Closing in on the end...

As David mentioned, we did once again hit the trails on Thursday. I've been out of town a lot over the past few weeks so it was hard to get rides in. I have been running, though, and it made this ride a cinch.

We went north to Lintel Park and started out on the Dietrich Bike Trail at about 8:00 PM, so it was already getting dark. We knew we'd be doing this mostly without light, but it had to be done. Here I am all ready to go!
I think we took this at Lintel Park before we actually got going. I really don't know; I gave David the camera.
The sad fact is, we ran out of good light very early on, so we kind of ran out of good pictures, too. The Dietrich Bikeway is really fun because it is hidden away from the major streets, so it's quiet and you see a lot of parks and residential neighborhoods. This is Pentzer Park on 27th and Holdrege:
On the flip side is the intersection of those two streets. I was over there behind the blue car because I decided to go through the yellow light and David chose not to. He later joined me, only to discover that the trail actually goes northward on the west side of 27th. We decided to continue on the east side and join up with the trail where it runs under the railroad overpass.
At 48th, we discovered that the Dietrich Bikeway ends and we had to pedal north of Fremont Street to join up with the Murdock Trail. Of course, David had to study the map to figure this out, and I gladly lend him the responsibility:
In the meantime, I occupied myself with getting a snapshot of one of the bike statues that are spread around Lincoln. This one did a fine job of representing our spirits:
Yes, the sunset in the background was beautiful. We really didn't get any pictures that did it justice, though.

What ho! We find shortly after joining the Murdock trail that it is made mostly of David's favorite terrain - hardened ground and trail rock. Under normal circumstances, I would agree. However, if you recall, it had rained on Thursday. Your heroes found themselves kicking up mud and rocks, and hauling some of it to other parts of Lincoln (and even into my apartment). The smaller rocks liked to find homes in my shoes in particular...
The Murdock trail passes over 84th Street by way of a bridge and continues on out of town, actually. Someday, perhaps, we can venture a little farther out. As it was, it was already very dark, we had quite a few miles ahead of us, and technically the trail closes after sunset. Here's a shot of Lincoln out there, though.
Back on the west side of the bridge, we stopped to get some pictures and a little water. With this light, nothing turned out very well, but here's a shot from the bridge looking south:
We tried three times to get a picture of the 84th Street bridge and failed on all attempts. I also tried to get a picture of Northern Lights Drive that is right south of the new Walgreens on 84th, as well as a couple pictures of the moon, and nothing came out well. We gave up on taking pictures at this point.

About a block south of O Street, my sister called me and we chatted about cell phones (ironic? maybe) for a few blocks until David and I found the Mopac trail, and we started back eastward. We had to slow our pace a little to keep from out-running our headlamps. Mopac is hidden away from roads much like Murdoc, so we were in the dark big time. Honestly, we should reride this trail when it is light. We might yet, since David would like to continue riding it out of town.

Someone east of 33rd Street, my friend Shilo called and we talked some until David and I found the end of the Mopac trail. I'm still not clear about where exactly we were, but I don't recall seeing Peter Pan Park, so I'm not sure we made it that far. In any case, we were very close to Holdrege Street at this point, so we made our way up there and then west until we found Lintel Park again.

It was a fun little right, about 16.5 miles. I'm not sure if there are little bits and pieces of trails that we need to pick up yet, but I think the major chunks we have left are:
-the 84th Street trail south of the Mopac trail crossing
-the 70th Street trail that starts a little north of Van Dorn and goes south (and eventually west)
-the Wilderness Park trail (which we decided not to do Thursday because of the rain)

David may correct me if I'm wrong. We have one week until school starts for me, but should have several weeks of good weather yet, so I think we can finished our goal.