Suddenly, It's Spring

Birds are chirping, the sun is out, the high is above 55. By golly, I think spring has finally arrived! And just in time. I was getting really, really sick of winter. We have been busy, busy preparing for good weather. Yard clean up, new gutters, new painted trim. All of this work to install a deck in two weeks. It's going to be amazing.

I have been planting flowers and Nate has been planting veggies. A week ago, I transplanted no less than 50 iris bulbs from the area where the deck will be to the beds in the front of the house (that we desperately want to get rid of, but can't quite justify yet).

The trim and the gutters will match after next weekend - a nice forest green. And the garden, which is already producing!

And now that the weather is cooperating, I'm finding that the more I  ride, the more confident I get about riding. See how that works? Prior to #everydayonabike, I wouldn't ride more than 5 miles away from my house and would never consider riding downtown or to the southern part of the city. But, as I've become more familiar with Denver's vast network of bike paths, lanes and routes, I'm increasingly comfortable in expanding my radius of riding and testing new directions. As a result, I've been riding to new areas of the city and increasing my daily miles. For example, today I tested out a new route that will allow me to ride to a standing monthly meeting about 6.5 miles away. I was reluctant to ride to these meetings before because I didn't like the bike route that Google naps suggests. So, I plotted a new route. It adds about a mile to the overall trip, but the sense of security is worth it!

Tomorrow, I have my biggest challenge yet: Ride to the University of Denver (a 16-mile round trip) in the morning and then to an event across town in the evening (a 10-mile round trip). When the day is done, I hope to have ridden nearly 30 miles in one day. So glad it's finally spring!