Apparently all of the walking around yesterday helped Hubby’s back, because he woke up this morning feeling pretty darn good, so we decided to take a short ride today, as we really hate to leave a place without riding at least once! I had found a mountain biker’s trail map and created a loop that was half Centennial Trail, half the biker’s trail, programmed it into the GPS and off we went! Passed a family picking wild plums, which I’d never seen before, and the mother gave me one to try. Small, with a big pit, and the skin was pretty astringent, but you could tell the fruit was going to be lovely with a few days of ripening. Reminded me of my persimmons back home, very astringent when eaten slightly green! We headed across a meadow on the clearly marked Centennial trail, having to go through several gates along the way, then a steep climb up the hill to a beautiful view of the freeway and the Black Hills to the south and west, and several places with a good view of Bear Butte, THE landmark for this valley, a geographical anomaly that looks like a giant sleeping bear in the middle of the plains, visible for many, many miles, probably why they chose to build a fort near it, so the troops could find their way home! Rode along the ridgeline for awhile, before coming back down the hill on a longer, gentler slope. Got a little unsure when we reached the road, but stayed on the Centennial trail, and following my GPS, went around a little pond where a young couple was sitting, then headed back up the hill again, though not as steep or long. Eventually we came to the top, which was mostly meadow, and finally came to the turnoff that took us away from Centennial and on to the biker’s trail, which was really more our cup of tea anyway. A fairly narrow, single track trail that hung onto the side of the hill for quite a ways, until we came around to a nice long meadow where we had a nice canter, then a switchback to take us parallel to the utility lines, then finally right back to the Centennial trail, and to camp. All told it was just about two hours, a perfect length for Hubby to see how his back went. He survived! We did some chores afterward, though, in preparation for our departure tomorrow, and by the time we settled down for the evening, he was a bit achy again, though no where near as bad as earlier this week. Just glad we had a chance to ride here, and to discover a number of other trails and grasslands for next time!
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