July 2nd - Nugget Lake County Park - Crystal Cave circuit

Today's ride began at a place called "Exile". We had a hard time locating it as it was not a community but actually a bar and an overgrown baseball diamond at the intersection of County Road X and Country Road S.

We began riding through farm lands with some hills. A few dogs, but they did not chase us much. These horses were fun to visit on our ride to Sprig valley.

We have not ridden many hills before but got some experience today.

Just outside of Spring Valley we went to visit Crystal Cave. It was a beautiful warm day in the 80's.

Larry said he has wanted to visit the Crystal Caves since he was a kid.

We took our jackets as we knew it would be considerably cooler underground - and we were glad we had them with us.

Stylish cave dwellers - huh? The cave tour lasted about an hour and was very informative. We would recommend visiting the caves if you are in the area.

After the cave tour we rode the short distance into the town of Spring Valley. It was pretty quiet but we found some locals and asked where was a good place to get lunch. So here we are at the Red Sky cafe.

After lunch we biked out to the Eau Galle Reservoir. That was quite an effort - a lot of steep hills and it was hot, so we were really looking forward to a dip in the lake - it was a popular spot today. We didn't stay long as we calculated we still had a ways to go. We weren't looking forward to going back up the steep hills, but it wasn't too bad. Going downhill after the steep climb is always fun and we got up to 32mph+ on some of these hills.

Leaving Spring Valley we cycled beside the Eau Galle River - it was very pretty. Very nice scenery as we rode through valleys and farmlands onto Elmwood where it was time for an ice cream stop. The town was pretty much deserted but we did find a little cafe and got cones - but they were very basic.

This historic log house was on our route as we left Elmwood. There was another very large hill as we left the town.

We cycled a section of 4 or 5 miles that was gravel road. It seemed to go on for ever as we were getting weary by now. It got very pretty as we entered the valley but then we had a giant hill to go up. I was not able to pedal to the top and coaxed Larry into walking with me so we could enjoy the view. The woods was beautiful and it was a very long hill that curved, so you thought you were near the top, only to have more hill around the curve.

At the crest of the hill the gravel road became sealed - hallelujah! After that we could see Exile and the truck waiting for us. Larry said we deserve a beer when we get back to camp. I replied, "not back to camp - let's go into the Exile Tavern and have a beer now". There was one car out front so I figured it was open.

We had a nice chat with the lady who ran the bar and her guest and the beer was cold and enjoyable.

43.5 mile ride today

p.s. I want to share that back at the campground we had a celebrity visitor - Smokey the Bear came to visit with all the campers. How cool is that!