Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Yesterday's snow (and more snow this morning) left about 1' of new snow up at Happy Jack, more than offsetting what had melted earlier in the week. So new record depths for the snows up there now.

I got up there in the late afternoon, which proved to be near perfect timing. The groomer had rolled all the trails by then, and was just getting started on putting down corduroy and setting classic tracks.

Using the quasi-official three column method, today goes down as winter (it was in the teens on the trails) and of course yesterday was solidly winter. So far winter is totally ruling April. Maybe there will be some bare ground eventually. I know that somewhere the promised land must be waiting, under the snows!

An article in today's local paper states that out of 150 public universities in the nation, U. of Wyoming has the lowest tuition of them all. I didn't realize how much of a bargain UW was!

C • Except three others! 15

My plan was to go up skiing after work. It snowed overnight and snowed most of the day until about mid-afternoon, however it wasn't windy and there wasn't anything exceptional about the snow--maybe 4-5" on grass surfaces and hardly any accumulation on the streets.

But when I tried to head east up the hill, I couldn't: road closed. It sure didn't look all that bad from down below, but you never can be sure until you're up there and in it. I guessed it could just be a few quick wrecks, and that once they had the wrecks cleared off and had sprinkled some sand around, the road would be open again, so I headed off to the library for a bit, and wandered around in there trying to look all intellectual and such, and even checked out a few books. Nobody seemed all that impressed and I reckon in retrospect they had me sized up correctly as a wannabe sub-moron right quick.

Back to the interstate, which by all signs was still closed. One of the leading signs which I put extra confidence on was that traffic was backed up to the west for about 10 miles, and not moving much. A real sub-moron would have just taken off for the hills cross country style in some big 4 wheel rig, but I headed home instead.

I don't especially look forward to running on the roads, but I'd rather do that than do nothing. At least for the last few minutes I got to cut across the UW cross country course, and really that alone made it all worthwhile.

A very good evening to be in the Laramie motel business!

It looks like there will be a daffodil blooming in my yard before the end of the day. That's an almost 100% reliable warning signal of an incipient spring blizzard.

I think this is going to be my selection for quote of the day (from an article about flooding in New England):
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Demetri Skalkos, co-owner of McNamara's liquor store, said about three feet of water stood in the basement. He said he was worried about losing business over the traditionally busy Easter period.

"This is the Holy Week," he said. "... If we don't do business now, when are we going to do business?"

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I especially like the juxtaposition of "Holy Week" and the aspect of the "traditionally busy Easter liquor sales period."

C • busy Easter liquor sales period 3

Another day of some pretty outstanding winds, these mostly from the south and east.

If yesterday was properly windy, today is more like flat out blow your ass off windy. So fine! The upside is all the dust and debris that is left over once the winter snows have melted off the streets is gone--blown off to Nebraska, or maybe Iowa. The downside is the dust merchants in town have zero inventory for the moment. The other downside is it's trash day, and once the trash truck has emptied out the trash containers and set them back down on the streets--oh, boy, it's not going to be pretty! But the people who make their living removing dents from cars and re-touching paint jobs and such will be very happy.

And probably right now, somewhere on I-80, an 18 wheeler driver is wondering how the hell his rig ended up off the side of the interstate.

It's the functional equivalent of the wind gods turning a giant hair dryer on the snows.

The cross country course was melting off and drying out very nicely, and the grounds keepers have removed some of the tarping off the more delicate features of the course. They won't be able to make any more progress with that today though, not unless they envision re-enacting balloon boy. But by this weekend the course should be ready to go and distance runners will be able to try out their strides.

Much snow gusto at Happy Jack. Almost shocking not to see any trees blown over. Maybe the soil needs to thaw out first.

Very nice skiing at mid-day--trails still firm and only a little soft, and almost untracked, with full sun and some fine warming winds.

Properly windy out. Good to see that demolition of the UW married student housing ghetto has at last begun. It was said to have been really cheap to live there, but to look at it, it was probably overpriced at that.

As the day got older, the wind got bigger. No blown down trees though, at least not that I saw.