The past two days seem more like one long, soggy day. Both days featured pretty OK temperatures (for December in Michigan), gray skies and a fog so heavy that it coated all of Michiganderburgh like cold, stank, three-day old, dirty dishwater. In fact, after two days of riding through the fog on muddy, dank, dirt roads, I feel pretty much the way the photo above looks. Everything is cold and wet and we’ve not had actual rain or snow since Monday! What the stink?
The only thing that made today’s ride any different from yesterday’s ride was that it was a few degrees warmer today, I rolled my El Mariachi instead of the wide waisted Farley, and I went ten five miles further. That’s pretty much it.
As I went through the pics I took over the past two days, I could barely remember which ones were from today and which ones were from yesterday without looking at the date… they are all foggy, wet and as depressing as the cover of every album in a goth kid’s record collection. OK, maybe a goth/country kid’s record collection.
I did mix it up a bit with the picture taking as yesterday I shot RAW files with my Canon s95 in Aperture Priority and today I just went with JPEGs in full Auto. I have come to love, love, LOVE shooting RAW when using my newly acquired Nikon D3200 DSLR, so I figured I would give it a go with the s95. The results were fine, but not being in Auto requires me to stop and fiddle a bit more with my camera rather than just roll along as I “spray and pray.” I’m learning a lot right now, but my on the bike photography works out better with Auto and my normal tinkering in post.
Despite the depressing elements of recent days, it was a sweet couple days of riding. I really thought we would be balls deep in snow and ice by now, and I am fully and over prepared for when it does come, but for now I am more than content to roll in 45˚ temperatures on muddy dirt roads and not worry about frost bite or frozen man meat.
Another week has passed and my road bike remains off the stationary trainer! I am hopeful that I can make it at least until the new year without it making an appearance. I hope your trainer is gathering dust as well.
Later.