Biking the Auburn and Lehigh Trails to Rochester - Aug 2023

🚴‍♀️ This was a simple, beautiful adventure — the kind that doesn’t require travel or planning, just good weather, good company, and a pair of bikes.

Roxie and I spent the day biking the Auburn and Lehigh Trails, a network of crushed-stone paths and shaded forest corridors that run through some of the prettiest natural areas near home. We’re incredibly lucky to have these trails so close by — they wind past wetlands, fields, streams, and quiet stretches of woods, making them perfect for relaxed rides, easy conversation, and getting outside without ever leaving the area.

Halfway through, we detoured onto the RIT campus, where Roxie’s son Paul is studying — and where I went to school years ago. Biking through campus brought a little wave of nostalgia for me, and it was sweet to see it now through Roxie’s eyes as a mom with a son building his future there.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant right off the trail, the kind of casual, delicious spot that always tastes better after a few miles of pedaling. After lunch we headed back, finishing the loop in that combination of tired, happy, and sun-warmed that only comes from a full day outdoors.

It wasn't a big or complicated adventure — but it was perfect. A reminder that some of the best days happen right in our own backyard.