Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Jason's first Overnight Bike Packing trip

Jason has been looking forward to this trip for months.....and so have I! The Tomorrow River Rail Trail heads out of Plover to the East. I've taken it at times when biking to Appleton to visit the grandkids. I've taken Jason and Alyssa for rides on it a few times and when Jason asked where it goes and I told him towards Appleton he wanted to ride it.
It's 29 miles long, so as a first time, he's only 7, we talked about doing part of it, camping out, and riding back the next day. Then next year we'd do more.
He choose his 24" Gary Fisher single speed to ride, vs. his 1x9 speed fat bike, which is a bit too big for him yet, although he's made great strides in learning to mount, ride and dismount it....

The plan developed that we'd start out with his dog and also his little 2.5 yr. old sister in the bike trailer to a small town 7 miles away. Grandma would meet us there with the camping gear of which we'd trade the dog, Hobbs and Alyssa for.

Then Jason and I took off for the town of Amherst another 7-8 miles away to find a camping spot.
We took a few side trips, around Lake Emily and cruised around Amherst some. I'd figure Jason rode around 17 miles or so.

We stopped and rested a few times....rested consisted of Jason playing with his 2 monster trucks he brought along, reading some of the information signs along the way, and stopping at another bar for a Root Beer.

We had a great time. For supper we shared a chicken dinner in the Amherst Park bought at the local grocery store. After we put up the  tent, Jason stayed out and played more monster trucks, watched a family practice a little baseball and rode his bike some more....all the while I laid in the tent, too tired to join him!

When he finally came into the tent we talked about not telling any scary ghost stories, especially about bears and tents and stuff....He talked about what we wanted to do when he "grew up" and about the next bike packing trip we'd do.

In the morning we got moving and biked back home after a shared breakfast of French Toast.

Playing with monster trucks during a rest stop.

All set!

Root Beer Pit Stop.

Camelback and Cockpit frame bag.....all setup. Next year he'll take his geared fat bike.