Another dreary day but since I had a full tank of gas, I just sort of rode around. I drove through downtown Fairbanks then headed out towards North Pole. I noticed that next to the Santa Claus House were some ice carvings. I believe that they have an ice festival though on a smaller scale than the one in Fairbanks. I had the GoPro on time-lapse so this picture and the next are just a couple of the frames. Ice carvings look much more spectacular when there is bright sun or some other sort of illumination. Most of the carvings haven't been started but since the fences and barriers haven't been put up, I opted to just ride slowly through the area.
Among the ice carvings, there were some reindeer. This one looks a bit shocked. He just sort of stared at me as I went by. I guess he's not seen a Ural before. After North Pole, I just headed back through the south side of town and wound through the Goldstream Valley, the next valley north of town. Goldstream isn't on the video since I just did a time-lapse through there earlier in the week. Some light snowfall but not enough to contribute anything other than reduced visibility.
I had been having some weirdness with the site Fuelly.com. I have been using it to track gas mileage with both bikes and the truck. In the middle of January for no obvious reason, it stopped computing the mileage on the Ural properly. Just the Ural. I messed around with records on the site for a while before noticing that the odometer reading looked vaguely familiar. The errors apparently started when the current mileage just went past the mileage when I first picked up the bike in July, 2014. I had put in a new speedometer last May which started me back at 0. The solution was pretty straight forward. I exported all of the records from Fuelly into a CSV file, created a new vehicle on Fuelly.com, edited out the older records in the CSV and put replaced the old name with the new name and imported the CSV into the new vehicle. I guess I could've deleted the old vehicle but I wanted to retain the information. I guess the designers of the site never considered what would happen if an odometer rolled back to zero.
Ha-haa! That poor, befuddled reindeer: It was like "What the?... Who the heck is this loony motoring around in the snow? Doesn't he know it's the dead of winter?"
You'd think Santa would have trained that out of him/her. Maybe it's a new recruit.
I guess you're all blasé, hopping on your bike, riding up to Santa's at the North Pole, startling the new recruits. I bet there are some kids reading your blog that are pretty impressed with your little ride in the Ural. Can it fly when Santa's in the sidecar?
If the lighting was better, than they would have looked more impressive and I would've taken "real" pictures.
The Fuelly thing was a real mystery and, at first, it was an annoyance then after a couple of weeks, I sat down and looked at the data before figuring it out. With most modern vehicles, rolling over the odometer at a million miles is very unusual. The Ural is only 100k km. That should be doable!
You are a hardy soul. It's hard for me to imagine living up there where it's still sorta dark at 9:00 a.m. You can really soak up some daylight during Spring Break!
I like seeing and hearing trains, too. Thanks for sharing the videos.
I don't think the reindeer is shocked as much as irritated. He is wondering why he has to PULL Santa's sleigh then there is this spiffy "sleigh" just putting around under its own power... You might have inspired a mutiny in the North Pole..
You may have a point there. Maybe I need to avoid North Pole for a while. I was wondering what the smoke was out there. Maybe the reindeer stormed the Santa Claus House... ;-)
Ha-haa! That poor, befuddled reindeer: It was like "What the?... Who the heck is this loony motoring around in the snow? Doesn't he know it's the dead of winter?"
ReplyDeleteKeep 'em on their toes, er, hooves, Richard.
That reindeer seemed shocked to see me. It looked like it wanted to run but was too shocked to move...
DeleteReindeer in the headlights look.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think Santa would have trained that out of him/her. Maybe it's a new recruit.
I guess you're all blasé, hopping on your bike, riding up to Santa's at the North Pole, startling the new recruits. I bet there are some kids reading your blog that are pretty impressed with your little ride in the Ural. Can it fly when Santa's in the sidecar?
You're right. Either a new recruit or 4F...
DeleteAs far as flying, I think the Ural can't reach the required takeoff velocity.
Nice find with the ice sculptures. I enjoyed seeing the reindeer too. he must have wondered what kind of creature you were.
ReplyDeleteGlad you got the fuelly issues sorted. They must not think people replace speedometers or drive enough to roll over their odometers.
If the lighting was better, than they would have looked more impressive and I would've taken "real" pictures.
DeleteThe Fuelly thing was a real mystery and, at first, it was an annoyance then after a couple of weeks, I sat down and looked at the data before figuring it out. With most modern vehicles, rolling over the odometer at a million miles is very unusual. The Ural is only 100k km. That should be doable!
You are a hardy soul. It's hard for me to imagine living up there where it's still sorta dark at 9:00 a.m. You can really soak up some daylight during Spring Break!
ReplyDeleteI like seeing and hearing trains, too. Thanks for sharing the videos.
Like anything else, you'd be amazed at what you can get used to. Isn't there a thing about a frog in a pot?
DeleteI don't think the reindeer is shocked as much as irritated. He is wondering why he has to PULL Santa's sleigh then there is this spiffy "sleigh" just putting around under its own power... You might have inspired a mutiny in the North Pole..
ReplyDeleteYou may have a point there. Maybe I need to avoid North Pole for a while. I was wondering what the smoke was out there. Maybe the reindeer stormed the Santa Claus House... ;-)
Delete