Wednesday I celebrated the Winter Solstice with a snowshoe stomp around in the woods on Sally’s Trail. A fat bike ride on the same trail would have been possible, but with winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour the day before, I was hesitant to believe L.C.’s tales of the trail being in good enough shape for a proper ride. So I slapped the Tubbs on my tubbiness and headed our for a 3.5+ mile loop to blow the stink off me and give cafeteria Pagan thanks to the sun which will be inching itself back into our lives in the weeks to come.
L.C. was actually sort of right, barring a few areas, the trail would have been rideable. But since I know my (bad) luck with groomed fat bike trails, I was still happy with the Tubbs on my feetzez.
One of the things I love about this trail is knowing the amount of work that locals (mainly Sally) put into this trail. Hours of trimming in the summer, leaf blowing in the fall, and snowshoeing in the winter to make it fat bike friendly. Not to mention the addition of trail marking, and most recently, reflective tags on trees to aid in navigating the 750 corners (that’s an estimate) on a trail that comes in under 4 miles per loop.
As expected I ran into Sally on the trail shoveling out some parts that were snow-drift victims. We talked for a sec; she said she thought I’d be on my bike, I said I totally expected to see her working, thanked her for her work and continued on, taking care not to step on any deer scat. Sure wish I could poop that clean. You need a f*cking fire hose to clean the can when I’m done. Sorry… TMI?
As I rounded one corner I looked to my left to see a deer laying in a bed of leaves. She looked at me, I looked at her, I reached for my camera and she took off into the trees where she stood with three others staring at me trough the brush. I really wish I could have got a shot of her laying there. Regardless it was cool to see a deer being so natural, instead of just standing around being deer like.
A bit further on I stumbled upon the elusive snow snake on a nearby branch taking in the cool air of the morning. Usually I’m tits up scared of snakes, but I was fine with this one for some reason.
My luck was to continue a few hundred feet later when I nearly stepped on an elusive Centi-Pine-O-Pede as it scurried long the snowy trail. I’m feeling pretty lucky to have caught a pic of it.
Then I looked over to see a shelf fungus that had been sent to the naughty corner in a dunce hat. Well, at least that’s what I hope it was. Given that we’re living in Trump’s America now it may have been a KKK hood. I will not stand for racist fungus in my woods!!!!
Soon I was approaching the end of my loop, I took a final tree portrait (I’m such a sucker for trees), and finished up. Had I got an earlier start another loop would have surely been in order, but I still wanted to stop at Terry’s to drop off some holiday cheer in the form of beer and coffee.
A stop at the shop, a stop at the store for some groceries, booze, and last-minute gifts, and I was soon home. I showered, ate a quick lunch, and then waited to a reasonable 4 PM before I poured myself a beverage and played some EA Sports FIFA until making some homemade pizza later.
Not sure how your Winter Solstice went down, but I was cool with this. It was great to be outside, see some friends, and sweat a bit. Knowing the in just a few days the holidays will be spoken of in the past tense and I can then try to focus on turning my life around made it all the better.
Other than a quick treadmill run on Thursday, physical activities outside of eating, driving, and being stressed the f*ck out will be on hold until next Tuesday. I know folks dig their Christmas and Hanukkah, but my one day flirt with Paganism went down pretty OK, I might even invest in some goat skin pants soon. Other than that I am looking forward to some normalcy in the new year.
Later.
Note: Post edited Friday morning for numerous mistakes that even I could spot. All the others you’ll just have to live with.