We had planned to do another family backyard cross race later in the week. Then Shannon's car started acting up. She has had some issues with her throttle position sensor. The sensor is made onto the throttle body, which means you have to replace the entire part. At $250, it's not cheap. She first had this problem last year and I fixed it. After looking at the sensor, I discovered she was only having a problem with the connection. The sensor connects to its power source via two skinny copper tabs that fit between two copper plates in a small box on the throttle body. I crimped the two copper plates to restore good connection with the tabs and the thing worked perfectly for a full year. Then the copper began to wear and it started losing connection, so I crimped them again. I knew it was the last time they could be crimped as they were getting very thin, but I thought maybe it would go for a while longer.
This time it lasted just a month and decided to go out the day before we had to make an unplanned trip to Michigan. Chuck Miller, a long-time friend of the Toney family, passed away suddenly. His memorial service was planned for Friday in South Haven, MI. Shannon wanted to be there so we made arrangements for her to get the day off work.
It was an extra-crazy Thursday. We had planned to do our backyard cross race that night after work. I needed to work on Shannon's car as mine is not dependable for long trips in cold weather, but I could not bring myself to call off our race. I wanted the ride time knowing I would not have a bike in Michigan, and everyone else wanted to do the race too. We had spent a lot of time getting the course ready. This race was at our house on the farm and would be really fun. Everybody had headlights and we had lights all over the course. There were lights from the house and barn, lanterns hanging and blinking red taillights on the barriers and the logs of the run-up. We even had speakers outside for some music to jam to as we raced. We really went all-out on this one. The course was really hard, featuring three dismounts per lap and quite a bit of climbing. It was a tough night with the temp being in the upper-20s, but we knocked out a full hour of hammering. There are a few pictures below. You can also take a lap with me through my helmet cam here.
Me during our cold night race
In the dark places we were nothing more than our glowing headlight and the blinking lights we had on our wheels
Red blinking taillights marked each log on the run-up. Looked like an airport runaway in the yard tonight.
Blurry me under one of the more lit-up sections next to the house. The camera does not like these dark conditions.
It was 11pm by the time we got changed and got the course cleaned up. Dina had to work the next day and I still had to change out the throttle body on the car. By the time I got that done and went for a quick test drive, it was well after midnight when I climbed into bed. We were back up and on the road by 5am, bound for Michigan. The forecast looked horrible. The South Haven area had about seven inches of snow on the ground from a storm earlier in the week, and were due to get up to 15 more on Friday and Saturday. It looked like it would be a smooth drive until we got to Michigan, so we were surprised to get caught in a sudden snowstorm in Kentucky that brought traffic to a crawl. I thought we might not make it to South Haven in time for the service, but we made it there right on time. There was a lot of snow on the ground in South Haven, but it was all very packed and did not affect traffic at all.
I never met Chuck Miller, but he seemed like a great guy. I have not been to very many memorial services in my life, but this was a really good one. By the time it was over I felt as if I had known Chuck for years. After the service, we joined Chuck's family for a dinner at the Lake Bluff Inn & Suites along the banks of Lake Michigan. The weather was insane! It was about 15 degrees with 60+ mph winds coming off the lake. Shannon couldn't even open the car door on her side because the wind was blowing so hard. She had to crawl out on my side of the car. It literally almost knocked us down while walking across the icy parking lot. Of course, I had to walk down to the lake. I could not be this close and not go see it. I've never seen a big lake like that in winter time. Somehow, I talked Shannon into going with me. It was just before dark, but we could still see the water from the bluff. It was partially frozen. There was solid ice next to the bank that extended about 20 yards out. Then there was a half-frozen kind of gel for 20 yards. The wind was bringing in huge waves that crashed against the gel and sent huge ripples through the ice all the way to the bank. It was so cool! I watched it until I couldn't feel my hands or face, which only took a minute, I snapped a few pics and then we high-tailed it to the inn and stood by the fire.
Looking toward Lake Michigan from the Inn
The snow was really coming down when we left dinner, so we thought it best to go back to Elkhart, IN with Shannon's parents rather than stay the night in South Haven. We wanted to get further south and hopefully away from the snow so we would not get trapped in Michigan. We drove through some real blizzard-like conditions with practically no visibility at times around South Bend, but we made it to Elkhart safely. When we woke up the next morning, I finally got to see Indiana coated in some real snow instead of just a thin little layer of sleet like we had at Christmas. We helped them clear the driveway and then hit the road for home. It was a quick trip, but we had to get home as there was more snow on the way, both in Indiana and at home. We got home Saturday night before the snow storms hit. I was glad we left when Sunday rolled around. Elkhart got five more inches of snow Saturday afternoon and it snowed all they way south to the Tennessee-Kentucky border Sunday morning. We missed nearly all the white stuff here at home, but we would have had to drive the entire trip in the storm had we waited until Sunday to come home.
Snow in Elkhart
Instead of driving in a snow storm on Sunday, we had an early-morning cross race at my parents' house. It was another tough course with a huge road climb on the loop, but the course was long so we didn't have to do too many laps to get in our hour. It was really cold yet again. The temp was 23 degrees with snow and sleet falling when we started. I know I am crazy and will ride in anything, but my entire family came out for this ride. They are obviously crazy too. Even my Mom was out there and she HATES the cold. I think she only truly likes riding in June and September each year (she's not too fond of summer heat either). I did an extra lap and was greeted with driving sleet on the open sections that stung on my cold face. It was another terrible day of winter weather that we made the best of by getting in a fun workout together.
The next week was a week of rain and cold. It was too warm to snow this time. It was just ugly and dreary outside. I spent my time on the trainer and in the weight room. I've even started running again. I am only doing five minute runs, but I can do it without any aggravation of my gastroc. I'll keep gradually building that up until I can get back to using running for cross-training in the winter.
During this week of grossness, I also managed to crash my laptop, which is never good when you are behind on your blogs and early-season bike racing is on live on the internet every morning! Seriously, I killed it and had to wipe the entire thing clean. It took me a few days to get it all reloaded, but now my computer is working like new so I am thinking this was not such a bad thing after all. It really does pay to have an external hard drive for backing up your important things. I lost nothing out of this crash.
We got one more round of snow in February before the warm weather then returned. Everything was wet from the melting snow, but I squeezed in another practice cross race, possibly the last ever here on the farm. The farm we live on is owned by our friends, the Clarks. They have always farmed tobacco here and raised cattle on another farm a few miles away. They have decided now to give up the tobacco growing and focus on cattle. They're moving the cattle over to this farm, so they've been fencing the property for the last few weeks. The fence is going to go through part of our yard, eliminating nearly all of the area we use for cross right now. I'm sad to see my cross courses go, but I am not at all sad that I will have significantly less grass to mow this summer! And I'll have a lot more entertainment from the cows than I ever did with tobacco. This cross race came just as the fencing was arriving in our yard. I got it in just a day before they ran the strands of wire and closed the area off for good. It was a fun day of mud and suffering that left me pretty dirty at the end of the day.
Remnants of the latest snow
I thought this icicle looked cool. With the help of the wind it formed a giant curve off the edge of this barn.
Double mud pit through the soft garden on my latest farm cross course
Used my jumping ramp ladder to bridge across the creek
I have used this ladder for a variety of things. It's been a jump ramp as intended, but also a bridge, the ladder used in the barrel ride stunt a few years ago, a shelf in the basement and a ramp to load the tiller into the truck.
The creek that separates our yard from the rest of the farm
Dirty cross bike
The moon was out today
It's been quiet in the area of hunting for a house. The housing market is booming right now. Houses are going for WAY more than they are worth and flying into contracts within a day or two of being listed in most cases. We hadn't seen anything in our price range that was decent in several months. Then, all of a sudden, we saw several good homes. I always like to check them out before I call for an actual showing with the realtor. Often the pictures on the website are amazing, yet the house is not. Those photographers can really work magic with angles. I like to go by the house (usually on my bike) and see how close neighbors are. You never see any other houses in those pictures, but when you check it out in person or on a satellite image, you see the house next door is practically sharing the same driveway. I am not into close neighbors. I need space!
I ruled one house out right away after a ride-by viewing. The next one we came across was already under contract as soon as we saw it. Too slow. Then came along a nice home in an area we liked. It was five acres with no close neighbors. It backed up to a Christmas tree farm and had the biggest basement I have ever seen. It had two basement segments, each of which were bigger than most large basements. We both really liked the house and it was on the outer edge of our price range. We were the first to make an offer on the house, but were joined by two other people the same day. It turned into a multiple offer situation where they pitched us all against each other. I didn't really care to get into a bidding war with it already being on the upper edge of our price range. Then we found out that internet was not available in that area. What?! I didn't know that still happened in this day and time, especially not in an area as populated as middle Tennessee. We could only get satellite internet and the company that provided it to this area wanted more than double the price that we pay for service now at less than 1/20th the speed. We do a lot of stuff online. I was not willing to stick my neck out for this house considering we wouldn't be able to afford even the worst of internet services if we lived there. That would mean longer hours at work for both of us too because the internet was too slow to run our documentation program. So, we retracted our offer. I hated to lose that house, but I guess it just wasn't the right place for us. I doubt we would have won the bidding war anyway. The search continues...
I'll end this post with some pictures. The first set are from a recent road ride on a warm, but windy day. The clouds looked strange and made for some great pictures. Those pictures are followed by a really cool sunset I was able to shoot here on the farm. I don't know what it is with me and sunsets lately, but I sure have been noticing them and really enjoying them. Maybe it's because I lived in a wooded area when I was a kid, never having a view of the sunrise or sunset. Now I can see both everyday on the farm. That's one of the many reasons why I love it here.
The fields glowed when the sun hit them.
Our house with some bright colors behind it
The colors were ridiculously bright and clear this evening
Shortly after the sunset...
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