For three years now, 2018 through 2020, we have taken the bikes to Three Peaks on the winter solstice: A tradition. For this year, 2020, we added an event: We had a picnic and campfire at the county park after the bike ride. Tiger and Melissa joined us for the campfire and the five of us looked for the Christmas Star (when we weren't looking into the flames).
We went out to cut a C-mas tree for The Homestead yesterday. We were looking for a subalpine fir. All the "cute" trees that VSO noticed were, unfortunately, Engelmann spruce. It was almost shameful: She has lived with a forester for two decades and can mistake a spruce for a fir? EDO, on the other hand, doesn't have any trouble. She can look across the clearing and sort one from the other. (Maybe the skill is hereditary?) When we got home, I received a text from my brother-in-law (VSO's brother); he had gone out to cut a white fir, but came home with something he didn't recognize. He asked me to ID the picture he sent to my phone. It was a Douglas fir. When I told Ryan about this incident, he suggested that he might ask for help with his artificial tree. "What species of plastic is this?" I told him to send a picture.
When you've got 400 miles to go and just four more hours of daylight, this view (above) is unwelcome. I mean, it is nice to know that the county guys are out there, trying to make the highway safe, but you can't follow along at 45 MPH and still make it. Fortunately, there is no one else out there besides the county guys, so there is plenty of room to pass (below). The other good thing, at least in this case, is that the slop was broken by some long stretches of dry road, so I was able to put the hammer to the metal (if I may mix metaphors) and make up for lost time.
Don't get me wrong, I really like December. But it does come as a shock when I leave for a short hike at 3:30p and find that it is nearly dark before I can get to the lake. It is, I guess, just two weeks until the solstice, but it still seems strange to find the sun setting at 4:30p. And, the wind: The wind picked up as the sun went down. It was quickly cold; it hurt my fingers to use the camera. Beautiful, though.
We got it today. The whole loop. No sheep camp. EDO ran and I rode the bike. Finished in less than an hour.
