July 4th Riding Marathon

Hope everyone had a happy July 4th!  We spend much of the day at Ellen's niece's place.  Mostly trying to stay cool!  Even though we were in the shade it was like 92 degrees.  Top it off with the fact that most of the guys (myself and Christopher included) spent a lot of time riding mountain and BMX bikes and we were sweaty guys!  I'd already done about 11 miles yesterday morning before breakfast before it got too hot so there was a LOT of riding happening yesteday.  Ellen's nephew carved out trails on their property as they have a big place in the country (well, what amounts to the country out here).  Christopher wasn't much of an off road rider until he started going around these trails.  He found he did pretty well getting around and is now getting into it!

They also have a creek that runs behind their house so once the sun started going down, everyone migrated to the back and were wading in the stream.  Nicholas spent much of his time knee deep in the water while Ellen took pictures.  I'll have to post one or two on Facebook for everyone to see.  Despite the heat we actually had a lot of fun.  Ellen got to hang out with her brother and his wife who she only sees a couple of times a year at family gatherings.  It was one of those hang out with a drink and chit chat kind of afternoons (with lots of bike riding going on).  Some of Ellen's neice's friends have little kids so we had toddlers running around all over the place being cute and getting dirty.  Overall can't ask for much more for a holiday (with the possible exception of not having to go to work the next day).