But it was so much fun! Emily was in the South Bay for Thanksgiving so of course we had to go to Calero County. I've been wanted to take Anthony there for a while too. There just nice flowy trails good for everyone. It was Alissa and Chris's first time there too. We were supposed to meet at the original parking lot furthest south on McKean Rd. but Chris ended up parking at the Rancho San Vicente lot and was able to find us on the trail. There's a reason we don't go up to Bald Peak that often. It's because the first steep section up Cottle Trail sucks! But once you're passed that, the trail is a nice gradual climb until it isn't. 😜 Bald Peaks Trail is pretty steep and longer than I remembered it. It was my first time going to the bench on the peak. We spent a decent amount of time there and it's when we found out Irene needed to be home by a certain time. That's when I had to tell her that wasn't going to happen if we did the full route that we had planned. We said we'd play it by ear. Unfortunately, on the way back down, on the first wide hairpin turn, Alissa crashed and scraped up her left knee and took some chunks out of her left palm. She's new to dirt on a borrowed hardtail of questionable quality. I don't think the tires were that great. So with that we took it real easy the rest of the way down. At the bottom, Alissa was feeling okay so we decided to finish the loop in Calero County at least but skip going over to Santa Teresa. It got pretty warm today and we stopped for water at the Rancho San Vicente parking lot and said goodbye to Chris. We also met a guy at the parking lot with a stuffed animal strapped to the front of his bike where a bar bag would go. It served no purpose other than ornamental. I was like, "You should take out the stuffing and fill your teddy bear with gummy bears." (only it wasn't a teddy bear, I think it was a fox - he named it Foxy). Anthony spotted a mountain lion! (Narrator - it was actually a bobcat 🤣). I was staring and staring try to find it in the spot where I thought he was saying it was and thought I was super blind. Then Alissa pointed it out and it turns out it was 30' to the right of where I was looking. 🤦🏻‍♂️ At one point, Irene was totally doing the Distracted Boyfriend Meme as she ogled the bike of someone passing us on the trail. I'm not great at eating on rides if there's no lunch stop. I had a bar on Bald Peak but forgot to eat at Rancho San Vicente, even though I was hungry. I did eventually stop to eat but it just didn't hit the spot. I'm not really a snacker, I'm all about the meals. And most ride food is sweet for the carbs but I'm almost always craving savory food. Emily gave me some of her Chili Cheese Fritos which helped but I was feeling hungry and tired most of the last half of the ride. On the way to the car, in one of the turns near the reservoir, Irene's front tire washed out and she crashed. Her's was lower speed and not as bad. There was a clean line and then quite a bit of gravel piled up on either side of it and I'm guess she went off line a little. That's when we joked that we were going to make it back in just one piece made up of individual pieces from each of us. 🤣 Luckily no one was seriously hurt and everyone loved the park and the trails.