So it's been another six weeks of summer training. Many miles in the saddle and what feels like nearly as many in hiking boots. We've seen moose and deer, too many snakes and seven black bears. We've hiked Bear Mountain three times and the Housatonic River twice, both on the Appalachian Trail. We found a nice seven mile loop in New Hartford and explored the M&M Trail ridge walk to Tariffeville.

There's been more hiking than biking but we've done a 30-mile loop along most of the bike path south of here and gotten back to the quiet roads of Granby. One of our bear sightings, which included a mom and her two cubs, was on one of those rides.

In this last week before we leave for Peru we've planned a 12 mile out-and-back hike to Tariffeville, a 36 mile out-and-back ride to Westfield along the bike path and a reprise hike at the Jesse Gerard Trail that got rained out yesterday. (Not ones to sit around, at least not this summer, we hiked 6 1/2 miles in the rain at Maclean instead.)

Here are a few photo highlights:

The view of New York's Taconic Mountains from the top of the Macedonia Brook hike near Kent, CT

Cool fungus - it's been a wet spring so there's been a lot of interesting plantlife

Pond along the Jesse Gerard Trail in New Hartford

Zach and Cierra joined us for the Penwood Hike to Tariffeville

Lunch along the Housatonic River near Kent

Mount Monadnock - you can't see them in this photo but the rocks were a-swarm with snakes, thus inducing a first-in-my-life panic attack and an aborted trip, as I could not continue on past every snake, or stick that looked like a snake.