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.
Tag Archives | being an idiot
Deer and Gutchies
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been a little late getting to the trails due to the late sunrise (8:07 AM Michigan Standard Time for your sunrise nerds who read this) and my want to fill a bathtub up with scolding hot coffee, climb my naked self in, and drink myself out instead of going out into the dank, wintry morning air.
Luckily, Wifey will not permit me to fill our tub up with coffee (“It’ll stain the tub!” she says), so I settled for a big-ass mug or two of the stuff and then got my shit together for another lumber in chilly woods.
Further Into The Fog I Fall
My much-anticipated weekend of slack turned out great, and I enjoyed all the hits: good beer, good food cookin’, a commanding Spurs victory, sexy time, and other indoor goofball slacker activities due to freezing rain. As Ren Höek would say, “This is the life.” Well, at least until Monday.
Friday Chilliness
Thursday’s 5-mile lumber in 10˚ temps had me feeling pretty logy last night, but I was up and ready for another 5 miles today and the chance to hit my 25-mile weekly lumbering goal.
Thank goodness it was going to be warmer today. Well, by 4˚.
Lumber and Fun Facts
With about a mile left in my lumber on Wednesday, I passed Mary(?) and Jim(?) coming in the opposite direction. Mary is usually the more talkative of the two when we pass, but this time, Jim said, “It’s going to be something else tomorrow!”
I was confused for a second, but then I remembered the weather forecast: a high of 16˚, windy conditions, and light snow. “Oh, yeah, I saw that! Gonna have to bundle up!”
And the weather people were not wrong.
Quick Notes And a Gallery
The week of lumbering is flying by, and I’m currently sitting at a nugget’s hair over 15 miles, with my 25-mile weekly goal on track to finish by the weekend.
What’s not on track is my time spent getting real-life, Cul-De-Sac-ian type crap done, so this post is super short (another gift to you) and heavy on photos from the past two days.
Late Weekend Posts
For what it’s worth (absolutely nothing, say it again, ya’ll), I had this crap written and ready to go on Sunday morning, but then I got sucked into a vacuous black hole of software updates on an outdated Mac and all the joys that come with it and missed my time frame. So, now I have to edit all over again, AND my Monday post will be pushed back because I feel like if I post two in one day, it makes me look like a psychopath without a real life outside of this digital word salad.
Thanks, management
Lumbers and Winter Warmers
Taking a short cut on the dirt roads.
Well, I guess real winter is here, at least for a little while.
Getting Real
It’s 7:20 Wednesday morning and I’m sitting in the room of our house that contains a desk, my computer, and all my camera gear1, wasting time, waiting for my lower intestines to give me the all-clear sign to exit the house for a lumber.
While doing so, I checked the weather. Ho hum, cloudy, 34˚, chance of snow flurrries, winds from 10-20 MPH; yawn, typical Michigan winter. But then I looked at tonight’s forecast; cloudy, snow showers and wind gusts up to FORTY miles per hour. Ma Nature’s kicking shit up a bit! Going to be even more trees down on Thursday.
OK, all clear, time to go.
A Cold Start
I was once again the first and only car at the trailhead parking lot at 7:45 Monday morning.
The sunlight was just starting to creep over the trees, turning the clouds various shades of pink, red, and orange as I tightened my shoelaces and waited for my Garmin to connect. All the while, a large gaggle of geese in the river were honking away.