Dateline: April 8, 2012, Easter Sunday.
This morning Joe got our roadbikes off the ceiling (don't ask), tires pumped, gears ready :-)
He dropped me off at the UAF greenhouse where I will be spending the rest of my life until I die or I get my PhD, and we brought my old beat up Tomassini ("Tomas") in Kaneesha so I could ride home after getting all my work done (consisting of potting up germinants for later identification, plus an exploratory application of gibberellic acid to induce germination in 30 of 397 pots containing what I imagine to be scores and scores of lazy-ass seeds lying dormant under soil that is getting waterlogged and rotten by the day )|:o(
All that was not as fun as riding home this bright and sunny afternoon on miles of clear dry shoulder past piles and piles of old April snow on a road bike [:-)
It is about 45 today which for us is glorious! Riding home from UAF you have to go downhill, a pretty good long descent on a bike, and it's really fun except at my age I get really teary eyes from the wind, causing concern in probably a very small fraction of 1% of passing drivers (Good GOD Harold that woman is in tears, DO something!!):-O So far nobody has said or done anything to express such a far-fetched hope :-D
Anyway, TODAY was the first road ride, and I felt like I had wings! Compared to the mountain bike commute of the past six months [:-|)
I mean it's good and all--the mountain bike commute takes place on local winter trails. Whereas the road bike commute takes place on the shoulder of the road. It's about three miles longer on the road than on winter trails, but entirely worth it, because it's when you know for sure that winter is over |-D
Old sourdough Alaskans are probably used to believing that their winters last eight long months (September to May). Which probably used to be true (;-)
Nowadays it's more like October to April (six).
If you consider that the current winter's snowpack formed around about the middle of October 2011 and won't be 100% gone until probably the middle of April, that makes six.
Chicagoans are used to thinking they have six months of winter. HA! And again, HA! (|-D
It's true Chicago is very windy, I didn't realize how windy until I moved to Fairbanks. Where we live, wind is a pretty rare event. We are hundreds of miles inland from large bodies of water, so storms just don't roll in and wreak havoc in Fairbanks with the same frequency of Chicago, or even Anchorage (:O}
But what's even more wonderful, more glorious, than today's above 40 bikeride, I came home and sat with Joe on our sunny porch, around 5:00ish (sun sets at around NINE PM, dig it, yall!), and presently I heard a FLY buzz past me. A FLY!!! You know that spring is truly here when a winged insect feels sufficient warmth to become active and airborne in Alaska. Today is indeed their resurrection. >8-o
Go Flying insects!!!
HAPPY EASTER!
This morning Joe got our roadbikes off the ceiling (don't ask), tires pumped, gears ready :-)
He dropped me off at the UAF greenhouse where I will be spending the rest of my life until I die or I get my PhD, and we brought my old beat up Tomassini ("Tomas") in Kaneesha so I could ride home after getting all my work done (consisting of potting up germinants for later identification, plus an exploratory application of gibberellic acid to induce germination in 30 of 397 pots containing what I imagine to be scores and scores of lazy-ass seeds lying dormant under soil that is getting waterlogged and rotten by the day )|:o(
All that was not as fun as riding home this bright and sunny afternoon on miles of clear dry shoulder past piles and piles of old April snow on a road bike [:-)
It is about 45 today which for us is glorious! Riding home from UAF you have to go downhill, a pretty good long descent on a bike, and it's really fun except at my age I get really teary eyes from the wind, causing concern in probably a very small fraction of 1% of passing drivers (Good GOD Harold that woman is in tears, DO something!!):-O So far nobody has said or done anything to express such a far-fetched hope :-D
Anyway, TODAY was the first road ride, and I felt like I had wings! Compared to the mountain bike commute of the past six months [:-|)
I mean it's good and all--the mountain bike commute takes place on local winter trails. Whereas the road bike commute takes place on the shoulder of the road. It's about three miles longer on the road than on winter trails, but entirely worth it, because it's when you know for sure that winter is over |-D
Old sourdough Alaskans are probably used to believing that their winters last eight long months (September to May). Which probably used to be true (;-)
Nowadays it's more like October to April (six).
If you consider that the current winter's snowpack formed around about the middle of October 2011 and won't be 100% gone until probably the middle of April, that makes six.
Chicagoans are used to thinking they have six months of winter. HA! And again, HA! (|-D
It's true Chicago is very windy, I didn't realize how windy until I moved to Fairbanks. Where we live, wind is a pretty rare event. We are hundreds of miles inland from large bodies of water, so storms just don't roll in and wreak havoc in Fairbanks with the same frequency of Chicago, or even Anchorage (:O}
But what's even more wonderful, more glorious, than today's above 40 bikeride, I came home and sat with Joe on our sunny porch, around 5:00ish (sun sets at around NINE PM, dig it, yall!), and presently I heard a FLY buzz past me. A FLY!!! You know that spring is truly here when a winged insect feels sufficient warmth to become active and airborne in Alaska. Today is indeed their resurrection. >8-o
Go Flying insects!!!
HAPPY EASTER!
