Clear Winter Days

This being PRK (California), I wanted to share with my dear readers that on days where I'm not specifically mentioning storms I have the following weather: frosty clear mornings, brilliant sunshine, just a few clouds if any, and bright blue skies. If you happen to live in a place with overcast, rain, snow, fog... well I feel sorry for you. None of that here unless I specifically say so. Otherwise its brilliant gorgeous days. Yes, its kinda chilly in the shade and we have black ice every morning, but in the sun its not bad. You can kinda feel how Spring isn't that far off on the many days of winter just like this. My mornings and days have been like this since I last posted about Winter Storms. I'm sure there will be storms again in the future, and probably more heavy rain and snow, but until then its very nice. You'd want to be wrapped up for the cold if you were bicycling or scootering in this weather, but in a car its just like any other day once the heat is working and you take the corners slow and gentle due to the black ice every morning. Otherwise? Well, this is why people move here. For the weather.

Back in High School and later College, I used to run in weather like this. I'd bundle up, and as unpleasant as tights are, they were better than sweats or shorts in this kind of weather. I used to run in Annadel Park, above Santa Rosa. The mud would freeze solid so footing improved, and I was really good at dodging the ankle breaker cobblestones on the trails everywhere. Great way to cripple a horse or bend the wheel on your mountain bike. Back then they didn't have suspensions yet. Those were developed later. Its was hardtail bikes with knobby tires. Very challenging, but you learned to get you butt off the seat and use your arms as shock absorbers. Very challenging. I really enjoyed it, but I mostly hiked with a Walkman and my preferred mixtape of the day, with spare rechargeable batteries. I was ahead of my time. Now everybody has MP3 players and a million songs to choose from. I had to pick and choose, record them onto a cassette tape, matching the timings so the last song ended right as the tape ended, then it would autoreverse onto the other side and continue. I had several tapes of that, mostly Intermix and Phaze Two on a tape. Great couple albums, CD's actually, wonderful for walking alone in the woods. The wild creatures like Cougars? Ran the other way. Deer and wild pigs and coyotes ran from me if they noticed. I saw a lot of interesting critters there. Never saw a rattlesnake, but heard one once when I was running on a really hot day, following a teammate down a mountainside. Good times. A shame it destroyed my knees. That's what being an athlete really means. Permanent injury.

Its the feeling of freedom when running in the woods which got me more serious about cycling, and interested in scootering as well. Scootering is like bicycling without breathing hard, without the throb and thunder and gasping. You can enjoy the scenery if you're going slow enough. That was my experience on the Tomos I rode in Newport Beach. I want that joy again. It was so instinctive to ride, largely because I'm well versed in bicycles and they're pretty similar. I hope my friends can find joy in them too. If you're somewhere really flat, a tiny 49cc scooter is great. So is a bicycle. I always live near hills, so they are a real problem for bicycling and tiny scooter engines. I could probably be very happy with a 125cc, provided I don't act like a fool and go too fast. And really, I'm a bit old to be a fool anymore. I think I've used all that up. I feel like my marriage and my last job got out my quota for this lifetime. Probably. Tabun. Normalemente. I guess we'll see.

In the meantime I am enjoying these clear winter days and cold winter nice so delicious for sleeping. When the summer comes I'll be able to buy and ride a scooter around and hopefully get a job and place of my own. If not, I guess I'll be looking after my folks indefinitely. Provided we can get along. If not, well, there's some nice towns in the world. Maybe one of them can use a welder who can also write clearly and possesses a working brain fluent in English as a first language.