Lost in the Woods

Fall is here! It's exciting, right? For a little while anyway until I'm sick of piling layers of clothes on for a run or a ride. But for now, it's great to not sweat like a sumo wrestler in Death Valley.

At the beginning of the summer, I mapped a dirt road route in the Waterloo-Pinckney Recreation Area, which is about 20 miles to the west, and I planned on taking my cyclocross bike out there a few times. Didn't happen. But with Chicago Marathon around the corner in October and very cold weather soon after that, I seized my opportunity to ride it on Labor Day.

40 miles of these tree lined, canopied roads. Can you believe how pretty it is? And hilly too. Nothing too long, but constantly rolling, with some nazty grades and loose rock to make this a true adventure. And it was kind of spooky out on those deserted country roads without cars or houses or other bikers for miles at a time.

But as you can see from this pic, I was diggin it. Just me and the dirt and the birds a singing. Saw some sand hill cranes and tons of hawks and vultures over my head, but somehow no deer.

Here's an example of the hills and the canopy of greenery above me. Check out how narrow these roads are. Good thing there isn't any traffic or we'd be out of room.

Along the way I came across this old, barbed wire fenced in area with partially dilapidated barracks but no signs indicating what was/is here. Now this had me spooked.

That building at the end was totally burnt out and roofless. Looked like it was a factory of some kind.

The bombed out buildings being the anomaly, most of the time when there was something to see besides woods, I saw these beauties at the numerous equestrian farms in the area. So cool!

Yeah, so I got lost. I had written turn by turn directions, but it turns out that one of my "roads" was essentially an unmarked grass path with a metal barrier to prevent cars from going down it. And I had this map as well, but I was at an intersection where it wasn't clear which way was north. *sigh*

So I rerouted and discovered this winding, hilly, narrow road called Cassidy that was scarcely wide enough for two cars. At the end of the road I came to this:

That's when I knew I was waaaaay out there! But I also knew how to get back to the car, so I wrapped up this high adventure with a smile on my face, glad to be a free, found man :D

I have another loop in this area on even more dirt roads that's 60+ miles, and hopefully Alaina can join me on the next adventure.