Intended route – 885 miles from Hoover, AL to Staunton, VA w/ ~50k ft climbingActual route – 760 miles from Hoover to Staunton w/ 44k ft climbing At the end of September, Hurricane Helene strengthened rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico and then came ashore in a rural part of the gulf coast of Florida […]
After 22 rides covering 4,347 miles and 173,193 feet of climbing across 130 counties in 10 different states, I have finished riding in all the counties in Arkansas! Just under 2,500 miles of those rides was within the state of Arkansas. Yes, that’s right, I did 22 rides that had at least some small part […]
What an amazing experience this race was. I came into the race doing it mostly to have a reason to visit Iceland. I was surprised by how challenging and perfect and awesome the race itself actually was. There is a reason why more and more people keep signing up for this race with this year’s […]
This is mostly just a place to document some of the options. But I would like to also state that people who don’t ride 20,000 miles on a bicycle every year don’t have a good perspective on the hierarchy of dangers in cycling. For example, riding a two-lane county road with a speed limit of […]
TLDR Adventure 1 – Thanksgiving – I attempted a 550 mile out/back-ish (tight loop) from Birmingham to Panama City Beach and back to record my own GPS data for Washington and Bay counties in Florida. The ride was going to be split into 265 miles there and 285 miles back for back-to-back Eddington 256 rides. […]
We just survived what was being called “snowmageddon” here in Alabama. Unfortunately, the bulk of the snow was just north of Birmingham with some places getting over 6-8 inches of snow. The snowfall dropped sharply below a line about 10 miles north of us with only about an inch of snow and another inch of sleet/freezing rain falling here in our part of Hoover. But it was enough to cancel school for two days (Monday and Tuesday)! The pictures below document the story – hover over each one to see a caption.
It’s been such a good day. Typing on my iPhone, but I just had to capture the sweet simple memories.
I worked Friday/Saturday, leaving Brian and the kids Thursday evening. I came home to happy kiddos and husband, lots of hugs and Josiah saying several times, “I was missing you, Mom!”
The kids joined us in bed this morning, full of sweet snuggles, spontaneous hugs for each other and kisses all around. Ahhhh… loved it. They were both full of love today, playing well together, wrapping their little arms around me with hugs at random
times. They joined me snuggling on the couch as I watched the Packers game (Yay Packers!!!), as we settled in for winter storm. And as the sleet and flakes fell tonight, we curled up in our PJs to fall asleep on the couch watching A Bug’s Life. Perfect.
Today, we had some really interesting weather – 21 degrees and raining! Yes, the freezing rain that started right around dinner time was treacherous. Within 15 minutes, you could barely walk to the car and drive a couple blocks down the street to the sledding hill. So imagine how fast the sledding hill was. On the first run, I started Analise halfway down the little hill and she still went straight into the woods. So I started Josiah a lot lower, and he still went into the trees, too! Fortunately, there was some deeper snow and smaller brush to slow them down before plowing into any of the big trees! We went over to the big hill and only managed one crazy run each starting from near the bottom of the hill. Analise still flew at least two feet into the air on her first run and landed hard enough to knock both of her boots right off her feet. Fortunately the landing also scrubbed most of her momentum. After watching this, I took Josiah down the hill practically to the bottom, let him go, and he still went nearly all the way down to the football field. We decided it was way too dangerous to continue. You could probably hit 30-40mph with the right sled starting from the top if you could steer it down the path to the football field!
Video of Analise and Josiah sledding into the woods (watch on our blog if you are reading this in Facebook):
Today was our final day at the Heartwood Cabin we had been staying at. Even though we woke up to a light misty rain, Kristine and her dad were able to get in another good (albeit slushy) round of skiing while Analise went ice skating, and Josiah and I went sledding. Right now, we are back in Shell Lake where the rain has started to mix with snow, and there is a forecast of maybe an inch or two of snow overnight.
If you are reading this on Facebook, click here to watch the videos on our blog.
Kristine cross country skiing in the light rain (video):
Analise and Josiah had such a blast this morning sledding. I posted one quick video earlier today, but here are a few more really good videos of them having fun. We went sledding for almost two and a half hours without them even once complaining about the cold. They were having so much fun!
Analise super far sled almost to the football field video:
Josiah and Analise on the big hill video:
Two person sled launching on the big jump (at the very end of the video):
After lunch, we packed up and headed even farther into the northwoods to a rural retreat center where we are having a mini-vacation tonight. Kristine and her dad went skiing for over an hour on the trails while the kids played legos inside. I biked up from Shell Lake to join everyone shortly before dinner. Then after a fancy dinner, we went ice skating – Josiah’s first time on skates.
We are heading out the door for a mini-adventure in an even more rural area of Wisconsin, but this morning we had an awesome time sledding for nearly two hours! Here’s one quick video of Analise and Josiah on the hill next to Grandma Sandy and Papa Dale’s house!
Yes, it’s possible – but only if you can find an indoor pool! One of the attractions in Shell Lake is the indoor pool complete with a couple water slides at the town’s only hotel. Kristine and Grandma Sandy took the kids today to meet up with our friends Allison and Judi for an afternoon of swimming and sliding fun. See the pictures and video below!
We are having a blast up here in Wisconsin. It was a long drive, but the kids have already gone sledding and skiing! See the pictures and video above.
We made it out of Alabama just in time – staying to have a nice relaxing white snowy Christmas morning with family followed by a drive up to Nashville to hang out with our cousins before finishing the rest of the drive up to Wisconsin to spend a week with Kristine’s parents in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. We heard that the roads in Alabama Saturday night and Sunday were treacherous. The roads must have literally been freezing behind us as we headed north.
As soon as we left our house and climbed up to the top of Vestavia Hills, there was quite a bit of snow coming down, much more than we had expected. There was maybe a half inch to an inch accumulating on the grass and even a little bit on the roads (Vestavia Drive / Shades Crest Rd). The snow died down a bit as we headed north on I-65, but the snow that had fallen earlier was amazing (see the picture and video below).
We had a great time visiting our cousins in Franklin, TN just outside of Nashville. The kids were happy to play inside with all their new toys while we chatted over some yummy snack foods. Kristine and I tried Boiled Custard for the first time, and it was delicious!
It snowed the entire time we were in Nahville, and the roads were very slick. We saw several accidents on I-65 including one car that swerved from the southbound lanes all the way across the median and then across the northbound lanes immediately in front of us finally coming to a rest just off the shoulder of the road pointing in our direction. I can’t imagine how scary that must have been for them.
As soon as we crossed into Kentucky, the slick roads simply became a little less slick because of all the salt on the roads. Then by the time we made it to Indiana, everything was dry and we were able to make up time all the way to Chicago. Josiah woke up as we made it into town, so he got to see several trains, several subways “L trains” and the tall skyscrapers including the Sears Tower. Once we made it through downtown and out towards the O’Hare airport, we got caught up in quite a Lake Effect snowstorm. This is us driving on I-90 near the O’Hare airport and Elk Grove Village.
As soon as we made it out of the snowstorm, it was pretty uneventful all the way to the Wisconsin Dells which we made it to by 5:45AM. We slept for a few minutes in the parking lot outside McDonalds and then went in at 6AM for a breakfast.
As the sun rose and we left for the final 3 hour stretch, we were greeted with snow everywhere AND cold, cold, cold temps. Check out the temperature sequence on our car thermometer as we went descending down into one of the lower valleys.
Finally, it wouldn’t have been a 20 hour drive w/o capping it off with a 60 mile bike ride. Read all about it on my cycling blog soon.
So this post is about a month late, but after seeing some of the pictures and videos, I thought “better late than never”. We had a great trip up to Gatlinburg in early November. The fall colors were absolutely beautiful, and the kids enjoyed the snow at the top of Clingman’s Dome. My conference went well, and I got a chance to do some fun biking, too.
Welcome to Gatlinburg video – Kristine and the kids at the Pancake House while I’m at the ACM conference.
Riding the Ober-Gatlinburg gondola.
Josiah videos Analise and Kristine riding the chair swings at Ober-Gatlinburg. Josiah was not old enough to ride with them. He did a great job on the video though!
