Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019 – A Nice Long Ride to Rood Lake on Flash-17.51 Miles

Since I've decided to train Flash up for endurance riding, I've been extending my trips to condition both him and me, and I thought a good event to practice on would be the Ocean to Lake Ride that takes place in the area at the end of February. It's a 60+ mile ride over three days, from Dupuis WMA to JW Corbett WMA on Day One, then on to Riverbend Park on Day Two, then the final leg to Jonathon Dickinson State Park on Day Three. Hubby and I did the third day once back in 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed it, though Hubby could never do a 20 mile ride any more, but I think it will be a perfect goal for me and Flash. The event organizers have scheduled a "warm up" to a place called Rood Lake, which is about halfway between Riverbend and JDSP this Saturday, but since I already had plans for the weekend, I decided that I would try to find Rood Lake on my own today. Unfortunately, no map shows Rood Lake on it, so I had to guess a little bit. I did read they had recently put in a couple of picnic tables and a covered shelter, so I figured it wouldn't be that hard to find. All I knew was that it was supposedly about 100 yards off the OTL trail, but that wasn't much help. So off we went, with nothing more than a general idea in mind. As we headed out the Cypress Creek trail, I happened upon a worker for Cypress Creek, and questioned him as to the whereabouts of Rood Lake, and he had no idea, but he was nice enough to call back to his office for some help from there, and eventually I learned the one piece of critical information I was missing, that Rood Lake was east of the highway tunnel under the Turnpike and I-95. So off I went, heading through the old orchards and cattle fields to the tunnel, after which I turned right along the highway, but soon realized that wasn't right, so I went back and carried on for a bit until I found a much more likely road which I followed all the way around one lake until it turned back north between another lake, at which point I soon intersected with another trail that, when I looked east, I could see the shelter and picnic tables. I found it! We turned down there and I dismounted to take a break, but Flash wasn't interested, he pranced around, anxious to keep going. After a few minutes, I remounted and headed out, this time in a slightly more direct line, though honestly, I wasn't far off the mark to begin with, fortunately. Flash was still ready to run, so I let him pick the pace for the way home, so it went pretty quick. The round trip ended up being about 17.5 miles in just under four hours, which I thought was pretty good considering we haven't been training that long. Flash is just so much fun to ride, he just loves to run and run! Spent a relaxing evening, a lovely way to spend the day!