Part I Things Got Worser
After nearly 20 years of writing this bullshit, I still don’t consider myself a writer. Mostly because I have zero formal training as one, and often, my posts are an unintelligible scrambled mess of thoughts. So, to say I have “writer’s block” sounds stupid, but I really have been at a loss for words this week, and I have tried writing this post about 4 times. Mostly because the past week has been a whirlwind of travel and, unfortunately, more sadness.
I skipped a lumber on Wednesday due to heavy rain on potentially still icy trails. I should have got on the magic Whoosh machine in the basement, but alas, I did not, ’cause fatty gotta fat.
In the summers of 1999 through 2004,1 Wifey and I would drive from Pittsburgh to Colorado to ride bikes, hike, and goof off in the most amazing mountains my untraveled eyes had ever seen; the Rocky Mountains. It was quite the adventure for two Western Pennsylvania flatlanders who, during most of that time, lived in an apartment in what I think qualified as “the city,” given our proximity to traffic, tall buildings, and the sounds of nighttime gunshots.
After I got home from running some errands last Friday, I shut the garage door and didn’t leave the house again until 7:40 AM on Monday.
I have little desire to go out of the house if it’s not a hike, groceries, or beer shopping. I have little need for the American public, and the American public has little need for me. It’s your classic win-win sitch between a couple of assholes.
With temps already in the high 20s and an expected daytime high in the mid-40s, I knew trail conditions could be “iffy” on Friday morning, but with three good trainer rides already in my meatsticks this week, I really wanted to get outside for some miles in my feetz and hopefully some images on my SD card.
Over the past couple of years, I have had a couple posts about rabbits.
There was the time I accidentally hit one with my car as I drove to the trails to lumber and, ironically, attempt to take photos of wildlife. That one hit hard.
Then, last summer, there were three baby bunnies, alone, snuggled up in a small hole in the backyard, that I had to safely remove before mowing the grass and then saw them reunite with Mama Bunny before bed that night.
Now I have another one.
I know it’s hard to tell, but sometimes I do actually know a thing or two. Mostly just one thing, but still.
So, I admit, I took some pleasure in that one thing I know, being that the trails would be shit on Monday and Tuesday; thus, me stuffing myself into an ancient bike kit (the one that still actually fits) and riding the trainer two days in a row.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Wifey is out of town for work and three hours behind, and B is at school an hour away in East Lansing, so I am home and very alone. This is probably why my posts have been rambling word salads that could have been reduced to a paragraph.
One of the worst things about being an outdoor lumbering enthusiast in the winter is the constant weather-watching and weather-based decision-making.
The Week: Even though I came up well short of my already abbreviated for winter 20-mile lumbering goal, I still managed to have a good week of “doing stuff” by re-embracing the trainer and logging over 26 virtual MyWhoosh miles in addition to the 14 miles of snowshoeing. It’s not ideal, but it’s getting me through the last weeks/months of winter with no ropes taken to attics. Yet.
