a big breath), went: kayaking, doing high ropes courses, kite flying, blowing up soda cans with BB guns, camping in the back garden and doing Scout stuff

And...

...How many bikes does a cyclist need?  We usually say the answer is N+1, where N=how many bikes you have.  A while ago when I got the Santa Cruz Bronson I felt it was a real quiver killer, well I stuck to it and sold a few mountain bikes this summer.  Now I'm down to the Bronson, my hardtail for riding with the kids and my cyclocross/commuter bike.

As my cross bike is aging and has done a few thousand miles now I used the proceeds to buy a replacement.  I hit pay dirt with an interwebs sale of last year's model Santa Cruz Stigmata.  This is a huge step up from my aluminium Kona.  It rides beautifully, its super versatile over a wide variety of terrain (I've done gravel, road and singletrack so far) and, I think it too, like the Bronson, is a quiver killer.  Between this and the Bronson all biking needs are totally covered.  OMG, I'm going to have to stop calling myself a cyclist!