Feb. 22, 2010

Okay, here's yer pictures. The start of the bike path, right around sunrise on a darkish day, but at least the 1" of snow brightened it up a bit:

Starkweather creek:

It was around 30 F, with winds from the north. The path was plowed, as always. I am so grateful for this! At first, I was feeling dreary, like the weather but the bike ride cheered me up, like it usually does. The birds were noisy. I saw a hawk-like bird with a white underbelly flying overhead. I wanted it to be a snowy owl but I think it was a hawk.

Feb. 15-19

This was a really nice week for biking. My rides started at 6:50 am, sunrise was about the same time, the winds were calm or light from the north. It was cloudy the first few days, then clear the last 3 days. It was cold on the clear nights, down to 7 F on Thursday morning, but it didn't feel that cold. It was bright, now that the sun is rising early. It was even brighter on the way home. The sun felt warm even if the temperature wasn't. I actually got hot on occasion, but I enjoyed it. The bird songs are getting more numerous and it's great to hear. We had some snow on Monday-Tuesday. I decided I need to lubricate and clean the chain everytime I ride in the snow. Otherwise it gets rusty and frozen. But on Wed., things were cleared up enough that I used my fast bike. What a lovely week it was!

Feb. 9

I had fun biking both yesterday and today. Yesterday was the calm before the storm. It was supposed to be cloudy but it was sunny and perfectly calm and not too cold (20s F). It was just very nice. I don't know why exactly, just a peaceful morning.

Then today we had snow overnight and much of the day. It was only about 5.3 inches total, so nothing compared to the 3 feet on the east coast! And even just 50 miles east of here got a lot more than we did. It was just a nice snowstorm here. The worst road on my route is the road down the hill from my house:

The bike path was nicely plowed, as always!

'

Here's Starkweather creek on the way home:

And looking down the bike path:

For the final hill to my house I took a different road (Maher) because that was plowed. Then just had to ride a block on Morningside Ave in the unplowed snow. It's hard to ride on this snow when cars have make tracks in it. It's really slippery even with the studded tires. Fortunately it was one short block on level ground. I could have walked if necessary.

Tomorrow is supposed to be very windy and cold so that will be a challenge.

feb 5

It's 4.52 miles to my exercise class. hee hee.

GPS toy

I got a little wrist-GPS for Christmas. I tried it out today. I determined that it's 3.9 miles to my yoga class. If I remember tomorrow, I'll find out how far it is to my exercise class. My speed was too slow to admit to you. Max speed was 18.5 mph because I live at the top of a hill. Here's the route I took:

It's not a very detailed map, but it's still kinda fun to see it.

Feb 1: spring is coming!

It was a balmy 10F when I left at 6:45 am this morning and it wasn't even pitch dark. It would have been colder but clouds rolled in over night. I'm glad! We had a house guest who got up early so he snapped this photo of me ready to go on my ride. This is pretty much my full cold-weather gear. I have lots of layers underneath my new $36 down jacket (not vegan, oops), and snow pants over my stretch pants, and warm boots and giant warm mittens, and face mask and goggles:

Okay, as I said before, I can't post every day anymore, but just thought I'd update about the exciting signs of spring. I heard cardinal songs yesterday, and chickadee and nuthatches this morning. These are their spring mating songs. That's gotta be the first sign of spring. Yea!