I grew up in Up North, Michigan. And Up North in Michigan is, no doubt about it, UP NORTH fer realz (in fact, as you approach my hometown from the south, there's a sign on the side of the road informing you that you are crossing the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the North Pole; a few miles north of that, and you're coming into the town where I grew up; so we were definitely on the 'North Pole' side of things. Just sayin'). And back when I was a kid Up North, we knew how to throw a winter, lemme tellya. I've told a few stories in this space about winters Up North (here is one of them) (and here is another), but this isn't going to be one of 'em. I tell people that, in the 40 years or so that I've lived in or near the city I now (still) call home, we've had maybe half-a-dozen of what we'd have called honest-to-gosh winters back Up North. And this winter, even with a month or so left to run (or six weeks, if you believe that damned groundhog), qualifies. Most definitely, this one qualifies. . .
As I left work last night, the forecast was for 1-2 inches of snow overnight. Which, in the context of winter in Michigan (and perhaps this winter most especially), is not much. I thought briefly about taking my laptop home, so I could work from home if need be, but then I thought, one or two inches, I'm not gonna have any trouble getting in to work. So I left it locked up in my office.
This morning when I got up and got in my car, I found that the forecast was a tad optimistic. By about a factor of 3; 3-6 inches of snow filled my driveway, and for a few seconds, I thought I might not even get out of the driveway, much less 80 miles or so to work. I got out on the main surface streets, and they were snowy/slushy and a bit slick, but nothing extraordinarily bad. And by the time I got out onto the freeway, things were OK, if less than fully ideal. The right-hand lane was two-tracked to bare pavement, and the left lane was snow-covered; I was able to maintain a steady 40 mph without undue anxiety. As I drove further, the road got a bit clearer, and I was keeping up around 55 mph. Not the 70 mph posted limit, and certainly not the 80-or-so that traffic usually goes on a clear, dry road, but moving along comfortably.
I had just passed a row of vehicles whose drivers didn't feel as comfortable as I did at 55, and was more-or-less by myself, going easy. There was a semi about a quarter-mile ahead of me, and a car about a couple hundred yards behind me, and we traveled in that spacing for a few miles, the road, to all appearances, clear, if not quite dry.
We crossed the line into Genesee County (not quite halfway to work), and I saw the semi ahead of me move to the left, as if he was changing lanes to pass a slower vehicle. I made a mental note, and prepared to do likewise when I came up on the slowpoke. But then, I saw the cab of the truck in full profile, and a couple seconds later, I was looking full-on at the side of the trailer, as the semi jack-knifed across the roadway. Quickly appraising the situation (mentally noting that, 'this is not good'), I began pumping my brakes purposefully-but-gently, and quickly, I was sailing along sideways on black ice. I managed to fight my car back to a more-or-less straight configuration, then moved onto the shoulder where the accumulated snow would help bring me to a stop, a hundred yards or so from the semi. The guy behind me was a little slower to grasp the situation, and he sailed past me before bringing his car to a stop just in front of me. The vehicles further back saw the ice-capades playing out ahead of them, and stopped in an orderly progression.
But we were all, as they say, SOL as far as further travel was concerned. Our semi friend extended across both lanes of the freeway and both plowed shoulders. The cab was pointing straight backwards, hard against the center guardrail. No one was going anywhere for a while. One guy, a few spots behind me in the line, had a 4-wheel-drive Jeep, and he decided to take to the deep snow beyond the shoulder, but he only made a few yards of progress before he was more irrevocably stuck than he had been. I don't think I was the only driver in line who snickered from my happier position on the road.
I called my boss and apprised her of my situation, and told her that I would be late arriving, if at all. I popped in one of my books-on-tape CDs and listened for a while. Then I pulled the book I'm currently reading out of my briefcase and read, looking up from time to time to see what, if anything, was happening. A fire truck and a couple police cars arrived, and finally, one of the jumbo-size semi-grade tow trucks. I watched over the course of a couple hours as the tow-operator and semi-driver tried to puzzle through the geometry and physics of the situation. My feet grew cold, so I turned the car on and off at intervals, to stay warm without using too much fuel. I observed with mild interest as snow drifts slowly formed on the upwind side of all our cars (and the wind was blowing duly hard), and I noted how the drifts formed in an arc, roughly marking the 'shock wave' from the wind diverting around the shapes of the cars. A minor crisis arrived in the form of pressure from my bladder; damn morning coffee. I used the two passenger-side doors of my car as a makeshift 'stall', and my empty coffee thermos made for a suitable, uh, recepticle, and the crisis was averted. I rinsed the thermos out with a couple loads of snow, but even so, it's going through the dishwasher two or three times tonight.
Finally, around noon (after three hours of sitting, going nowhere), the tow-truck got the semi unwedged, and we all prepared to resume our respective journeys. A state trooper walked back along the line of vehicles, informing us that Genesee County had no plows out, and no salt trucks, and we should all just get ourselves hunkered down in our homes, and go slow on our way there. So I called my boss back and told her I'd see her tomorrow. Then I started my car, pulled back out onto the roadway, and headed home.
-- (*edit 6PM*) --
So, I got home about 1:00 or so, and hung around long enough to bang out the above paragraphs. Around 2:30, I got a call from Jen, asking if I could pick her up from her job, since one of the kids had her car. Sure, says I, I'd be happy to. So I hopped in my car and headed back out into the elements. As is often the case (especially since we live on a two-block-long, dead-end street, which might just be the last street in Our Town to get plowed), just getting down my own driveway, and up my own street, was the hard part. Once I got out onto the main thoroughfares, the going got much easier (although, in the aftermath of a 6-inch snowfall, it's a while longer before things are quite ALL the way back to normal).
I pulled up to a red light where the main street I was on passes under a freeway. As the car rolled to a stop, I leaned back in my seat and exhaled heavily, glad to be done with stressful driving and such, and. . .
BAM! I get hit in the ass by a lady driving an SUV. Her stopping distance was, um, a trifle longer than it would normally be, and she was a tad slow to recognize that fact, thus causing an attempted collocation with my little car.
(*sigh*)
Another hour while we wait for the police to show up and collect the information. And I am wondering how it is that I've now been rear-ended in each of the last two Februarys (jeez, I never even wrote about the one last year; must've been one of those 'Real Life' things that took me out of circulation for a while. Got a whole new/used car out of that one). The comfort one draws from the fact that neither of them was my fault is surprisingly small. . .
The actual damage to my car was pretty minimal, really - a cracked rear trim panel (which, for such a small car as mine, is an impressively large hunk of plastic), and that's about it. The trunk opens and closes normally. As I sit here, I'm debating whether to even fix it, or just cover the cracked part with ductape and save the deductible.
So, how was your Wednesday?
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And, all prior ambivalence aside, three weeks ago, we welcomed our new grandson, 6F's little guy, into the world. Cute as a bug, he is, and just like that, he's won his way into our hearts.
Lord, have mercy, and bless him, and his parents, with a good life. Together.
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Ice-pocalypse!
We had an ice storm in these parts over the past weekend. It left, as ice storms will, a coating of ice (about 1/4-inch thick) on everything that wasn't sheltered from the falling freezing droplets. Most especially the trees, which produces a starkly beautiful effect once the storm has passed, and the sun returns, its rays creating a delightful aura of refracted light from the icy coating on the branches. Simply beautiful.
But of course, that icy coating is not weightless, and the subsidiary effect of coating tree branches in ice is that a non-trivial number of those branches will break under the stress of the excess weight. And some of those branches will take power/phone lines with them as they fall. The local news reports say that 30,000 residents of the metro area (which comprises about a quarter-million souls altogether) were without power as of Sunday afternoon.
We, thankfully, did not lose power, but several of our friends, and even neighbors within just a couple blocks of us, did (and I suppose I don't really need to say that the last few days before Christmas is a particularly nasty time to be losing power; to say nothing of the cold snap that blew in after the ice had done its business). And so it came to pass that, yesterday afternoon, Jen's mom and her husband came knocking on our door, along with an armload of cell phones and iPads needing to be charged. Of course, we were happy to have them visit us, and use our intact power to re-establish their ability to communicate with the outside world. And just to thaw out for a few hours, since the loss of power also rendered their furnace non-functional, and the indoor temperature of their house had dropped to around 50F.
After their phones and devices were all duly recharged, they bid us adieu and returned home, and within minutes, our phone rang again. This time, it was our close friends, the husband of whom was my Best Man, that large fractional century in the past. They were wondering if they could come and hang with us for a few hours, recharge their own devices, and possibly warm their own toes to a more comfortable thermal level. When they offered to bring beer. . . well, how could we refuse? They came, and we enjoyed an evening of unplanned, relaxed fellowship (over beer, wine, and gin-and-tonics by the time the night was done). The whole day turned into one of hidden blessings in the wake of physical hardship, and we were blessed to be able to provide a bit of comfort to our friends in their time of trial, and it was a blessing for us, just to spend some time with them, enjoying their company, that we hadn't remotely planned on.
-------------------------
It reminds me of a time, maybe 15 years or so ago, that we lost power for a day-and-a-half, back in our previous house, when a heavy, wet snow fell just before Halloween, before many of the leaves had fallen from the trees. The first night without power was a cool adventure, as we scurried around looking for candles (and wishing that we'd bought those camping lanterns that we'd considered), and being thankful that we hadn't tossed our old cord-style phone when we bought the cordless. The water heater worked, even if the furnace didn't, and so we could cycle everyone through the shower every few hours (and Jen and I even got to enjoy the old hippie adage about showering with a friend) (or, you know, in our case, your spouse). Pulling fun out of difficulty, making lemonade out of our lemons, and all that.
When we got to the second night, the sheen of fun was starting to wear thin, and we were most definitely ready for our adventure to be over. Even so, we went to bed still without power (and I freely admit that Jen and I had it better than the kids did, though we wouldn't have minded a bit if they had wanted to bunk in together to share body heat). Sometime around midnight, the lights, whose switches we had forgotten to turn off, came abruptly, and we heard the clunky sound of our furnace coming back to life. After a brief round of rejoicing, we went through the house, turning off lights and blowing out candles, and went back to bed, happy to return to the warm and comfortable status quo.
But that was late October; and it was only 36 hours. The inside temperature of our house may have fallen below 60F, but it was comparatively short-lived. Some of our friends and neighbors are going into their fourth night of darkness and cold, and the weather forecast is colder, with overnight lows around 10-12F. People are talking about putting antifreeze in toilets and drains, and faucets are dripping all over town, to keep pipes from freezing. This is hardship of a deeper order than we ever faced. And humbling, to realize that the Universe has the last word, no matter how our technology manages to buffer us from its harsher edges. . . most of the time. . .
But of course, that icy coating is not weightless, and the subsidiary effect of coating tree branches in ice is that a non-trivial number of those branches will break under the stress of the excess weight. And some of those branches will take power/phone lines with them as they fall. The local news reports say that 30,000 residents of the metro area (which comprises about a quarter-million souls altogether) were without power as of Sunday afternoon.
We, thankfully, did not lose power, but several of our friends, and even neighbors within just a couple blocks of us, did (and I suppose I don't really need to say that the last few days before Christmas is a particularly nasty time to be losing power; to say nothing of the cold snap that blew in after the ice had done its business). And so it came to pass that, yesterday afternoon, Jen's mom and her husband came knocking on our door, along with an armload of cell phones and iPads needing to be charged. Of course, we were happy to have them visit us, and use our intact power to re-establish their ability to communicate with the outside world. And just to thaw out for a few hours, since the loss of power also rendered their furnace non-functional, and the indoor temperature of their house had dropped to around 50F.
After their phones and devices were all duly recharged, they bid us adieu and returned home, and within minutes, our phone rang again. This time, it was our close friends, the husband of whom was my Best Man, that large fractional century in the past. They were wondering if they could come and hang with us for a few hours, recharge their own devices, and possibly warm their own toes to a more comfortable thermal level. When they offered to bring beer. . . well, how could we refuse? They came, and we enjoyed an evening of unplanned, relaxed fellowship (over beer, wine, and gin-and-tonics by the time the night was done). The whole day turned into one of hidden blessings in the wake of physical hardship, and we were blessed to be able to provide a bit of comfort to our friends in their time of trial, and it was a blessing for us, just to spend some time with them, enjoying their company, that we hadn't remotely planned on.
-------------------------
It reminds me of a time, maybe 15 years or so ago, that we lost power for a day-and-a-half, back in our previous house, when a heavy, wet snow fell just before Halloween, before many of the leaves had fallen from the trees. The first night without power was a cool adventure, as we scurried around looking for candles (and wishing that we'd bought those camping lanterns that we'd considered), and being thankful that we hadn't tossed our old cord-style phone when we bought the cordless. The water heater worked, even if the furnace didn't, and so we could cycle everyone through the shower every few hours (and Jen and I even got to enjoy the old hippie adage about showering with a friend) (or, you know, in our case, your spouse). Pulling fun out of difficulty, making lemonade out of our lemons, and all that.
When we got to the second night, the sheen of fun was starting to wear thin, and we were most definitely ready for our adventure to be over. Even so, we went to bed still without power (and I freely admit that Jen and I had it better than the kids did, though we wouldn't have minded a bit if they had wanted to bunk in together to share body heat). Sometime around midnight, the lights, whose switches we had forgotten to turn off, came abruptly, and we heard the clunky sound of our furnace coming back to life. After a brief round of rejoicing, we went through the house, turning off lights and blowing out candles, and went back to bed, happy to return to the warm and comfortable status quo.
But that was late October; and it was only 36 hours. The inside temperature of our house may have fallen below 60F, but it was comparatively short-lived. Some of our friends and neighbors are going into their fourth night of darkness and cold, and the weather forecast is colder, with overnight lows around 10-12F. People are talking about putting antifreeze in toilets and drains, and faucets are dripping all over town, to keep pipes from freezing. This is hardship of a deeper order than we ever faced. And humbling, to realize that the Universe has the last word, no matter how our technology manages to buffer us from its harsher edges. . . most of the time. . .
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Slip Slidin' Away
I grew up way Up North in Michigan, and snow was a major feature of my entire childhood. In a typical year, the first snow came around the beginning of November, and it was usually right around Thanksgiving that the snow stayed on the ground, and didn't melt away in the next day's sunlight. By Christmas, we typically had a foot or more on the ground, and all through January and February, the snow cover averaged around one-and-a-half to two feet. The sidewalks were little miniature canyons, and the piles of snow left after the streets were plowed often rendered the street invisible from the sidewalk, and vice-versa. One year (I think it was January of '71), we had a pair of freak lake-effect blizzards in the same week that dumped 42 inches on us, which, because of drifting, etc, necessitated digging tunnels to the entrances of the high school.
So, yeah. . . snow. Which meant that snow-fun, such as sledding, was a main staple of wintertime recreation (we also enjoyed skating; our town was a hotbed of speedskating in my childhood, in the aftermath of Terry McDermott's Olympic medals; nowadays, they're more into hockey).
When our family first moved Up North, in the fall of '63, I went to a 'rural' school, since we lived on the lakeshore, 7-8 miles out of town. The school grounds were expansive. There was a small, blacktopped 'playground' close to the school building, with the requisite four-square and hop-scotch courts painted onto the blacktop, the standard swingsets and monkey-bars. And there was a large, open field, surrounded by woods. The woods were actually on school property; somewhere 50 yards or so into the woods, there was a wire fence marking the limit of the school grounds. At the boundary between the large open field and the woods, there was a five-or-six-foot rise. So we would cross the field, climb a little ridge, and be in the woods. It's hard to convey how incredibly cool recess was at that school. . .
When the snow fell, the six-foot ridge was laboriously converted into a long row of ice-slides. At the first recess after a big snow, dozens of kids would run out across the field to the ridge, form little teams of 5-10 kids, and begin stomping up and down the ridge, packing the snow down, and ultimately polishing it into an icy glare. By the end of the day, there would be 10 or 15 icy chutes distributed along the ridge, and for the rest of the winter, we'd spend recess sliding down the ice-slides in every configuration we could think of - face-up, face-down, standing (surfing, if you will), two of us one-on-top-of-the-other, etc, etc, etc. It was pure wonderfulness.
Even on the blacktopped playground, kids would stomp back and forth, creating a 30-foot-long frozen slip-n-slide. So when recess came, we'd line up, get a running start, and slide on our bellies across the ice. Or, some of the baseball players would practice sliding into second base. We weren't supposed to slide standing up, but we always did, when we thought the playground-teacher wasn't looking. And every once in a while, somebody would slip and whack their head on the ice-covered blacktop, and win a trip to the school nurse, and a few punitive lost recesses. But, to my knowledge, no-one ever died, or suffered permanent brain damage (but hey, this was the early 60s; we still rode in the backs of pickup trucks, and seatbelts were just appearing for the first time).
-------------------------
The best, most excellent sledding action to be found in our area was at a place called Manning Hill, which was maybe 15-20 miles west of town. I'm sure that Manning Hill has grown in my memory over the years, to where it is, by now, on a par with Pike's Peak. But I've been by Manning Hill in the last 10 years, and it's still a pretty impressive bump; maybe a couple hundred vertical feet from base to top. We'd pull off the main highway into a parking lot, grab our sleds and commence the long uphill trek to the top of the hill. On a good sledding day (a sunny day in the 20s, so the snow wouldn't get soft and slushy), there would be a hundred or more kids on Manning Hill. Roughly half of their parents would just bring a newspaper and sit in the car; the hardier half would accompany their kids up the hill, and occasionally grab a seat on a down-bound toboggan. My folks were generally of the climb-the-hill-with-the-kids persuasion, although they didn't slide downhill much.
In linear terms, the sledding run down the front of the hill was somewhere between a quarter-mile and a half-mile. If the snow was soft and fluffy, you might go most of the way down the run before you came to a stop. If it was hard and slick, you might make it all the way down to the parking lot; there was a steep upturn at the bottom of the hill, so no-one would ever end up sliding into the parking lot ('cuz, you know, that just wouldn't be good. . .) When your downhill run finally slid to a halt, you'd get up off your sled and begin the long trudge back to the top of the hill. You might spend 3-4 hours at Manning Hill, and make 10 or 12 downhill runs. Each run would last a minute or so; if you really managed to milk it, you might get two minutes of adrenaline rush. Then it would take 10 or 15 minutes to climb back to the top of the hill (it only seemed like two days).
There were toboggans, which were cool, because you could get four or five people on the same ride, and you were (generally) sitting upright. There were a few saucers (aluminum ones, not the plastic ones you see today). Some kids just brought an old cardboard box with 'em, and I was always impressed at how much fun there was to be had from a simple cardboard box sliding downhill.
But by far, the preferred sleds were the vaunted old Radio Flyers - the steel runners with a wooden-slat surface on which to ride, and the wooden cross-bar to steer with. The preferred configuration was to lie on your belly and steer with your hands, but some kids would sit upright and steer with their feet. And of course, tandem pairs of kids would lie one-on-top-of-the-other. The added weight meant you could go faster, but every bump and divot in the sliding surface meant that the kid on the bottom got the wind knocked out of him as the kid on top slammed down on him.
-------------------------
One year, I think when I was in junior-high or high school, we had an absolutely perfect sledding day - it was bright and sunny, with temperatures in the upper 20s. So, as long as we stayed active, we weren't going to get frozen, and the snow would be hard, but the bright sun would make for a slick crust on the top of the snow surface. Oh, the sledding was fast that day. The first time I went down the hill, I flew. I felt like I was an airplane coming in for a landing as I zipped down the hill at half the speed of sound; I could feel the pressure waves building up in front of me, I was going so fast. I had to look far down the hill ahead of myself to plan my steering moves, and hope that no kids at the bottom of the hill decided to wander across the main sledding lane. I didn't come to rest until I rocked up onto the incline at the edge of the parking lot. It was incredible!
Our whole family was there, and my brother and I were quickly engaged in various contests and races. It was the greatest day of sledding in my whole life. I don't know how many hours were actually spent there, but I'd have been willing to keep going by starlight, if they'd let me.
At one point, in the later afternoon, my brother and I were standing on the top of the hill, catching our breath after our most-recent uphill trek, and preparing for our next high-speed descent. As we huffed and puffed, we looked around, taking in the scenery from the top of the hill, from whence we could see a surprising distance over the surrounding countryside. At one point, we were facing away from the front of the hill, where everybody was sledding, when we noticed, for the first time, the back side of the hill. It was steep at the top, just like the front, but about halfway down, the slope became more gradual, and it continued on for a long way - MUCH farther than we could go on the normal run on the front side. There were even a few sled-tracks running down the back side, so it wasn't like you couldn't sled back there.
My brother and I looked at each other, an unspoken 'You wanna?' passing between us. We didn't say a word, just set our sleds on the brow of the hill, pointing down the back run. This was gonna be cool. . .
We pushed off, and instantly, we were flying! My brother would pull ahead of me by a foot or so, then I'd catch back up and nudge ahead, and we just kept going. It was the most incredible run either of us had ever had. At some point, I was aware that, if we'd been on the front side of the hill, our run would be over, but we were still flying, the wind peeling our cheeks back, adrenaline still pumping through our veins.
Our speed dropped off, just a bit, as we continued onto the more gradual slope halfway down, but at that point, it became a contest just to see who could keep going the longest, and run the farthest down the hill, more than simply who could go the fastest. Even so, my brother and I were eyeing each other, one of us, and then the other, nudging ahead by a few inches as we continued downward.
After a certain point, I looked ahead, and saw a fence. When we were at the top of the hill, the fence had seemed ridiculously far away, that we could never go that far. But now, it seemed quite possible that the fence would come into play before our run was over. I looked along the fence, and saw a gap, maybe ten feet wide, with two large maple trees marking the edges of the gap. The fence went up to the maple tree on either side, and whoever had built the fence had decided not to fill in the gap with an extra ten feet of fencing. So I began to steer myself toward the gap in the fence, just in case I still had some speed left when I got there.
My brother saw what I was doing, and quickly ascertained that he should steer toward the gap, as well. And we continued sliding down the hill. We were still going fast enough, though, that our 'steering margin of error' was still pretty comparable to the width of the gap, and I began to get nervous as to whether I would be able to actually hit the gap or not. My brother's sled moved closer to mine, and we began to bump each other sideways with the realization that it was gonna be a pretty close thing for both of us to shoot the gap together.
Finally, we were in the last few yards, still moving at a rapid clip, and I smiled to myself as I realized that, yes, by golly, I was indeed going to hit the center of the gap. I sailed on through, between the two huge trees, and found myself cruising across virgin snow at the back of some farmer's field, and I only made it 20 or 30 yards into the field before I slid to a halt.
But where was my brother? I looked around, and then I saw him, lying face-up in the gap between the trees, but I couldn't see his sled. I grabbed the lanyard on my own sled, and trudged back to where he was laying. As I approached, he looked up at me.
"Are you OK?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"What happened?"
"I had to bail."
"Where's your sled?"
He rolled over, looking toward the tree that had been on the left side of the gap as we approached. There was his sled, a small dimple in the metal framework at the front of his sled.
"I was gonna hit the tree," he said, "so I had to bail. The sled hit the tree. I hope it still works."
We picked it up and gave it a quick inspection. It looked like it might be slightly bent, so we torqued on it, to try and un-bend it. Then we set it back upright. It seemed to sit flat on the surface, so we pronounced it OK.
Then, we turned and looked back toward the hill, which was much farther away than we'd ever seen it, having never been down the back side before. It was gonna be at least a half-hour trudge back to the top.
So, we adjusted our mittens and our stocking-hats, grabbed the lanyards to our sleds and began our wintry trek back up the hill.
"Coolest. . . run. . . ever. . ." my brother smiled.
"Yeah," I said, "and I won. . ."
So, yeah. . . snow. Which meant that snow-fun, such as sledding, was a main staple of wintertime recreation (we also enjoyed skating; our town was a hotbed of speedskating in my childhood, in the aftermath of Terry McDermott's Olympic medals; nowadays, they're more into hockey).
When our family first moved Up North, in the fall of '63, I went to a 'rural' school, since we lived on the lakeshore, 7-8 miles out of town. The school grounds were expansive. There was a small, blacktopped 'playground' close to the school building, with the requisite four-square and hop-scotch courts painted onto the blacktop, the standard swingsets and monkey-bars. And there was a large, open field, surrounded by woods. The woods were actually on school property; somewhere 50 yards or so into the woods, there was a wire fence marking the limit of the school grounds. At the boundary between the large open field and the woods, there was a five-or-six-foot rise. So we would cross the field, climb a little ridge, and be in the woods. It's hard to convey how incredibly cool recess was at that school. . .
When the snow fell, the six-foot ridge was laboriously converted into a long row of ice-slides. At the first recess after a big snow, dozens of kids would run out across the field to the ridge, form little teams of 5-10 kids, and begin stomping up and down the ridge, packing the snow down, and ultimately polishing it into an icy glare. By the end of the day, there would be 10 or 15 icy chutes distributed along the ridge, and for the rest of the winter, we'd spend recess sliding down the ice-slides in every configuration we could think of - face-up, face-down, standing (surfing, if you will), two of us one-on-top-of-the-other, etc, etc, etc. It was pure wonderfulness.
Even on the blacktopped playground, kids would stomp back and forth, creating a 30-foot-long frozen slip-n-slide. So when recess came, we'd line up, get a running start, and slide on our bellies across the ice. Or, some of the baseball players would practice sliding into second base. We weren't supposed to slide standing up, but we always did, when we thought the playground-teacher wasn't looking. And every once in a while, somebody would slip and whack their head on the ice-covered blacktop, and win a trip to the school nurse, and a few punitive lost recesses. But, to my knowledge, no-one ever died, or suffered permanent brain damage (but hey, this was the early 60s; we still rode in the backs of pickup trucks, and seatbelts were just appearing for the first time).
-------------------------
The best, most excellent sledding action to be found in our area was at a place called Manning Hill, which was maybe 15-20 miles west of town. I'm sure that Manning Hill has grown in my memory over the years, to where it is, by now, on a par with Pike's Peak. But I've been by Manning Hill in the last 10 years, and it's still a pretty impressive bump; maybe a couple hundred vertical feet from base to top. We'd pull off the main highway into a parking lot, grab our sleds and commence the long uphill trek to the top of the hill. On a good sledding day (a sunny day in the 20s, so the snow wouldn't get soft and slushy), there would be a hundred or more kids on Manning Hill. Roughly half of their parents would just bring a newspaper and sit in the car; the hardier half would accompany their kids up the hill, and occasionally grab a seat on a down-bound toboggan. My folks were generally of the climb-the-hill-with-the-kids persuasion, although they didn't slide downhill much.
In linear terms, the sledding run down the front of the hill was somewhere between a quarter-mile and a half-mile. If the snow was soft and fluffy, you might go most of the way down the run before you came to a stop. If it was hard and slick, you might make it all the way down to the parking lot; there was a steep upturn at the bottom of the hill, so no-one would ever end up sliding into the parking lot ('cuz, you know, that just wouldn't be good. . .) When your downhill run finally slid to a halt, you'd get up off your sled and begin the long trudge back to the top of the hill. You might spend 3-4 hours at Manning Hill, and make 10 or 12 downhill runs. Each run would last a minute or so; if you really managed to milk it, you might get two minutes of adrenaline rush. Then it would take 10 or 15 minutes to climb back to the top of the hill (it only seemed like two days).
There were toboggans, which were cool, because you could get four or five people on the same ride, and you were (generally) sitting upright. There were a few saucers (aluminum ones, not the plastic ones you see today). Some kids just brought an old cardboard box with 'em, and I was always impressed at how much fun there was to be had from a simple cardboard box sliding downhill.
But by far, the preferred sleds were the vaunted old Radio Flyers - the steel runners with a wooden-slat surface on which to ride, and the wooden cross-bar to steer with. The preferred configuration was to lie on your belly and steer with your hands, but some kids would sit upright and steer with their feet. And of course, tandem pairs of kids would lie one-on-top-of-the-other. The added weight meant you could go faster, but every bump and divot in the sliding surface meant that the kid on the bottom got the wind knocked out of him as the kid on top slammed down on him.
-------------------------
One year, I think when I was in junior-high or high school, we had an absolutely perfect sledding day - it was bright and sunny, with temperatures in the upper 20s. So, as long as we stayed active, we weren't going to get frozen, and the snow would be hard, but the bright sun would make for a slick crust on the top of the snow surface. Oh, the sledding was fast that day. The first time I went down the hill, I flew. I felt like I was an airplane coming in for a landing as I zipped down the hill at half the speed of sound; I could feel the pressure waves building up in front of me, I was going so fast. I had to look far down the hill ahead of myself to plan my steering moves, and hope that no kids at the bottom of the hill decided to wander across the main sledding lane. I didn't come to rest until I rocked up onto the incline at the edge of the parking lot. It was incredible!
Our whole family was there, and my brother and I were quickly engaged in various contests and races. It was the greatest day of sledding in my whole life. I don't know how many hours were actually spent there, but I'd have been willing to keep going by starlight, if they'd let me.
At one point, in the later afternoon, my brother and I were standing on the top of the hill, catching our breath after our most-recent uphill trek, and preparing for our next high-speed descent. As we huffed and puffed, we looked around, taking in the scenery from the top of the hill, from whence we could see a surprising distance over the surrounding countryside. At one point, we were facing away from the front of the hill, where everybody was sledding, when we noticed, for the first time, the back side of the hill. It was steep at the top, just like the front, but about halfway down, the slope became more gradual, and it continued on for a long way - MUCH farther than we could go on the normal run on the front side. There were even a few sled-tracks running down the back side, so it wasn't like you couldn't sled back there.
My brother and I looked at each other, an unspoken 'You wanna?' passing between us. We didn't say a word, just set our sleds on the brow of the hill, pointing down the back run. This was gonna be cool. . .
We pushed off, and instantly, we were flying! My brother would pull ahead of me by a foot or so, then I'd catch back up and nudge ahead, and we just kept going. It was the most incredible run either of us had ever had. At some point, I was aware that, if we'd been on the front side of the hill, our run would be over, but we were still flying, the wind peeling our cheeks back, adrenaline still pumping through our veins.
Our speed dropped off, just a bit, as we continued onto the more gradual slope halfway down, but at that point, it became a contest just to see who could keep going the longest, and run the farthest down the hill, more than simply who could go the fastest. Even so, my brother and I were eyeing each other, one of us, and then the other, nudging ahead by a few inches as we continued downward.
After a certain point, I looked ahead, and saw a fence. When we were at the top of the hill, the fence had seemed ridiculously far away, that we could never go that far. But now, it seemed quite possible that the fence would come into play before our run was over. I looked along the fence, and saw a gap, maybe ten feet wide, with two large maple trees marking the edges of the gap. The fence went up to the maple tree on either side, and whoever had built the fence had decided not to fill in the gap with an extra ten feet of fencing. So I began to steer myself toward the gap in the fence, just in case I still had some speed left when I got there.
My brother saw what I was doing, and quickly ascertained that he should steer toward the gap, as well. And we continued sliding down the hill. We were still going fast enough, though, that our 'steering margin of error' was still pretty comparable to the width of the gap, and I began to get nervous as to whether I would be able to actually hit the gap or not. My brother's sled moved closer to mine, and we began to bump each other sideways with the realization that it was gonna be a pretty close thing for both of us to shoot the gap together.
Finally, we were in the last few yards, still moving at a rapid clip, and I smiled to myself as I realized that, yes, by golly, I was indeed going to hit the center of the gap. I sailed on through, between the two huge trees, and found myself cruising across virgin snow at the back of some farmer's field, and I only made it 20 or 30 yards into the field before I slid to a halt.
But where was my brother? I looked around, and then I saw him, lying face-up in the gap between the trees, but I couldn't see his sled. I grabbed the lanyard on my own sled, and trudged back to where he was laying. As I approached, he looked up at me.
"Are you OK?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"What happened?"
"I had to bail."
"Where's your sled?"
He rolled over, looking toward the tree that had been on the left side of the gap as we approached. There was his sled, a small dimple in the metal framework at the front of his sled.
"I was gonna hit the tree," he said, "so I had to bail. The sled hit the tree. I hope it still works."
We picked it up and gave it a quick inspection. It looked like it might be slightly bent, so we torqued on it, to try and un-bend it. Then we set it back upright. It seemed to sit flat on the surface, so we pronounced it OK.
Then, we turned and looked back toward the hill, which was much farther away than we'd ever seen it, having never been down the back side before. It was gonna be at least a half-hour trudge back to the top.
So, we adjusted our mittens and our stocking-hats, grabbed the lanyards to our sleds and began our wintry trek back up the hill.
"Coolest. . . run. . . ever. . ." my brother smiled.
"Yeah," I said, "and I won. . ."
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Winter Miles
Yesterday, it was in the mid-40s (F) here, warm and sunny, the nicest day of a whole week of nice days, which, taken together, served to rid the ground here (and, what is more to the point for my purposes in this post, the roads) of the six inches or so of snow that we got a week-and-a-half ago. So (you knew I was gonna get around to this, didn't you?), I got to go out on my bike. 14 miles. In February. Which I haven't done in many, many years. Woo-hoo!
Together with the 39 miles I got out on the road in January, I now have 53 miles for 2012, which is fairly typical for my total by the end of March. Add that to the 56 miles I got to ride in December, and I've done over 100 miles in the three winter months, during which any miles at all are pure gravy. So, 100 miles of gravy; and there's still three more weekends left in February. I checked my records, and the last time I actually got out on the road in each of December, January and February was '91-'92. Just to time-scale it for you, Jen was newly pregnant with the fifth of our eight children at the time. So, you know, it's been a while. . .
I've got a decent stationary bike that I typically use in the winter months. It's not so bad, to spin the pedals while I watch a football or basketball game, with snow blanketing the ground. But it's nothing like actually getting out on the road. The first few miles, my legs, and even more, my lungs, are getting used to the idea of working quite that hard again. But once they get 'dialed back in', it's just pure joy to be out in the fresh air and sunshine.
The cynical part of me wonders how many feet of snow we'll get in March and April, to take back the miles that the mild winter has given. But, you know, tomorrow's troubles are enough for tomorrow. Or something like that. . .
-------------------------
And, since today is Super Bowl Sunday (and whoop-de-freakin'-doo, eh?), I'll re-post, at no extra charge, my recipe for Jalapeño Cheese Dip, which has become a traditional staple of SBs at our house:
1 24oz container cottage cheese
1 16oz container sour cream
Together with the 39 miles I got out on the road in January, I now have 53 miles for 2012, which is fairly typical for my total by the end of March. Add that to the 56 miles I got to ride in December, and I've done over 100 miles in the three winter months, during which any miles at all are pure gravy. So, 100 miles of gravy; and there's still three more weekends left in February. I checked my records, and the last time I actually got out on the road in each of December, January and February was '91-'92. Just to time-scale it for you, Jen was newly pregnant with the fifth of our eight children at the time. So, you know, it's been a while. . .
I've got a decent stationary bike that I typically use in the winter months. It's not so bad, to spin the pedals while I watch a football or basketball game, with snow blanketing the ground. But it's nothing like actually getting out on the road. The first few miles, my legs, and even more, my lungs, are getting used to the idea of working quite that hard again. But once they get 'dialed back in', it's just pure joy to be out in the fresh air and sunshine.
The cynical part of me wonders how many feet of snow we'll get in March and April, to take back the miles that the mild winter has given. But, you know, tomorrow's troubles are enough for tomorrow. Or something like that. . .
-------------------------
And, since today is Super Bowl Sunday (and whoop-de-freakin'-doo, eh?), I'll re-post, at no extra charge, my recipe for Jalapeño Cheese Dip, which has become a traditional staple of SBs at our house:
1 24oz container cottage cheese
1 16oz container sour cream
(just recently, we've taken to substituting plain Greek yogurt)
2 cups shredded cheese – Monterrey Jack or mozzarella
(Pepper Jack is also good)
3-5 chopped green onions or scallions
3-5 garlic toes, pressed or minced
1-3 jalapeño peppers, chopped
(mix in a habañero pepper for a hotter bite)
(This is the basic recipe; we have also occasionally added other ingredients, like salsa, chili powder, or cayenne powder, as variations; feel free to be as creative as you feel like)
Combine ingredients at least 24 hours before serving, and refrigerate; serve with tortilla chips (we like blue corn best, but we’re not dogmatic about it), and DON’T rub your eyes (or any other 'sensitive tissues') without first washing your hands, preferably a few times. . .
2 cups shredded cheese – Monterrey Jack or mozzarella
(Pepper Jack is also good)
3-5 chopped green onions or scallions
3-5 garlic toes, pressed or minced
1-3 jalapeño peppers, chopped
(mix in a habañero pepper for a hotter bite)
(This is the basic recipe; we have also occasionally added other ingredients, like salsa, chili powder, or cayenne powder, as variations; feel free to be as creative as you feel like)
Combine ingredients at least 24 hours before serving, and refrigerate; serve with tortilla chips (we like blue corn best, but we’re not dogmatic about it), and DON’T rub your eyes (or any other 'sensitive tissues') without first washing your hands, preferably a few times. . .
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Baby, It's Cold Outside
My friend Lime has posted about dear friends of hers from Trinidad who came to visit over the Christmas holidays. Trinidad qualifies to be called 'tropical', and her guests had explicitly hoped to share a White Christmas with Lime and her family (alas, if the weather in Lime-ville is anything like it is in Our Town, that may have been a forlorn hope). But actual snow on the ground and in the air, such as is typically to be found where the Lime family lives, qualifies as a major novelty for most Trinidadians.
Besides which, it reminds me of a story or two from my own young life. . .
-------------------------
At the university I attended, there was a dormitory that was more-or-less reserved for housing foreign graduate students, and late every fall, with the first significant snowfall, a wonderful scene unfolded as dozens of African, South-Asian and Latin-American grad students would gather on the lawn, snapping photos of each other in the first actual snow any of them had actually seen in their lives.
There was another graduate student at my school in those days, not foreign, but American-born, who was known campus-wide (and it was a very wide campus) as The Mad Hawaiian. He was, as the nickname might imply, a native of Hawaii, and when he arrived on campus, he didn't even have a pair of long pants to his name. Now, one might presume that a Hawaiian coming to live in Michigan, in all its wintry wonderful-ness, might, soon after his arrival, equip himself with some typical Michigan-type winter-compatible clothing. But not The Mad Hawaiian; he reasoned to himself that 'cold is just a state of mind', and why should he spend a big wad of money on clothes, anyway? (He was studying Computer Science; 'nuff said.) And so, in the bleak mid-winter, with snow and wind and sub-freezing temperatures, The Mad Hawaiian could be seen walking around campus in a T-shirt and shorts. . .
(As a footnote, some years later, a friend of ours, who hadn't attended our university, and had only moved to Our Town after Jen and I had long since graduated, told us about this unusual guy he worked with, whom everyone called The Mad Hawaiian. I couldn't believe my ears, and double-checked the name, and it was indeed the very self-same Mad Hawaiian. I aksed if he dressed unusually, and he said no, it being a somewhat professional business office, he was obliged to wear long pants and a collared shirt. Which seemed a little disappointing, somewhow. . .)
-------------------------
Our family hosted a Nigerian grad student, years ago. It was a wonderful experience for us, to spend a year getting to know a man from a culture very different than our own. It was delightful just to sit with him and talk for hours about life in Nigeria, and his hopes and aspirations for when he returned (he was married, with four children, so his presence at an American university was a huge sacrifice, not just for him, but for his wife and kids, as well). He came from northern Nigeria, which is a predominantly-Muslim part of the country, and he told us some eye-opening (and occasionally hair-raising) stories about living as a Christian in the midst of a Muslim majority. The Nigerian Students Association on campus held a few events during the year, to which our family was invited as esteemed guests, and treated to authentic Nigerian cuisine (of which exotically-spiced cream-of-wheat seems to be a staple).
Over Christmas, the folks who were sponsoring his studies (a missionary society; he was getting a degree in counseling to benefit his church back home) brought his wife over to spend the holidays with him, and they were both grateful for the opportunity to spend a couple weeks together in the midst of the long grind of his studies. It was the first time she had ever been out of Nigeria, to say nothing of America, or even The West more generally.
-----
A brief aside - several of our friends have hosted foreign students over the years, mostly from Latin America. Since the American school year encompasses the cold-weather months, they always tell their guests to be sure to pack a warm coat. Which, to the ears of someone from, say, Costa Rica, evokes what Americans would call a 'wind-breaker' - a light jacket, suitable for spring or fall. But in Latin America, it is 'a warm coat', and is only worn on extremely cold days, when the air temperature drops below 15C (59F). One poor girl got off her plane in the midst of a raging blizzard, with snow, below-zero (F) temperatures and howling wind. When her hosts saw her 'warm coat', they took her immediately to buy a REAL 'warm coat', before they even took her home.
Another family we know hosted a student from New Zealand (the South Island, which is the colder of the two). He arrived in October, and stayed for six months, returning home in April. But, New Zealand being in the Southern Hemisphere, the poor fellow lived through 18 consecutive months of winter (or something close to it). . .
-----
So, returning to our Nigerian student's wife. . . As it turned out, we proceeded to have a record-breaking cold snap the whole time she was here - below-zero temperatures virtually every day of her two-week stay. There is absolutely nothing in the experience of any Nigerian that would remotely prepare them for below-freezing temperatures; but this was cold that made even us hardy northerners shiver. The poor woman wore about five layers of sweaters and thermal long-johns, and I don't think she ever got warm, the whole time she was here. Even sitting in our dining room, next to the heat duct, and near the stove, she would just sit shivering. We felt terrible that we couldn't do something to relieve her discomfort. And of course, the cold broke the day she flew out. . .
Besides which, it reminds me of a story or two from my own young life. . .
-------------------------
At the university I attended, there was a dormitory that was more-or-less reserved for housing foreign graduate students, and late every fall, with the first significant snowfall, a wonderful scene unfolded as dozens of African, South-Asian and Latin-American grad students would gather on the lawn, snapping photos of each other in the first actual snow any of them had actually seen in their lives.
There was another graduate student at my school in those days, not foreign, but American-born, who was known campus-wide (and it was a very wide campus) as The Mad Hawaiian. He was, as the nickname might imply, a native of Hawaii, and when he arrived on campus, he didn't even have a pair of long pants to his name. Now, one might presume that a Hawaiian coming to live in Michigan, in all its wintry wonderful-ness, might, soon after his arrival, equip himself with some typical Michigan-type winter-compatible clothing. But not The Mad Hawaiian; he reasoned to himself that 'cold is just a state of mind', and why should he spend a big wad of money on clothes, anyway? (He was studying Computer Science; 'nuff said.) And so, in the bleak mid-winter, with snow and wind and sub-freezing temperatures, The Mad Hawaiian could be seen walking around campus in a T-shirt and shorts. . .
(As a footnote, some years later, a friend of ours, who hadn't attended our university, and had only moved to Our Town after Jen and I had long since graduated, told us about this unusual guy he worked with, whom everyone called The Mad Hawaiian. I couldn't believe my ears, and double-checked the name, and it was indeed the very self-same Mad Hawaiian. I aksed if he dressed unusually, and he said no, it being a somewhat professional business office, he was obliged to wear long pants and a collared shirt. Which seemed a little disappointing, somewhow. . .)
-------------------------
Our family hosted a Nigerian grad student, years ago. It was a wonderful experience for us, to spend a year getting to know a man from a culture very different than our own. It was delightful just to sit with him and talk for hours about life in Nigeria, and his hopes and aspirations for when he returned (he was married, with four children, so his presence at an American university was a huge sacrifice, not just for him, but for his wife and kids, as well). He came from northern Nigeria, which is a predominantly-Muslim part of the country, and he told us some eye-opening (and occasionally hair-raising) stories about living as a Christian in the midst of a Muslim majority. The Nigerian Students Association on campus held a few events during the year, to which our family was invited as esteemed guests, and treated to authentic Nigerian cuisine (of which exotically-spiced cream-of-wheat seems to be a staple).
Over Christmas, the folks who were sponsoring his studies (a missionary society; he was getting a degree in counseling to benefit his church back home) brought his wife over to spend the holidays with him, and they were both grateful for the opportunity to spend a couple weeks together in the midst of the long grind of his studies. It was the first time she had ever been out of Nigeria, to say nothing of America, or even The West more generally.
-----
A brief aside - several of our friends have hosted foreign students over the years, mostly from Latin America. Since the American school year encompasses the cold-weather months, they always tell their guests to be sure to pack a warm coat. Which, to the ears of someone from, say, Costa Rica, evokes what Americans would call a 'wind-breaker' - a light jacket, suitable for spring or fall. But in Latin America, it is 'a warm coat', and is only worn on extremely cold days, when the air temperature drops below 15C (59F). One poor girl got off her plane in the midst of a raging blizzard, with snow, below-zero (F) temperatures and howling wind. When her hosts saw her 'warm coat', they took her immediately to buy a REAL 'warm coat', before they even took her home.
Another family we know hosted a student from New Zealand (the South Island, which is the colder of the two). He arrived in October, and stayed for six months, returning home in April. But, New Zealand being in the Southern Hemisphere, the poor fellow lived through 18 consecutive months of winter (or something close to it). . .
-----
So, returning to our Nigerian student's wife. . . As it turned out, we proceeded to have a record-breaking cold snap the whole time she was here - below-zero temperatures virtually every day of her two-week stay. There is absolutely nothing in the experience of any Nigerian that would remotely prepare them for below-freezing temperatures; but this was cold that made even us hardy northerners shiver. The poor woman wore about five layers of sweaters and thermal long-johns, and I don't think she ever got warm, the whole time she was here. Even sitting in our dining room, next to the heat duct, and near the stove, she would just sit shivering. We felt terrible that we couldn't do something to relieve her discomfort. And of course, the cold broke the day she flew out. . .
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Miles and Miles to Go. . .
For the last five years (roughly coinciding with my renewed commitment to seriously riding my bike), the weather around the turn from November to December has just been uncanny - within a day either side of the First of December, we've gotten the first significant snowfall of the year, which stays on the ground, and marks the change in temperatures from generally above freezing to generally below. Meaning that, once the snow comes to stay, it really stays, and my riding season is effectively ended. Five years in a row. You'd think that, one of those years, the Sender of Snow would slack off just long enough for me to sneak in a quick 15 or 20 miles on the 3rd, or the 5th maybe, but no dice.
So when we had a run of warm weekends this November, I was hopeful that maybe this year, winter would hold off a few days, and I'd be able to get a few December miles in. And all the moreso, since, as of Thanksgiving weekend, I was at 1388 miles for the year, and it would only take a dozen miles for me to pass 1400.
But, when I checked the weather forecast Tuesday afternoon, Our Town was predicted to get 6-10 inches of snow. Which is a lot of snow, especially for the first real snow of the season. I took my laptop home from work, and made arrangements to work from home on Wednesday if the forecast proved accurate. Which it did. The snow started falling Tuesday evening, as I was maybe 20 miles from home at the end of my commute, and it snowed hard all night and into Wednesday morning. When we went out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway, by golly, there was anywhere from six to ten inches of wet, heavy snow on the ground.
So I called my boss, and told him I'd be staying home. He seemed surprised, since where he lived, they'd only gotten a bit more than an inch. So I checked the weather map online, and it turned out that the 'snow belt' ran right up the middle of Michigan's mitten, virtually centered on Our Town. Fifty miles to the east, or fifty miles to the west of us, barely an inch of snow fell, but from the Ohio/Indiana border, running right up the middle of Michigan, it was 6-10.
So I just laughed, and noted ruefully that Wednesday was the Last Day of November. Right on schedule. But Wednesday itself was a pretty warm day, with high temperatures going into the 40s (Fahrenheit), so even by the time we went to bed on Wednesday, there was quite a bit less snow on the ground than there had been that morning. Our street, which is only two blocks long, and a dead end, never did get plowed, but by the end of Wednesday, we had no problem getting in and out with our cars. So, for a 6-10-inch snowfall, it was pretty benign, as such things go.
But of course, there's a big difference between what you can reasonably drive a car through, and what you can reasonably ride a bike in. Patches of ice aren't that big a deal in a car, but on a bike they can be treacherous. And, riding as we do along the edge of the pavement, if the snow significantly impinges on the available pavement, it quickly becomes a pretty dicey situation, sharing even less pavement than usual with the motorized vehicles, which are ten times heavier, and at least three times faster, than I am. So I was not particularly hopeful that I would be able to get a real, outdoors-on-the-pavement ride in.
Thursday and Friday were warm-ish (for December), with high temperatures in the upper 30s (F), which is above freezing, but won't turn snow into water at a very rapid rate. Plus, we got maybe another half-inch or so over Thurday night.
Yesterday morning, it was overcast, but again in the low 40s. I wasn't optimistic, but I really wanted to ride. So, after my usual round of morning errands, I decided to reconnoiter the route I would take if I did ride. And I found that the pavement, for the most part, was clear and dry, especially on the country back roads that I'd mainly be riding on. The busier country roads all have paved shoulders, and even those were clear. The biggest problems were all in the city, and they were manageable, if I just exercised some common-sensical caution.
So I scurried home, got into my 40-degree riding gear (regular riding gear, with an extra pair of wool socks, sweat pants, and a blaze-orange hoodie, and real gloves with fingers and everything) and got out on the road. I had a great ride (especially once I got out of town) - 17 miles, brisk fresh air, and no significant issues with the motor-vehicles. My heart, lungs, and legs hummed happily along, and I even got home in time to get to 7M's basketball game (and before the rain started).
So it's 1405 and counting. I've got one more vacation day left for this year, and I'm thinking of burning it on a 40+-degree day, should one pop up in the middle of the week, and get one more ride in, before I pack it in for the winter, and take my bike for its annual winter tune-up.
Man, this is just more fun than a human being ought to be allowed to have. . .
-------------------------
And alas, my Spartans went down to defeat in the Inaugural Big Ten Championship game last night. Great game, if you didn't care who won; we've had a few of those with the Badgers, in recent years.
(*sigh*)
Honestly, though, in August, I'd never have expected us to be this good again. I figured we'd be good, but our graduation losses from last year's co-championship team, along with a really gruelling schedule, seemed to portend a small regression, at least in the wins and losses. But here we were, playing for another conference championship. Whaddya know. . . maybe, just maybe, we're becoming pretty good.
Wouldn't that be fun?
So when we had a run of warm weekends this November, I was hopeful that maybe this year, winter would hold off a few days, and I'd be able to get a few December miles in. And all the moreso, since, as of Thanksgiving weekend, I was at 1388 miles for the year, and it would only take a dozen miles for me to pass 1400.
But, when I checked the weather forecast Tuesday afternoon, Our Town was predicted to get 6-10 inches of snow. Which is a lot of snow, especially for the first real snow of the season. I took my laptop home from work, and made arrangements to work from home on Wednesday if the forecast proved accurate. Which it did. The snow started falling Tuesday evening, as I was maybe 20 miles from home at the end of my commute, and it snowed hard all night and into Wednesday morning. When we went out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway, by golly, there was anywhere from six to ten inches of wet, heavy snow on the ground.
So I called my boss, and told him I'd be staying home. He seemed surprised, since where he lived, they'd only gotten a bit more than an inch. So I checked the weather map online, and it turned out that the 'snow belt' ran right up the middle of Michigan's mitten, virtually centered on Our Town. Fifty miles to the east, or fifty miles to the west of us, barely an inch of snow fell, but from the Ohio/Indiana border, running right up the middle of Michigan, it was 6-10.
So I just laughed, and noted ruefully that Wednesday was the Last Day of November. Right on schedule. But Wednesday itself was a pretty warm day, with high temperatures going into the 40s (Fahrenheit), so even by the time we went to bed on Wednesday, there was quite a bit less snow on the ground than there had been that morning. Our street, which is only two blocks long, and a dead end, never did get plowed, but by the end of Wednesday, we had no problem getting in and out with our cars. So, for a 6-10-inch snowfall, it was pretty benign, as such things go.
But of course, there's a big difference between what you can reasonably drive a car through, and what you can reasonably ride a bike in. Patches of ice aren't that big a deal in a car, but on a bike they can be treacherous. And, riding as we do along the edge of the pavement, if the snow significantly impinges on the available pavement, it quickly becomes a pretty dicey situation, sharing even less pavement than usual with the motorized vehicles, which are ten times heavier, and at least three times faster, than I am. So I was not particularly hopeful that I would be able to get a real, outdoors-on-the-pavement ride in.
Thursday and Friday were warm-ish (for December), with high temperatures in the upper 30s (F), which is above freezing, but won't turn snow into water at a very rapid rate. Plus, we got maybe another half-inch or so over Thurday night.
Yesterday morning, it was overcast, but again in the low 40s. I wasn't optimistic, but I really wanted to ride. So, after my usual round of morning errands, I decided to reconnoiter the route I would take if I did ride. And I found that the pavement, for the most part, was clear and dry, especially on the country back roads that I'd mainly be riding on. The busier country roads all have paved shoulders, and even those were clear. The biggest problems were all in the city, and they were manageable, if I just exercised some common-sensical caution.
So I scurried home, got into my 40-degree riding gear (regular riding gear, with an extra pair of wool socks, sweat pants, and a blaze-orange hoodie, and real gloves with fingers and everything) and got out on the road. I had a great ride (especially once I got out of town) - 17 miles, brisk fresh air, and no significant issues with the motor-vehicles. My heart, lungs, and legs hummed happily along, and I even got home in time to get to 7M's basketball game (and before the rain started).
So it's 1405 and counting. I've got one more vacation day left for this year, and I'm thinking of burning it on a 40+-degree day, should one pop up in the middle of the week, and get one more ride in, before I pack it in for the winter, and take my bike for its annual winter tune-up.
Man, this is just more fun than a human being ought to be allowed to have. . .
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And alas, my Spartans went down to defeat in the Inaugural Big Ten Championship game last night. Great game, if you didn't care who won; we've had a few of those with the Badgers, in recent years.
(*sigh*)
Honestly, though, in August, I'd never have expected us to be this good again. I figured we'd be good, but our graduation losses from last year's co-championship team, along with a really gruelling schedule, seemed to portend a small regression, at least in the wins and losses. But here we were, playing for another conference championship. Whaddya know. . . maybe, just maybe, we're becoming pretty good.
Wouldn't that be fun?
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