You would have thought it was the middle of summer as nice as the weather was this past weekend. Don't believe me? Just wait till you see some of the photos I took! You had to look really hard to find even a single cloud in the sky. It was the sort of thing that idyllic suburban dreams are made of.
Temps were in the mid 80's during the day. Farenheit of course! You can do the conversion yourself should you be so inclined. Meanwhile, at night we saw the mercury drop down in the low 60's and high 50's. Just about the perfect weather for anything you might want to do short of snow sports.
@mrsbozz spent Friday evening washing the outside of our trailer, then we headed in to have some homemade pizzas and watch the college softball playoffs.
Saturday morning I had to run over to my parents house to do some work on my dad's riding mower. It hasn't been properly serviced in quite some time, so I had to take the deck off, clean it up, lube the grease points, and replaced the belt. It was a fairly quick job that took less than an hour to get done, so I spent a bit of time visiting with my parents before I headed off to my next stop.
That next stop was the meat market where I purchased two New York Strip steaks, two pork steaks, and about 25 pounds worth of chicken for me to process over the weekend.
I got home a little before noon, so I quickly got our lawn mowed before it got too hot in the afternoon.
After a little lunch I lay down on the couch and took a bit of a nap while the college softball playoffs continued.
Before I knew it, it was time to get the grill started for dinner. I got the coals lit and then I sat down in the shade to enjoy a nice beer for #beersaturday sponsored by @detlev. I'm not really sure how this Crushworthy from Great Lakes Brewing found its way into my fridge, but it was absolutely delicious and the perfect light beer to have on such a hot day. I'll be interested to see if @cryptictruth has had this brew before.
I doubt it is as accessible as Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, but if it were, I would totally make it my new summer beer of choice. Plus the fact that it only has 105 calories is kind of nice too. I've got to stay in peak swimsuit shape! Okay, maybe just peak dad bod shape.
After dinner on Saturday night, @mrsbozz and I decided to process the chicken so we would have to deal with it on Sunday. I took the two pounds of ground chicken I bought and made it into burgers for her. I then took the 20 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts and cut them up in to chunk chicken, shredded chicken, and breast that we can marinate and throw on the grill.
Finally, we settled in Saturday night to finish watching the Apple TV Plus show "Sugar" and some more college softball.
I knew Sunday was supposed to be just as beautiful as Saturday was, so Saturday night I suggested we take a walk the next morning. We made our way to "The Tridge" in Midland, MI. It's a wooden bridge that spans the confluence of two rivers (The Chippewa and the Tittabawassee). As such it has three different spans that take you to different areas between the rivers all connected to a central point in the middle of the confluence.
This is one of the approaches in the photo above. If you look really close, you can see the span that goes to the left and then another heads to the right. We took the right path.
The right path takes you to this central park area that tends to flood when we get any significant rain in the area. I took the photo above because I was annoyed at how careless of a job they did mowing. If they weren't going to rake it they should have at least bagged it. It ended up looking more like a hayfield waiting to be baled than an area where you would want to play or sit down to have a picnic.
This central area also has a skateboard park, two dog parks (which was a bit bittersweet for us), and a couple pavillions for events.
We opted to head under the M-20 bridge and walk along a length of the Tittabawassee River. It's a quite beautiful walk and they have really added some nice features to make it a place you would want to hang out. The photo above shows a viewing area they designed. You can't see it in the photo, but on the other side of the river is a trail that used to be an old railroad line.
That was our ultimate destination.
But first we had to cross the bridge you saw in the opening photo. Next to the Tridge, this is one of the most iconic bridges in the city of Midland. It's called the Curie Parkway Bridge and over the course of my life it has been closed to traffic several times.
I am pretty sure one of the times it closed due to the flood of 1986. It became structurally unsound due to the massive amount of water that flowed down the Tittabawassee River during that storm. Another time I think someone drove a truck over it that was too heavy and damaged it.
They recently renovated it, but it's still only a one lane bridge, so you have to wait your turn to drive on it. Thankfully, they added a walking path to the side of it.
This is the view from the other side of river walking back towards where we parked our car. The amount of green that just suddenly appeared out of nowhere the last couple of weeks is stunning.
the main focus of this photo was the cool bicycle maintenance station they added on the side of the path. It has a pump area and an assortment of tools in case you need to adjust anything on your bike. Which is pretty cool because this point where we parked is the beginning of that thirty mile rail trail I mentioned earlier.
Best to make sure your bike is in tip top shape before you head off on a 60 mile round trip ride!
If you look really closely in the background you can see two of the Tridge spans again.
After our walk, we headed to get @mrsbozz's car washed, then we set our sights on home. When I was down in Columbus, OH last time, I asked my brother in law if he knew anyone that was selling a baseball/softball hitting net for cheap. He mentioned they had an old one in the garage I could take if I wanted.
I've been wanting one for a while so I could practice my disc golf drive. After we got home on Sunday I quickly assembled the free net and I started working on my throwing in the backyard. @mrsbozz thought it would be fun to take some shots of me.
After lunch I hit the couch again to watch more college softball and a couple episodes of the final season of Star Trek Discovery.
Honestly, it doesn't get much better than this!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
