Brrr!!! Part II

The cold weather has been making me especially lazy lately. This morning I had a brief mental conversation with my bicycle that ended in something like “no way”. So I scrubbed my bath tub instead. Until my dear friend Debbie called. As we were ending our conversation, she mentioned how she was off to the gym. Enter guilt trip. But please realize it was 20 degrees colder here than it was there. So I agreed to go ride my bike.

Excellent idea. I’m just so very sorry that you can’t hear the sarcasm in my voice. We have actual weather up here. At first it wasn’t so bad. I took off down through the valley on the sunny side, bundled in bike pants, a fleece pull-over, and knitted gloves pulled over my padded bike gloves. The wind either did not exist or it was at my back. I went about 3 miles and turned around… only to be hit head on by a 10 degree 50 mile per hour wind. From the front, then the side, then the front, then the side. The wind was so cold and strong my eyes watered to the point of being blind. My body tensed from the cold, my ears ached. And every few seconds, a strong gust of wind would throw me towards the edge of the road. Dirt and pavement swam back and forth in front of me as cars occasionally whizzed by. I swear I was heading downhill, but instead of shifting with the terrain, I had to shift with the wind. It was incredibly miserable.

So somewhere between mile 4 and mile 5, I agreed that I deserved to purchase a trainer for my bicycle. That would be a small contraption that converts your regular outdoor bicycle into an indoor stationary bike. I wasn’t going to due to the recent collapse of our economy as we know it, but this was the last straw. I had suffered through a pathetic yoga/Pilates fusion DVD the night before and needed a good cardio workout to make up for my lack of effort. But I can’t see encouraging myself to brave anymore winter winds just to get a workout in.

And of course now that I’ve placed the order, the winds have calmed and the weather has warmed up. But I’m not fooled. I’ve been told we’ll get our first snow around Halloween.

By the way, we had “picture day” a few days ago, so stay tuned for crew pictures!

Brrrr!

It's noon, and we've finally hit a toasty 49 degrees (F). We've all been extended the last few days due to red flag warnings, high fire danger, etc. Last night it got down to 12 degrees (F), and didn't rise above freezing until after 9am. Not that I doubt that fires will take off running in sub-freezing temperatures, but the act of getting up before sunlight has yet to warm the land is painful if not down-right ridiculous. When I got into my car this morning, it was just light enough for me to confirm that there was indeed frost on the roof of my jeep. I was however, very excited to find no ice to scrape off my windshield. There's something to be said about low humidities. I don't even own an ice scraper yet.

Yesterday day we went down to another station to cover for days off for that crew. We passed farms along the way that had icicles hanging from those big irrigation sprinklers. Unfortunate. Worse than that, we're on fire restrictions up here and have been since July, which mean no campfires anywhere. Who would camp where you can't have campfires? Especially where it gets below 20 degrees at night? Well we were fortunate enough to be tasked with being the jerks to go put out everyone's campfires that were rebels enough to light one in the first place. I felt like a jerk, but in our defense, there are signs up that say no campfires... only gas portable stoves.

Let that be a lesson to you. Always call ahead to see if campfires are allowed. If it's anywhere in Southern California, the chances are you can't have a fire.