Take the sleds out and ride more

It’s a good thing that the sleds are paid for! We took them out once this winter. It cost us near $150.00 in fuel just to cross the city line by the time we fueled up the truck, both sleds, the 4-wheeler and a spare can of gas. I felt like Fred Sanford (for those of you old enough to get this reference) “It’s the big one, Elizabeth, I’m coming!” As I clenched my chest while having a stroke at watching the dollars count up on the pump! In defense of the cost of fuel, we did spend most of our play money in painting many rooms in our new home, replacing doors with new hard wood doors, installing new base molding and putting up crown molding. This project is still in the works, but what we’ve spent on paint, doors and trim we could have fueled up and gone and played quite a few more times.

Funny, when I got in to riding snowmachines it was all about the going out and playing every weekend and making sure you had money for fuel and lunch, now at rapidly approaching 40, it’s responsible things like home and food, play later. I hate to make them garage sleds, but at least they are paid for and if they don’t get ridden as much as they used to, they don’t cost any extra so I guess it’s no harm, no foul. And as always, there is always next year!

Funny part is I rode my 4-wheeler more times this winter than I did the sleds, only because it has a plow on it and it did snow several times here in town. And OK, so I had the cleanest street in the neighborhood every time it snowed and my neighbors had better of appreciated the snow free accessibility I provided them with since the city plows take a couple of days to make it through the side streets.

It’s amazing how in growing up life in general gets in the way of recreation and things you used to do religiously every week!

We loaded up the sleds and went out a whopping 3 times all last winter. Going to Maine this summer we held off a few weekends to save money. It’s a $100.00 bill every time I hitch the trailer to the truck for fuel then there is food and depending on where we go, possibly parking fees. Now we’re buying a house and my monthly mortgage will be about double what my rent was but since the sleds are paid for and owned outright they cost nothing to own. Maybe next winter we’ll have some good snow and more opportunity to ride! I’ve not given up on this one!

Got out and played with the wife and friends on the Nancy Lake Rec Area portage trail network. Turned the GPS on so I could download the tracks and see where I went. Pretty neat to be able to look back and see what you did and where everything is in relation to everything else. All of those trails are so interconnected that you can get out and go everywhere. The snow was about butt deep in some spots which isn’t really that deep but there was no base to it to get a bite on and we all took turns sinking the sleds. I dug one trench so well; I should have tossed seeds in for next years crops! The temps were in the mid 30’s which was way too warm! You have to dress for the snow and the air running over you when you get speed going but boy howdy, you get stopped and have to open up to cool down and dry off. My leather snow bibs weighed about twice as much with sweat when I was done. Funny, I didn’t loose any weight or so that liar called the scale told me!

Too much going on this weekend to ride. Hopefully the following weekend we’ll get out and make more than 35 miles!

The past several years have been a bit sparse on snow in the south central Alaska areas. You either had to ride on low and rode out snow or go way up into the mountains for good snow or drive all day to head north to get to it. Hopefully this year the deep stuff will be a little closer to get to. I don’t mind driving to the snow, but after playing all day it’s never fun to drive home for 3 or 6 hours depending on how far you went. Hopefully some of the 56 inches of snow that Anchorage has had will translate to some good snow in the Willow, Petersville and Skwentna areas for some good powder bashing and boondocking.