Recent tradition on trips to Kansas has been dinner with Cindy's parents and a semi-quiet evening opening a few gifts Christmas Eve. Christmas morning the kids usually open a few more gifts before heading out to Grandpa and Grandma Nick and Bonnie's for the day.
Here's Quinn on Christmans morning in his skulls and crossbones.
With a day or two respite from all the Christmas gatherings and festivities, it's time to celebrate a couple of birthdays. We split the difference and had a party on December 29th.
Abbey happy with sock monkey hat and moon chair.
It's traditional that we visit the Sedgwick County Zoo while we're in Kansas for the holidays. This time we went with a group of seventeen, if my count is correct. It was a beautiful day to be outside. See the blue sky?
Our return trip to Michigan was mostly uneventful. We had sun and a tailwind most of the drive and nobody stole any of our stuff this time. It was interesting to note that within half an hour of crossing the Indiana-Michigan line, the sky became cloudy and snow began to fall.
Now we're back to the usual post-holiday mix of work and school, basketball and music lessons, running and bicycling, and paying the bills.
This winter I've been getting in one good snow ride each weekend. Last weekend, Amos and I went to Anderson Park. When it's just the two of us at the park, I don't feel too bad about letting him run leashless, although on that trip we shared the park with one other cyclist and his big fluffy dog. The dogs were civil. Amos is getting really good about returning to my side when I call, and he so loves to run the trails. There was only a little snow, and it was light and fluffy with hard frozen ground underneath. The riding was not difficult, but a little slippery. In this I find tranquility of the mental or spiritual sort, although with a substantially elevated heart rate, my body finds it less tranquil.
It's hard to imagine getting by without a mini-van. The Nickel and the dog and gear all fit inside. Visual chaos.
The following day, Amos and I took Quinn out for a neighborhood run-and-ride in the snow. We had such a good time -- I wish I'd had a camera. We probably ran only four miles, but with stops it took us more than hour. First we stopped at the local sledding hill and Quinn rode his bike down the hill a few times. After that, as we continued our ride, Quinn worked on getting up speed and grabbing his rear brake, spinning 180s on the snow pack (he was using flat pedals, not clips). Finally, stopping at the school where the kids play on mounds of snow pushed up from the parking lot, Quinn worked on riding his bike up and down the icy mounds. It was a crazy good time and nobody even got hurt. Quinn said it was the "best run-and-ride ever!"
Yesterday was another day of big fun in the snow. Cindy had the day off, so she took Q&A to Abbey's basketball game at 9 a.m. I left about the same time to go meet a group of MMBA guys at Anderson Park. I wish I'd seen Abbey's game: her team lost 22 to 20, in a really tight game with other team scoring the winning points in just the last few seconds, but my ride at Anderson was interesting; I won't go into too many details here, but with six inches of new snow on the ground it was very challenging. The snow hides slippery roots, any corner is precarious, and any climb presents a traction challenge. It was an aerobic workout at the bottom of the gear range. There were four other riders and three left after the first 1.6 mile loop. One of the riders who left early was on a single-speed 29er, and despite his big hoops his 32-17 gearing was just too tall for the conditions. The other two riders were probably hindered by their slightly narrower less aggressive tires. I attribute some of my advantage to my tires: Very lightly used, aggressive tread, with lots of sharp knobs, and running at only 20 psi. The other evident advantage I had was aerobic fitness.
After the ride, I changed into dry clothes in the car and met Quinn at Burchfield Park for an afternoon cub scout "Polar Bear" outing, involving cross-country skiing and sledding. We rented some boots, skis, and poles for Quinn at the park and spent almost 2 hours skiing groomed trails along the Grand River. These are some of the same trails the MMBA maintains for bicycling during the summer, but are officially closed to bikes once the first snow falls. I'm really bummed that I left the camera in the car for this. Quinn did very well on the cross-country skis, and he really loved it. We will definitely have to do that again and bring the girls.
After the skiing, we swapped ski boots for snow boots and trudged over to the sledding hill. We brought one of our sleds, but the park rents tubes that were even more fun. The hill was icy and fast, at (I'm guessing, here) about 100 vertical feet and maybe 100 yards long. I don't know how many times Quinn (and I) slid down that hill and trudged back to the top (sometimes I pulled him up on the tube), but we were really tired by the time the cloudy sky grew dark. I was pleased that Quinn asked several times if we could go back and do more cross country skiing. If the sledding was chaos, the skiing was tranquility.
Packing the gear into the van after another day in the snow.
The boy in the office. Chaos.
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