No bike commuting Thursday as Portland got her "big" little snow storm. Just enough to close all the schools, so I stayed home so Evan could play. Pretty funny as he was up like with no effort, quite different than your standard school day, hahaha.
He actually had to wait a bit before he called his friends as they were still sleeping.
Our big travel was to get the sleds out, finally, and walk up to Mt. Tabor Park (7 blocks worth). Not really enough for great sledding, but they got a few runs in and had some fun with as much of the snow as possible.
After some sledding and a few crashes, they decided to roll some big snow balls. Initially, they wanted to make a 4-section snowman, or is it snowperson?
That soon turned to rolling huge snow balls, or at least until it was getting too hard to roll something that heavy.
Then, they wanted to roll them back home. One of the snow balls crashed before they got past the first park roadway crossing. Evan had the only draggable sled, so that was used to load up the snow ball and drag along, still pretty heavy. They were the hit of quite a few and the subject a few picture opportunities. In the end, the final snow ball only made it about a 1/4 mile as any further would be a challenge because of the steep hill. They launched it, safely, over the edge and watched it break apart.
As they played around and searched for the perfect sledding hill, I wandered along and took pictures. There were some nice areas and scenes. This one above is on the west side by Mt. Tabor's soapbox derby track, looking west toward downtown Portland (off in the background).
Friday, February 25, 2011
Today's ride was cold with some wind. Evan is amazing, he seems to have instant energy when we start off. A few blocks in the cold and I am gasping, watching him just pedal along. Wind seem to stay pretty steady around 10mph from the East/North-East. Brrrr.
Still, nice to be out on the bike. A block from school, one of Evan's friends caught up and he road along the rest of the way to school. We parted there and I continued on to work. Definitely a few less bike commuters out today and only 2 other bikes in the storage room when I got to work.
Even with the cold wind, I was warm going home, must be the hills and the extra work.
Uneventful riding day, that's always good, and with the sunny skies a beautiful day for riding.
