For various reasons I hadn't ridden since the first of May when I went out for a ride yesterday. The weather back on Mayday was a mix of snow and rain - snain for short.
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| Snain is the worst. If it's cold, dry snow it doesn't stick much and brushes off when it does - and so a -10* ride is more comfortable than on one 45* warmer. A warm rain is no problem, Captain Obvious has this to say about that, "you'll be wet but warm." 30-something degree rain is a whole different beast: if it's coming down hard you better put on your rain coat - but anything that's waterproof doesn't breath anywhere near fast enough to keep up with the sweat you're putting out even if you cut back on intensity alot. So you're soaked - it's sorta warm from body heat but you also lose heat fast. That sounds like no fun but if you don't put a raincoat on you already know what happens - you get soaked by the cold rain. Body heat may keep you warm while you're riding but you lose heat fast. I haven't yet found a good solution. I'm curious to try a rain cape - anyone used one? They look a bit dorky but if they keep you dry then that's worth it. |
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| I'm not particularly proud of it but I have to admit a little smugness in situations like these. You can see in the bottom of the picture some tracks where an ATV had to turn around, unlike a bike, you can't just lift an ATV over a fallen tree. Not that I'm too smug about it, there are many things ATVs do that bikes can't, but in a society that largely sees the limitation of bikes and not their potential, I'll take my victories where I can - even if I have to reach a bit. |
The ride started off rather dreary (weatherwise) and so I decided before I left that this would be a hot cocoa ride - so I brought all the stuff for that - or thought I did. I left the fuel for my stove on the kitchen table. Whoops. I do stuff like that. Luckily for my hot cocoa consumption I had a woodburning stove and I was able to find a stick or two.
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| It has been rainy here for days or otherwise I could just use dry twigs - but since everything was wet I had to split the wood to get at the dry insides. Perhaps I had subconsciously "forgotten" the wood to burn on purpose because I had inexplicably remembered to bring a knife and a saw - which is all I need to process wood for this stove. |
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| The stick that the knife is leaning against was my baton that I used the hit the back of the knife to force it through and split the wood. |
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| Batoning |
When I finished with drinking the hot cocoa I left my stove and setup to cool and hiked off up the hill to the north. The trees here were fairly big and the walking was open and easy. I hiked to the top of the hill, meaning to turn around there, but when I got there something a little farther on looked curious. So I kept going and then when I got there there was something that looked curious a little farther on - and so on. I ended up hiking a ways and took a few pictures on the way. But mostly I just walked and appreciated the gorgeous spring day which had gone from dreary to sunny and beautiful.
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| These flowers mean that there will be blueberries here this summer. |
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| Anyone know what this is? |
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