Oklahoma

The nice thing about new journey is that you can set your own baselines. For the first day I got up early enough to take Heidi out for a walk. She is working on her manners and I’m working on loosening up my ankle. Neither makes for a rapid pace, but it does make for a pleasant walk through a pretty town. We took a nice stop at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple and another to see what silent film was playing at The Mini Melba Cinema at the crack of dawn. Did 1.83 miles at a 25'49"/MI pace.

So Christmas this year was a bit more eventful that we had planned. It started as expected, with an excited five year old getting out of bed well before dawn and shrieking with joy when she discovered her milk, cookies, and carrots had all been consumed by Santa and his helpers.  Coffee was made for the bleary eyed parents and the opening of presents was comensed and finished by 7:30 AM.  

After the somewhat frantic out and back travel we did for the first three months in the Airstream, we were ready for a break. While we were enjoying the sights, having to head out to a location for only a week or two before heading back to Oklahoma was getting a little tiring. Since we had the holidays coming up plus the kids’ birthdays, we decided to stop traveling for the year in the middle of October.

So, my three weeks off is coming to an end.  It’s been an amazing whirlwind of activity that has moved us closer to our dream of the open road than the last few months combined.

This week was a slow return towards normalcy. I personally spent most of the week doing client work, cleaning email and getting business work taken care of after the craziness of the last two weeks.  Kind of nice to write some code again. I didn’t think I would miss it so soon.

I think there is an inverse correlation between the frequency of blogging and how busy someone is. The silence here should be indicative how exactly how insane the last week was for the both of us. However, as far as making progress on our dreams, this was the best week yet.

We started off at a fairly calm pace. Mark and I did a large quantity of tree pruning, replaced one wall of paneling on the old detached garage and finished getting the porch squared up and ready to go. Grace continued getting ready for our estate sale which was scheduled for this last Saturday.

It’s been amazing to see what can get done in a week if you can get the time to focus on it.  I started this week with a laundry list of home and garden tasks, some of which I had been ignoring for years.  I end this week with some major projects done and progress on many others.

The major task of this week was my front porch which has been long needing to be re-decked. With diligent effort, Mark and I were able to finish this, which is the most daunting of my repairs, within the week.

After 3 years of endless drought, we here in central Oklahoma at least, were with desperately needed rain.  It’s gotten so extreme, that our city reservoirs must release water to prevent flooding. After a tip from my Mother, Grace and I took a little photo date down to the Lake Overholser Dam to catch some photos and videos of the water release.  Now if we could get some more rain for western part of the state, things would be really looking good.

#30DaysofBiking Day 22

I guess the best thing about day 22 was that there was nothing unusual about day 22.  It was the first day in awhile were I just rode to work and back.  The headwind on the way home was a bit strong, but it wasn’t too bad.  Little did I know what the next day had in store for me.

#30DaysofBiking Day 23

I thought it was supposed to be spring.  It’s not supposed to be near freezing with drizzle and harsh northerly winds.   Thankfully, I haven’t put my cold weather gear away, but I sure wish I could.  The ride to work was painfully slow with one point where the wind almost pushed me backwards.  However, it was still a nice ride, and as always, after about the first 5 minutes, I got warmed up and it wasn’t too uncomfortable.  I just hope I can quit wearing all of this gear regularly soon . . .

Still haven’t been able to get back completely into the regular posting schedule, but thankfully I’ve been able to keep riding!

#30DaysofBiking Day 19: Just Another Day at Work

I continue to get most of my cycling through my daily commute to work.  The big change I’ve made is to start riding more and more in my work clothes instead of always wearing a change.  My short ride is only 6.5 miles and, at least during the spring, if I take it easy I can arrive at work, refreshed but not horribly sweaty.  I think we cyclists can often make our rides too complicated and think we need more gear and kit