K has pneumonia. An hour in the drugstore yesterday. Waiting waiting waiting. He was not a patient boy. I imagined making a documentary, Drugstore Waiting Area, about an afternoon in the drugstore and all the characters that pass through.
Back on the road. Headed west for a few days. A lot of work. Maybe some cool stuff, just wait and see.
Dusk. Deep in the woods. Quiet. The only sound is the dog padding along beside me in the snow. Climbing up Cottonbrook. Closing down 2011 in a most satisfying way.
I wanted to just keep riding. As darkness fell the snow set up and traction improved. But I had other plans and places to go for New Years Eve, so I turned around and pedaled back to the car.
The inaugural snow bike ride was a success. The bike itself is nothing special, it’s the stock complete Pugsley with a Chris King headset and WTB Deva saddle. It’s not light, 37.25 pounds. But as others have mentioned, it’s fun.
I’ve ridden in snow enough to know how frustrating it can be, but the Pugsley makes it different. Even in the warm smooshy conditions the bike didn’t get bogged down in the slush.
More snow. More adventure. More exploring. Happy new year to everyone.
A quick trip to PA to have more Christmas with my parents. My parents swear they’ve scaled back their Christmas efforts, but their houses were still packed with cookies and candy and crap. I resisted as best as I could and planned to get a couple of good singlespeed rides while I had access to snowless terrain.
climbing the fire road into the bleak winter Trexler landscape
Actually, this was the first time I’d been back on my singlespeed (excepting the ride in TN) since the great groin bruise crash of mid-september. For three and a half months I’ve been riding gears and full suspension, taking it easy, trying to help that groin strain heal up. I’ve mostly succeeded. So, this week was a triumphant return to the singlespeed.
Niner One9
Wednesday was chilly, but the wind was way worse than the cold. Windy, as in the kind of wind that stops all forward progress. I felt sluggish and struggly on the bike and didn’t understand why it was so hard, after all my 22t cog was still on there from the summer. Or was it? Nope, turns out it was a 20t. It didn’t just feel harder because I’m out of shape, it was harder.
Thursday was much colder, not even 30 degrees but no wind. Back over to the trails. Everything felt better and I found my groove. Great ride before packing up and hitting the road back to VT and away from all those cookies. My mom snuck some in my bag, but I’ve got a plan to use those to bribe the bike mechanic later today…
Hope you had a very happy merry whatever you celebrate, or don’t celebrate. Mine was not so bad. Filled with friends and family and food and drink.
Woke up to some fresh snow on Christmas Eve followed by gorgeous sunshine. The boy, the dog and I went up to Waterworks and hiked around. It was 13 degrees, but seemed warmer than that.
The new ultra-warm jacket was doing it’s job, as well as the long underwear. Very pretty on the mountain.
Enjoying the yule log while waiting for santa
Snow on Sweet Road
Christmas was a busy day, and I didn’t get any exercise. In fact I was exhausted from staying up late the night before waiting for Santa and then being woken up repeatedly in the middle of the night by a little boy who was too excited to sleep. But Monday brought a nice day off of work and some more snow followed by beautiful sunshine.
Looking over into the Green Mountains from Valley View Rd
There was a nice bit of sledding followed by a great ride. Everything was loaded with a fresh coating of snow. White fluff everywhere. Managed to stay warm out there for an entire hour and a half.
Spotted in a bathroom in Austin, Texas last March.
2011 is finally wrapping up, time for the requisite retrospective and look forward. This was a strange year, a lot of change and uncertaintly but with that came much opportunity.
Just a few of my top Moment/Things/Experiences of 2011:
Chewy, me, and the Caletti at Old Head
It wasn’t all awesome and flowers though. I’m extremely thankful for my friends who have been with the IMs, the texts, the phone calls, the bike rides, the nights out. Whether you’re here in town or on the other side of the country, these friendships have meant a big deal to me this year – so thank you! Looking forward to being less of an emotional sink next year and being better able to push out some of what I received this year.
Hard to say exactly what’s ahead in 2012, here are the things I’m working toward:
dusk on the chairlift
I’m a lucky girl. A roof over my head, a job I enjoy, a smart kid, and family that loves and supports me, and the opportunity to explore the world. I’m so very thankful for all of it.
Yup yup. Here it is. Our official 2011 Holiday Video Christmas Card. Stop peering wistfully into your mailbox, go ahead and turn up the volume and watch your card. It won’t be the worst way you spend 40 seconds this holiday season. Sorry if it autoplays and is really loud and scares your cube mate.
Anyway, the christmas of your imagination is as vibrant and exciting as this one.
Finally acquired a Christmas tree, but only barely. The lot was empty, just 3 or 4 trees left and most of them were giant so I feel pretty lucky that we were able to snag one. All the money from the trees at this lot goes to the Food Shelf, so I wanted to get one here.
Getting it up and decorated made the boy very excited. It does make the house more festive, I approve. However, one of the things that has really been bringing me down this year is everyone else’s happy family/tree photos on FB, so for the moment all you get is this empty tree lot photo and this one:
Made the kiddo walk a few miles to do some Christmas Shopping at the Cider Mill. Rode the trainer while we watched Looney Toons and topped off our holiday-tacular day with another showing of Home Alone.
Sunday was really really cold. Like 1 whole degree when I woke up. The thermometer in the sun read 20*, that means it’s cold. We were going to head down south and do a little singlespeed ride at Pine Hill Park, but there’s no way that I can keep my feet warm at that temperature. Instead we dropped K off at his favorite Aunties house and hiked up Snake Mountain.
Up the fire road, then down via the ridgeline trail. Nice change of pace, good workout, and warm toes.
Trying to rustle up a few various contractor type people to help with the house. On Friday the power to the garage quit working, for no easily discernable reason. This means no garage door opener, no outside christmas lights, no heat lamp for the chickens. First world problems, but really annoying nonetheless. Some other little things gone wrong too. All at once. Guess the house is at that point now.
image borrowed from an SA site...
A couple of days ago they announced the date for SSWC2012. September 29 in Spioenkop/Winterton Kwa-Zulu Natal province, South Africa. Ever since, it’s all I’ve been thinking about. I’ve always wanted to go to Africa and the September date means that it doesn’t conflict with my work committments. The guys that are running it are really dedicated to ensuring that it’s a roaring good time and will also benefit the local community.
Yeah, it’s far and it’s wicked expensive to get there, but I’ve got enough amex points to get there for free. This could actually happen. I’ve been doing some research and am a little worried about traveling solo in a country with what sounds like a crazy violent crime rate. But hopefully I’ll be able to combine efforts with some others so my dad doesn’t have to worry as much. It’s a long way off yet, who really knows what will happen but in the meantime I’ll keep researching and daydreaming about the wide open African sky, giraffes, and rhinos. Sure is better than the current reality of grey sky, cold, damp and no snow.
No, not a real new bike. New spin bikes at the gym. Despite having a super fancy trainer at home and a nice, comfortable road bike in that trainer in a dedicated space in my basement, I’m making myself visit the gym some nights. If I go to the gym I can pretend that I’ve got some sort of social interaction with people outside of the office, even if everyone there is plugged into their headphones — we’re there together listening to our headphones together.
The new bikes are somewhat Tron-esque, with a great big display of all sorts of info. Apparently you plug in your own media device and watch your own movies, or watch the spinning movies provided by the bike, or follow their preprogrammed workouts. Unfortunately you can’t program your own workout beyond length of time.
Because I don’t currently have an exercise watch, I’ve been using the Tabata Pro app on my iphone to help me keep track of repetitve interval type things. It runs in the background and tells you audibly when to go hard and when to rest. Handy, you don’t have to do math or keep track of when you started an interval section, or how many you have left to do. It’s somewhat limited, you can’t get too creative with your patterns, but it’s been working pretty well for me.
While I actually like the cadence meter built into these new bikes, the ‘helpful tips’ can be a big annoying.
Thanks, bike. Notice I had elapsed an entire 00:49 on the bike at that point, of course I’m doing great. Certainly I’ll keep it up. 59:11 yet to go.
