Odds and Ends

Here's my commuter bike up on the rack for routine maintenance. I found the plans for the homemade bike stand at Blue Collar Mountain Biking. I've added seven more round trips since I last posted. That's another 175 miles. The total so far is 1325 miles. The cold weather is going to limit the number of commutes I make. There are a group of crazies who populate the ICEBIKE web site who commute year round in some really severe conditions. That's not me, yet!

The second deer cull is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday (12/4 & 12/5). Hunters killed around 60 deer during the first round. Heavy rains over the past couple of weeks have flooded some of the trails at the Dunes State Park. John, a running acquaintance of mine, says that according to the park rangers the flooding is due to the beavers. I hope they don't decide to cull the beavers next.

Speaking of the dunes, the new visitor center for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore opened last week.

The major snows west of here missed us completely. I bought a pair of Redfeather snowshoes from eBay after a freak lake effect snowfall of about 17" a couple of years ago. I have gotten several days of snowshoeing in each winter since then. It's a great way to see the dunes when the snow is deep and really is a workout. For years the spokesperson for Redfeather was a guy named Tom Sobel, who grew up around here and later moved to Colorado. Tom once measured the ZOY! Run course by bike. If you know anything about that race, you can appreciate this feat.