Locked in...

Man...

I'm locked in as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I could go out. If I had a reason to, that is. Am I? Nope!

What I am thinking about more though, is getting ready to get out of here for a couple of weeks. I'm planning on heading south on Friday. The Death Valley area got a bunch of precipitation from the storm that left yesterday and is now down there. I just hope the roads I want to drive on while I'm down there don't get washed out. Water in Death Valley is the driving force behind the beauty of the place. Sometimes it's feast or famine down there. They either don't get enough, or it comes all at once. When it comes all at once, and this storm might qualify for that distinction, it has a way of changing the landscape. Time will tell, I will be seeing it soon, but for now, I'm locked in and as long as the power stays on, I'll be loving it...

2008!

Wow... January 1, 2008. Years fly by, or so it seems. I was just thinking yesterday about 1988 when I went to Yellowstone on the fires they had there. This year makes it 20 years ago. It seems like yesterday to me. Time is a funny thing. Does it flow like a river or is it just our imagination that makes it seem so? Who knows? I sure don't, I seem to know that much!

Well, today I believed the weather man this morning and expected it to warm up into the 40's. So I took my bike out to the valley and went for a bike ride. Big mistake. Wind chill has an added meaning when you are riding on an exposed bicycle in high 20's, low 30's temperatures. I only went for a few miles but they were anything but comfortable. In fact, I am still trying to warm up after that little excursion several hours ago. I now have a bone to pick with the Channel 4 weather guy. The highest my thermometer got today was 33°. That'll teach me.

I'm planning on a trip to the desert in a couple of weeks and I'm really looking forward to being able to ride my bike without getting frostbite. In fact, this trip down there is going to be more of a bike riding trip than any other I have taken down to Death Valley yet. My whole plan is to ride out some of the roads I haven't been on, and riding my bike on them seems like the best of both worlds. Ya gotta have a plan, that's my motto. (But you don't always have to stick to it, which is a new motto for me.)