High Trestle Trail -- Ankeny, Iowa to The Oasis

This is part 4 of a 4-part weekend trip to ride a couple of trails in Central Iowa.

Part 1: Great Western Trail (West Des Moines to Cumming)
Part 2: High Trestle Trail (Slater to Oasis and then Slater to Woodward)
Part 3: High Trestle Trail Full Moon Ride (Madrid to the Trestle Bridge) 
Part 4: High Trestle Trail (Ankeny to Oasis)

 

For our third and final day of riding in Des Moines, we started out the day with another filling and most delicious breakfast from our hosts at the Two Bears Lodge in Madrid, Iowa.  

This smoothie was outstanding, not to mention artfully presented.

Then there was the main course. Owner Tami will not let you leave hungry.  We were so stuffed!

We then loaded up our bags and bicycles and headed over to Ankeny.

Along the drive, we got a different perspective of the High Trestle Bridge viewed from the highway. 

We rode the High Trestle Trail from Ankeny (the global headquarters of Casey's General Stores) to The Oasis and back.
 

Many houses on the outskirts of Ankeny decorate their backyards abutting the trail, spreading a little joy to those enjoying the trail.

A couple of neighboring houses even built themselves bridges over a drainage ditch to allow trail access from their backyards. 

Once outside of Ankeny the trail meanders through farmland, sometimes straight as an arrow

sometimes gently curving

The arch the trees make over the trail here is really cool!

The trail had cracks patched in several places.

There were many remnants of railroad signage from when it was an active track.

And then there was this random quirkiness.  Because who doesn't love a vintage Pepsi machine?  :)

Our turnaround spot was at a rest area dubbed "The Oasis", which provides a neat bike rack fashioned out of railroad track rails, a covered gazebo with a picnic table and a pit toilet. It's great if you want everyone sitting at the tables to hear you pee!!!  LOL

On the drive home, we kind of cheated to mark off an item on our Bicycle Ride & Seek challenge.  You're technically supposed to find these items while riding your bike but we found this phone booth in Lamoni, Iowa, so grabbed the front wheel off one of one bikes to snag this picture of "phone booth with bike."  Shhhhhhh, don't tell Randy  LOL

And right next to the phone booth was this cool metal flower made from a bike wheel! 

VIDEO of our ride. Hope it doesn't make you seasick. There's a lot of swaying back and forth.  Action cam video is a constant state of experimentation.  We learned that helmet mount isn't for us as the body motion of riding is just too much.