Wilderness Work, Birthday Parties, Bacon... It was a great weekend...

13 riders showed up at 6am for the Bacon Ride Sunday morning -- that's a lot for 6am, but we were treated to a beautiful tailwind-dominated ride out to Platte River State Park, and plenty of sweet bacon once we arrived...

... as evidenced by my plate. JP looks on as I dig into my first helping. I can't tell if that's a look of humor or concern for my health on his face. Don't worry buddy -- I'll ride it off.

Attack of the 8-pound wiener dog!!! Oliver and I are amused, if not the least bit scared. Image: Cornbread

Without a doubt the coolest thing we saw all day -- a B-17 Flying Fortress, at low-altitude and low-speed over Murdock, Nebraska. SWEET! The primary strategic bomber of WWII, there are only a handful of airworthy B-17s remaining today. To see one flying on a random Sunday was just amazing... Image: Cornbread

On the way home, stopping at Elmwood for snacks and supplies. Mike Madcharo was hangin' loose. Image: Cornbread

Saturday, Laura and I spent most of the day out at Wilderness Park with a big group of like-minded friends from THOR and the Friends of Wilderness Park. The recent rains and storms have left the trails out there in dire shape. Flooding, downed trees and overgrowth are the rule of the day, unfortunately. It's going to take a lot of work to get the park back, but we took our first steps towards that end this weekend. Above, a section of the bike trail North of Old Cheney that had received significant attention last year has been flooded. After putting our heads together, we made the tough call to abandon the line and reroute the trail to a higher, less flood-prone line about 20 yards to the West. The reroute gains the trail about 18 inches in elevation, which at that point in the park, is an important 18 inches. Image: Cornbread

THOR Webmaster and super good guy, Tom Winfield made the trek down from Omaha to help out with the trail work on Saturday. Thanks Tom! It was his first visit to Wilderness Park, and the fact that he got lost trying to find us spoke to our need to adopt THOR's awesome signeage system at Wilderness Park ASAP, in my opinion. The sooner the better. Ultimately, Tom found us by following his ears to the sound of JP's weed eater braaaaaping away. Image: Cornbread

Saturday night we helped Monkey Wrench Cycles' Nate Woodman celebrate his birthday with a small get together at his house. It was a super fun time, and the food (especially the cake) was absolutely incredible... I didn't have my camera with me, so no pictures, but man, thank you to everybody who was there, especially Nate and Ellie. To be the birthday boy and host the birthday party, well, that's a really nice thing to do. Thanks again.

I hope everybody reading this had a great weekend too!