As I woke up on Wednesday morning, I could hear light rain striking the windows. “Hmmmm… going to be a wet lumber this morning,” I thought as I climbed out of bed and fart-walked my way to the bathroom.

Soon—or two hours later— I was gearing up and ready to head out. Now the rain was absolutely lashing down, and the sky had nearly returned to complete darkness!

“SHIT!! Oh, fuck it, by the time I get to the trails, it’ll slow down or stop!!”

13 minutes later, the rain was pouring so hard I could barely see the entrance to the park. So, I took that as a sign from the lumber gods and drove on past. Then I did a big ol’ rural road U-turn and returned to the Cul-De-Sac-Shack with a broken spirit that had me contemplating what level of “give up” I would have to be at to start drinking beer at 8 AM. Well, it turns out, having to abort a hike is not listed as a viable reason in my well-used copy of The Aging Drunkard’s Guide to Acceptable Levels of Human Interaction, Daily Functioning, and Other Dumb Stuff That Adults Do.

So, instead of a 12-Beer Breakfast, I opted for my daily standby; A 1 egg/3 egg white cheese omelette, homemade hashbrowns, and a scoop of refried beans, all topped with hot sauce. Like a wise man may have once said, “If you can’t cry in your beer, you can at least cry in your beans.”

I probably didnt’ miss much, I think 35˚ with pouring rain might be one of the worst conditions to do anything in (outside of drinking beer or eating beans inside), and while I often think the Universe is conspiring to keep me a raging crank-puss and out of the woods, there are much worse things happening in the world than a fat man not getting his walkies in.

Now let’s try this again….

Thursday’s attempt at a lumber was much more successful, with nothing but some heavy fog to deal with on the way.

I knew going in that despite several days of “warmer” temps and heavy rain, the trails would most likely still be covered with ice, and they were.

So, it was another lumber with microspikes. There would be stretches of snowless dirt here and there, and anytime my feet touched upon it, I could feel a little “giddy-up” in my stride. Well, until 20 feet later when the ice returned!

The fog and dark grey morning made for some scary high ISO levels, but I was happy to get a few shots here and there as well as some miles in my feetz. Of course, there was also a stick in my microspikes. And once again I ask, how the hell does this shit happen to me??

All in all, it was a good 4.56-mile lumber, and after yesterday’s rainy debacle, it was much appreciated.

Later.