After Tuesday’s 6.60-mile lumber, I was feeling pretty good and ready to go again on Wednesday morning. The temps were a bit colder, coming in at just 19˚, but I was warm (enough) and ready to go.
Sticking To Walls
We had a minor heatwave today, with temps up to 23˚ at the time of lumbering. You wouldn’t think four extra degrees could make a difference, but indeed they did.
Macro Monday Lumber
I started off this first full week of the 2025 Ignorance is Bliss Tour with a 5.50-mile hike in crisp, to say the least, 19˚ temps.
The Size of My Footprint
On December 8th, I ordered a couple of t-shirts from a Michigan-based clothing company I’ve ordered from a few times before. I like their tees, as well as the idea of supporting a Michigan company and keeping my carbon footprint smaller. The US Postal Service had other ideas.
The Dawn of Ignorance
Since I’m at the age where I see enough balls dropping just by looking in the mirror, I continued my custom of being in bed several hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
A Recap & Staying “Ignernt”
On September 19th, 2022, I started what I jokingly called the 2022 Not Dead Yet Comeback Special. That was the day I climbed out of The Bed of Torment, laced up some hiking shoes, grabbed my camera, walked right past my garage of bikes, and into the woods to lumber on my own two feetz.
Bullies, Jays, and Peckers
I took the weekend off from lumbering just ’cause I wanted to, but I wish I hadn’t.
The weather was dark, glum, and morose all weekend, the football sucked, and unsurprisingly Spurs blew another lead to draw 2-2 with Wolves. I hate them. My time would have been much better spent walking in the woods with my camera, but the ache of “new muscles” used whilst hiking three days on mushy snow and a tired mind from a week of grief, travel, and holiday “merriment” had me thinking differently.
The good part of the weekend was that 50˚ and an all-day rain melted any shred of snow, and the trails were completely bare come Monday morning.
Looking For Success
With warmer temps, conditions in the woods have been getting progressively worse, so on Friday, I needed to adjust expectations of what I was going to get out of my morning lumber. I also needed to make further adjustments to my kit.
Attempting Normalcy
While we were away in Pennsylvania, the central Michigan area picked up another few inches of wet snow on top of what we already had on the ground, and that made for some tricky hiking conditions on Christmas morning.
Wifey would be joining me for the early morning lumber, and we debated whether to take the snowshoes with us or not. We settled on sharing my trekking poles and using hikers, and that proved to be just fine, with only minor slipping here and there.
Thanks To So Many
For this Christmas Day post, I am going to steer clear of writing about the emotions and grief that my family, near and far, and I have been going through over the past week due to the loss of my father last Thursday and our 13-year-old dog Jake the very next morning. I’m sure you can imagine what it was like; you don’t need me to shit on your holiday.