Staying Home....

It stormed on Wednesday. We awoke to new snow on the ground and more coming down. Not huge amounts, maybe a couple inches, but with the wind howling through the trees, it felt like a real blizzard.

It was fortuitous timing though; my only class on Wednesdays is Botany lab which only meets sometimes. This week, my calendar was open (excepting the huge pile of homework to complete). So, given the conditions of the roads, I decided to do my homework at home. I spent a couple hours working on projects, then Zeb and I went sledding. Whoo-hoo!

Unfortunately, the poor road conditions meant that we missed out on the (free!) Holiday dinner that the college puts on for students each year. Although both Tim and I were saddened to miss out on all the good food, we decided that it probably wasn't worth risking our health and well-being to get there.

By the next morning, the paved roads were cleared. The mile of Endless Brook Rd was a little sketchy, but not too bad. Tim and Zeb met me for lunch that day. I mentioned to Tim that I had fish-tailed down Endless Brook Rd. "Didn't you let some air out of your tires? I did and had no problems." Tim asked me. "Nope." I said. "But I sure went fast on the pavement!" Tim looked at me askance, then laughed. "We didn't have any problems on the slushy ice, but it was slow on the pavement."

So that is the trade off: we can let air out of our tires, increasing traction on ice and snow, but also increasing friction on cleared roads, or we can leave our tires as is, slipping around on snow and ice, but riding easily on cleared roads. I guess we could get the best of both worlds by letting air out of our tires for the dirt roads, then pumping the tires back up for the cleared roads. Neither of us has taken the extra time to do that, though.

With the snow it's getting colder as well. This morning, with a cold wind blowing from the west, I began to miss my balaclava, which Zeb has claimed for his own. The section of Lake St. Catherine that I pass on the ride into town is starting to freeze over. It seems like in just a week we've left autumn and entered winter.