April 4 -- the great white north

For those of you eager to read about cycling (ha) there is not going to be much to report from up north. After hovering near 40 degrees all day, it is now around 30. It started snowing heavily a little while ago but has now stopped. We are supposed to get around 10 cm overall. The forecast calls for colder weather over the next couple of days with daytime temperatures under freezing and overnight temperature tomorrow night around 25. That’s a far cry from New Smyrna Beach where the current temperature is 84.

Why am I here ? oh yes, we love it up here. It’s not a great place for biking though, at this time of year.

There is still ice on the lake, but thin, with an open lead out in front of us and no ice close to shore. A windy day could clear the lake. If the ice clears in the next couple of days, which I doubt will happen, I’ll be able to move the docks into place. That will probably end up waiting for when we get back at the end of May.

Early in the day I unloaded the bins on the boat, pulled it up the driveway and parked it off to the side. I was concerned since it was raining heavily that it would accumulate too much water to move – it was slanting the wrong way to drain itself. Later on I went out to put the tarp on but decided that I could probably get it into the barn along with the other two boats and ATC’s, and it fit, albeit barely. I never expected it to fit.

Sandy went off to town (Port Loring) to pick up mail and visit with the lady at the liquor store (a major attraction in Port Loring) and RuthAnne at TimbrMart. We got a call from Buchanan’s garage that Purolater had arrived (with our order of coffee from Timothees) but I had no way of calling Sandy to let her know, since cell phones don’t work here. I’ll pick up the coffee tomorrow when I go into town.

She then went over to Jimmy and Bonnie’s for a visit and to pick up the mail that they were holding for us.

Early in the day I started replacing the Shimano RSX 7-speed group on the yellow Performance bike with the used DuraAce group that came off my Litespeed. That took all morning and is a major improvement over the RSX group which had basically stopped shifting and wasn’t worth repairing.

I got on the trainer (the yellow bike) late afternoon for 1.5 hours while watching a movie. Trainer time is measured in hours, not miles – although if I put the Litespeed on the trainer with the rear wheel odometer pickup I could measure miles, but they are not the same. Tomorrow I need to go for a much longer ride.

Time for dinner – that’s all folks.