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The middle of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
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Well nuts, it's 3 F, a five day blizzard and today is as bad a white out as I have ever seen (I have seen a lot of other ones as bad but never worse). Thirty miles of 20 MPH driving to get my snowblower to the repair shop. I was blowing snow and the the whole mechanical one and two stage auger system and shear pin crapped out. What the? I looked and cleared out the snow. I thought it might be a piece of rug or a mat that blew into my yard, but no, can you believe I got a mid sized steel vice jammed into my augers. It was almost ejected by the second stage auger but ended out wedged ingeniously between the first stage, second stage and the pickup. Jammed tighter than a stuck seat post. My neighbor said that I can really mess anything up (he used a more descriptive euphemism). The old vice was used as a weight that held down the sheet metal cover on my fire pit and prevented the howling north winds from across our lake from making a kite out of it. I guess the early snow didn't give me a chance to pick up my yard, at least that is the excuse I told my wife. She claims I was so enamored with my bicycle fetish that I didn't pay attention to my obligations. Snow up to your crotch and only shovels and brooms to clean it up as there is a big back log for snowblower repairs at the shop. I tried giant crowbars and breaker bars to get the vice loose but no dice. I hate working on anything mechanical that isn't a bicycle or motorcycle, especially when it is 3 F. But I had a good day. Instead of passing Fall-a-part I stopped to look at their bikes. They had a Cranbrook but it had a potato chipped front wheel. Weird, it has 12 or 10 gauge spokes and has chrome components instead of black powder. I asked if they had another, they said yes but couldn't find it. I was ready to waltz and the sales lady said would you buy it at a discount? Ha, $78 out the door including tax. All the parts will be use on a 1950s girls bike for a friend. I'll use everything except the frame and fork off the Cranbrook. You can't buy the parts that cheap. I'll have to spread the old fork a little. I was not looking to buy a bike but this will make a crusty cruiser usable again. I'll have to rattle can it. Plus I have another bike frame to add to my fence. My wife was thrilled with he white out and dangerous driving. She thinks that it is thrilling and cheap. No need to take up an expensive death wish sport like sky diving or downhill bike racing, we can just go out for a highway cruise. Honest, that is what she said. I took her out for dinner. It was really bad, icy, windy, 10 foot visibility, no plowing, no sanding, 4 wheel drive, and a train line of impatient crazy yoopers chomping at the bit to defy death enough to pass. I have been accused of being nuts but I wouldn't try to pass a line of 5 (or 100) cars in front of me when I could only see 10 feet. It was so bad that I couldn't see trucks passing me until they were beside my review mirror. I was tempted to pass but didn't feel like gambling. Remember that we only have two lane roads up here. I guess I'm getting old. It was nuts. There was a multi county bus in the ditch and two jack knifed semi trailer trucks that squashed a car along the way. Cars are all plastic now, or at lest that is all is saw is plastic pieces tossed in the road and in the woods. The car may have been in the woods or under one of the trucks. No emergency vehicles were there yet. To stop to help would have been certain death with no visibility. No cell service either. BAD.
 
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No white out here in the "Banana belt" (N.E. Wisconsin), actually not much snow anywhere here at all yet, just a dusting... Supposed to get 2 - 4" today. It has been cold 20 or more degrees below normal. Horses just started really eating hay just the other day, so all the rain and ground moisture kept the pasture grass alive. Working on basement pulling up some crappy carpet to set up work area. Record rain last 2 years has made our basement quite damp in Summer. Kept basement windows open with exhaust fans but its dry now and proximity to wood stove makes it desirable as a work area. I have some old carpet squares I thought I would try on the floor around the bike stand.
 
No white out here in the "Banana belt" (N.E. Wisconsin), actually not much snow anywhere here at all yet, just a dusting... Supposed to get 2 - 4" today. It has been cold 20 or more degrees below normal. Horses just started really eating hay just the other day, so all the rain and ground moisture kept the pasture grass alive. Working on basement pulling up some crappy carpet to set up work area. Record rain last 2 years has made our basement quite damp in Summer. Kept basement windows open with exhaust fans but its dry now and proximity to wood stove makes it desirable as a work area. I have some old carpet squares I thought I would try on the floor around the bike stand.
This morning our lake was completely frozen over. Earliest ever.
 
The worst possible weather here in Warsaw Poland. Temperatures below 50, windy & rainy. It's awfully hot in my workshop, so it's even worse when you go outside o_O
 
The worst possible weather here in Warsaw Poland. Temperatures below 50, windy & rainy. It's awfully hot in my workshop, so it's even worse when you go outside o_O
Celsius_Fahrenheit.jpg
Uhh. C or F?
 
We hit 65 today in north Texas.

Had a couple of unseasonably cold mornings earlier this week. Low 20's is out of the norm round these parts before Turkey Day. So we got a bird goin in the oven early in the mornin to catch up.
 
The amount of snow we have right now is unreasonable for any time before Xmas. We're doing January in November.
It's pretty depressing, making me thirsty for a winterbike.
 
I just took this photo this morning. Time for me to get out the studded tire bike. It's under a tarp in the yard so it will need some penetrating oil and air. It's fun riding on frozen lakes. This gives the other people on the lake something to talk about, that weird guy that rides a bike on the lake instead of a snowmobile. A big storm is coming tomorrow so it will be buried and I won't be able to ride on it after tomorrow. This is pretty rare as we usually get snow as soon as it freezes.
IMG_1706.JPG
 
By us some people do ice boating or hard water sailing.
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2017-3-iceboat-1-mcdonough_orig.jpg

My uncle built one of those. He said they get pretty scary fast. I think he sold it when they moved to FL.
 
We are currently hit with a rain/snow storm today, above freezing till 5pm! With 2 big storms around Thanksgiving holiday @dropstep will get your wish. :eek:
 
Almost hit 60 here yesterday, so I got out of of work early and took Interrobang to Salem. Driving back, I got angrier than normal behind a bunch of slow and inconsiderate drivers who didn't move over so people could go around them when they wanted to turn off a main road and I realized that my PTSD is partially back thanks to the crazy woman who assaulted me the other week. I guess it was better than living with myself having not done anything and I would continue to think that she had been running naked in the middle of the street with blood down her chest in 28 degree weather because she was trying to escape some horrific situation instead of the truth that she was a spoiled rich girl with nothing else to do but some kind of heavy drugs.

Supposed to be raining the next couple of days. I imagine I won't get too many more rides in.
 

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