I was “sick” and we took the day for ourselves. It was a very hot Monday after an insanely hot weekend for April! Which, for us, is awesome weather in every way. We took the back-road route to Minnewaska State Park, noticing the canal ruins all along the way. When we got to Minnewaska, we found that the trails were closed to horses and bikes due to damage from an ice storm! That sounded particularly ludicrous on such a hot day, but we realize that it’s still barely spring and they wouldn’t have had time yet to repair the trails.
That’s how we came to ride at Mohonk instead. We followed the Overcliff Road to the Rhododendron Bridge, then rode up the steep hill toward the Mountain House. Got a little lost at the Farm circle, but eventually found our way. Went down the Morning Glory(?) path and back to the Rhododendron Bridge, where, feeling totally whipped from the heat and humidity after a winter of reduced activity, we needed to rest. Our snack and drink time was interrupted by attacks of bugs and allergies! Still, despite how uncomfortable we were at times, we kept commenting on how awesome this weather was for April.
We rode back on the Undercliff Road and spent time watching some climbers on the cliffs. Then crossed over and rode for a while on the West Trapps Rd. just to see what it was like and where it went. Made it to the bridge but not quite to the waterfall (we’ll save that for next time). Back to the car and then to the Visitors center, where R. bought me his new favorite t-shirt, we found a mistake on the model, and learned from a guy that some trails that had been restricted to hiking are now open for riding. Got an annotated map from the woman at the center. Then went to Lemongrass for supper-shrimp prik khing and R had lemongrass and black pepper chicken. We started with shrimp spring rolls and Thai beer and I also had a Thai iced tea.
