American Tobacco Trail

We headed out again today to ride the American Tobacco Trail. It will eventually connect Apex to Durham but is currently a work in progress. We made up our mind that we were going to ride 8 miles in and 8 miles out. However, around 6.25 miles we couldn't go any further. You see, there are gates along the way and just enough room for me to squeeze the boys trailer in between them. When we reached the gate at 6.25 miles we couldn't fit. :-( Not sure why they decided to make that gate way slightly smaller than all the others, but nonetheless we went as far as we could go. Owen slept most of the way which made for a much more peaceful ride this time. Ethan didn't have anyone to fight with. We turned around and started back towards the car and decided to stop for our picnic. Owen was waking up and they both needed to get out and stretch their legs. We stopped for juice boxes, raisins and applesauce. The last time we did this I had forgotten to bring spoons for the applesauce so the boys had to kind of squeeze the container and slurp the applesauce out. Today though, when I started to pack the cooler, Ethan went to the silverware drawer and retrieved 2 spoons. He told me "we can't forget these this time." It amazes me the things he remembers. Anyway, we had our picnic then hopped back on our bikes to make our way back to the car. Whoever tells you this is easy, is lying to you. The boys probably weight about 30-35 pounds each, the trailer another 10 pounds or so and then the cooler was maybe 5 pounds. All in all I was probably pulling about 80 pounds or more. Whew! I was beat when we finally arrived back to the car. I think the total ride was a little over 2 hours and about 12.5 miles. I love it, despite it being difficult at times. It was especially wonderful today because the boys didn't fight until the ride back when Owen was awake. Hopefully we will be able to go again next weekend.