Come ride with me!

Saturday the temperature cooled down and made it a great day to get the bike out. I decided to take a ride along the Big Dry Creek trail, which goes from Standley lake towards the east until it ends at I-25. It is a nice long ride, mostly concrete but still some gravel. Since I have my new phone which takes considerably better pictures than my last piece of junk, I thought I would play tour guide.

Here we are starting at the lake, lots of people out water skiing and fishing that you don't see here.




We head east going downhill to start. I decide to go down first because the wind is coming from the east in my face. I figure that when I turn around I will have a tailwind even though I am coming back uphill.

Next up we come to the Westminster rec Center. This is the place that remodeled their water area that I wrote about awhile ago. It is very nice.




The Colorado Rapids soccer team used to practice here, but now they have their own facility. The pavilion area always has groups there that have rented it for events, and kids are always fishing for some type of bottom crawling fish in that pond.



If you go across the creek on this bridge, you get to a memorial that was built here a few years ago honoring all of the armed services. They did a great job on it.



On the west side of the park there are 4 baseball fields that are much nicer than anything I ever played on growing up. We had gravel fields, I guess because they were more easy to keep up with a 3 month growing season in the mountains!



Turning back east we start riding through the area of the trail that alternates between concrete and gravel. The gravel section is still good, but you have to be careful on the corners.



We get to see what types of wildlife will try and kill us along the way!



Next along the trail we go by Front Range Community College.



They have some program there with a little interpretive trail that describes the area past, present and future.





I have to call bullshit on their version of the future though, because come on - not a single monkey with a jetpack or a walking dolphin shooting lasers out it's eyes! What the hell do they teach these kids now days?

The scenery takes a nose dive quickly from here as we go through the more unkempt or industrial area of the hood.



The trail crosses a couple of sections of private property that allowed people to bike through their pristine real estate so long as you don't dismount and go visit their storm water retention area...



Bonus! As we travel farther downstream we get to go by the newly built waste treatment facility! This is a huge improvement for the citizens of Westminster because while the new one still smells like poop, the old one smelled of poop, sweaty man balls, broken dreams and despair.

So we got that going for us...

All along the trail you get to see natures little subway builders, the Prairie Dog.



These little creature build a complex series of tunnels anywhere. I mean anywhere! They come up through hard gravel, along concrete walls, nothing deters them.

So about here we arrive at I-25 and turn around to work our way back towards home. Remember my great plan about having the wind at my back for the ride home? Well, wind is a fickle bitch and she pulled a 180 on me. So it's uphill into the wind for me!

After we go past the Westminster Rec center, I decided to veer off the trail and go over to the Westminster Promenade area. The Promenade has an ice arena that my old company, Sun Micro used to sponsor. But Sun fell on hard times and dropped the sponsorship.



The area is full of shops and theaters, and is pretty nice.



After we leave the Promenade we travel under the Denver/Boulder turnpike and through the Walnut Creek shopping area. The reason I wanted to show you this isn't for the shopping, but for the great statues they have there. They have some wonderful carved granite pieces:





But the best piece is this large Elk display that is all metal:



The last thing I wanted to show you along our ride is Sensory Park. This was built behind the North Children's hospital rehab center and is a playground that is totally wheelchair assessable!



Thanks for riding along!