Enchanted Circle

Usually, I come back from trips and tell about how wonderful they were on here. Well, Nick calls it "The Perfect Storm for my Bad Ride!!!"
Where to begin? I'll start with sharing the album of our whole trip here!!!!

So, if you looked at the pictures, you'll see the smiles on my girls faces!!! It was a wonderful memory maker for them. Papa and Grammy drove down from the Springs to meet us and we had a great reunion together. If we had met to do just that, then the trip would have been fine. BUT~

.....I wanted to ride 100 miles from Red River to Taos to Angel Fire, and back to Red River...... yeah, in the mountains at altitude without training! So, we load up the family in the car. We make it halfway before realizing that we can't make it there that night. We get a hotel (a fun memory for the kids!!!!) and a whopping price tag for us. We hit the road again. The 4 1/2 hours in the car the day before wasn't the best thing for the sciatic pain I was having in my back/leg. So the 4 1/2 this next day certainly didn't help it either. We have s'mores that night and that made for a good day :) (another fun memory for the kids!)

Nick and I hit it early in the morning..... I could have told you from the first 5 miles that were downhill that was proving to be challenging for me that I wouldn't be riding a century that day, but no.... I had to keep going. Finally around mile 40, my muscles cramped up tight enough to communicate to my brain that this ride wasn't going to happen. It was at that time that we found out that most people who do this ride usually come with their own SAG (support and Gear....aka a car to get into when you cramp up or bonk.) So, some kind guy takes us up to the next rest stop where we wait and wait and wait for some mythical SAG wagon to show up. It never does. So, same nice guy takes us to Angel Fire where Nick's parents help us out. The next four hours are too painful to re-live so, I'll just say that after the hail storm that even cars couldn't get over the pass in, only half of the riders crossed the finish line that day.

Guess what? I got to get in the car the next day with that same sciatic pain and grin and bear it for 9 hours until we made it home scratching our heads about the trip in general. I actually sent my kids to school wearing dirty clothes and having tangles in their hair and in dire need of a bath this morning. :( Bad parent? Nope, just one that needed to re-group a bit. So, if you see me wearing and "Enchanted Circle Century" t-shirt, just know that there is a story there that I will never re-tell.