THWUMP

THWUMP!!!!! That’s the sound of nature throwing down the gauntlet, saying, “Let’s see you make your 5,000 mile goal now.” At about 3 a.m. a significant amount of snow packed up and left the roof, sliding down the steep slope for the short trip to the driveway where it made its sudden and noisy stop. When I officially got up a few hours later, I found, to no one’s surprise, that the snow did not limit itself to falling only on, then from, rooftops. Streets and sidewalks were also targeted. After the cycle of snow, warming, rain and sleet, cooling, and a little more snow, the streets have become pretty unfriendly to bicycles.

Now according to Frazz, there is no such thing as weather too bad for a ride, only a poor choice of clothing. But warm clothing won’t help keep your wheels below the handlebars on an icy road. So the Trek is, for the moment, a bicycle-in-waiting. There is still time. If the weather cooperates. But this is Wisconsin. And it is December.

It isn’t just snowing here, either. Remember the reason for this blog? The Seattle to Missoula ride. I checked in at the Washington state DOT web site after reading headlines about Stevens Pass and portions of US 2 being closed. I found an interesting picture from the Tumwater Canyon area, just west of Leavenworth. This is where we had a wonderful lunch stop site with the opportunity to observe the nesting ospreys. Below are two pictures…one that I took in June and the other from the DOT site showing, I think, very nearly the same stretch of road just a couple of days ago:


Tumwater Canyon, June


Tumwater Canyon, December

What a difference six months makes!

So here I sit, frozen as it were, at 4,812.2 miles, wondering how I’ll get the 187.8 needed to reach 5,000.