Any Excuse For a Ride

Clear skies generally mean cooler temperatures. I did tell myself not to ride when it's below 0°F but it was a pretty nice afternoon. Now that I'm retired, there really isn't anywhere that I "have" to be so finding somewhere to ride now seems to be a challenge. After cleaning out the refrigerator, there was now something that I "had" to do. Throw out the garbage and not just to the trash can in the garage. Ah ha, a riding opportunity.

We had gotten a bit of snow over the last couple of days and riding proved to be a bit more challenging than usual. The snow was deep enough on even the main paved road that 2WD was needed. 2WD has only occasionally been needed getting up the driveway and maybe getting up our subdivision road. This week was the first time it was needed on the main road. The snow berm running down the middle was over a foot and it neede to be approached at right angles and some momentum to blast through it and not get hung up. Any excuse for a ride.

More Snow in the Forecast

Sunrise this morning was at 8:38am. This picture was taken about ten minutes before that. The clouds moved in and blocked the actual sunrise. The temperature was still in the mid-teens (°F) but warmed up to about 20°F by the middle of the day. Several days ago, the sunshine seemed very bright. Almost too bright.

Snow is forecast again for the next week or so so the plow went back onto the truck. But snow generally means that it'll be warm, at least according to Weather Underground, for the next couple of days. I've been watching the Olympics using the over-the-air antenna that I picked up from Amazon a few months ago. The antenna is working pretty well even though it's just sitting on a table in front of the tv.

Finally!

That end of the cold spell that was being predicted for the last couple of weeks seems to finally have arrived. On Saturday night, it was still -18°F so the positive (°F) temperature on Sunday morning is feeling pretty nice.

The Ural made it out of the garage but not to coffee this morning. I rode it around the area enough to get the engine warmed up and do some sliding in the fresh snow. I didn't want to get all geared up since I was waiting for a phone call. The front and pusher tires are still only running about half of the number of studs as usual so there is some slipping just to get out of the driveway. None installed on the sidecar tire. I might try it like this for a while.

Still Feels Like Winter

In spite of NWS forecasts stating that it was going to be warming up, the days have continued being on the cold side. I was thinking that it was going to be Ural weather this week but now it looks like maybe not until next week.

Monday Morning - Still -20°F (-29°C). I'm guessing that I won't be riding to the Airhead get together this evening. But it's 9:10 am and the sky is all lit up on the south-eastern horizon as sunrise is in about 10 minutes. Pretty nice. Plus the daily high temperature is matching the sunshine again. In December and January, the high temperature for the day could occur just about anytime as there isn't significant warmth from the sun due to the low elevation in the sky.

Tuesday Afternoon - I finally got the correct resisters to finish the keyer to practice sending morse code. It works stand-alone but will also work with a radio. This type of key is required by the Skype class that I had signed up for starting in April. Most use mechanical switches connected to paddles. The green circuit boards sticking out are touch sensitive with the left pad a "dah" and the right pad a "di" so a very light touch is needed. The configuration is set by entering commands using morse code. Kind of an interesting way. The three of the four buttons on the front are for storing things in non-volatile memory such as your call sign. The red button is to enter command or configuration mode. The knob on top is to set the word-per-minute rate. The 9-volt battery is the box zip-tied to the right side and has the power switch. I'm glad to finally get it working.