Photo By Genevieve Voigt

By Genevieve Voigt

Our three day weekend gave me some extra time to actually do things other than homework and sleep. I haven’t biked in a while, so I decided to finally go. I thought it might start to rain on me, but I was lucky enough that it didn’t.

Normally I start from my house and bike on the roads, because I live in the country. I wanted to try somewhere new, so I put my bike in the back of my truck and drove to the arboretum. If you don’t live close to any good bike routes, the arboretum is awesome because there is parking right by the path.

My tires were pretty low, which made it a lot harder than normal. The path is in a big valley that has a sort of wind-tunnel effect. Somehow there managed to be a headwind going both ways.

When I got to the dam road, the path to Sanders Mound was closed off. The government shutdown forced the Corps of Engineers to close it. It really sucked to get to the best part and have to turn around.

I only got to bike a little over three miles. The trail was really pretty though, and it would be fun to go when the path is reopened.

Along the way back, I saw a snake and an enormous wolf spider. The path is set in the middle of a really natural valley, so there is a lot of wildlife. If you don’t want to go very far, this path is great. It does continue on the other side of the arboretum, but it’s not so natural.

It would be more fun to go running there, because it’s pretty flat and you wouldn’t have to stop at any crosswalks. If you need to get outside a little bit, consider the bike path.