Cancelled and postponed

Day 23 of my quarantine.

 

Everything is cancelled or postponed but after the early panic period things seem to stabilize a bit. It's easier to find food in grocery stores and some toilet paper rolls. I could never understand why one of the first items to quickly disappear from stores were cooking oil, ketchup and toilet paper. Seriously, how many liters of oil do you think you need to keep at home to survive?

Apparently, with the weather getting warmer we can count on the situation to improve, since the virus doesn't live too long at elevated temperatures. Unfortunately, it would have to be well into the eighties (or over 30C) to have a meaningful effect, which means we may need to wait until June.

I guess that in order for things to get better, they will have get way worse first. Something tells me we are still about to reach the peak of this pandemic and judging by people's behavior, I don't think I'm wrong. Since all playgrounds and play fields are closed, on every warmer day there are masses of people going hiking in parks and forests. The tiny Whipple Hill Forest in Arlington must be packed on weekends, as evidenced by the number of cars parked all over the place.

Because I have to visit my workplace on some days, for limited time, I went back to taking the Minuteman Bikeway to work again, ... only to abandon it ASAP. It feels strange to write this, but now, with so little traffic on roads, it's actually safer to take a road without any proper cycling infrastructure, than to ride on the Minuteman Bikeway. All because the roads are empty, while the Bikeway is packed with people. Social distancing? Not so much.

I understand that in order to retain any level of sanity in the current situation one must go outside once a while. Even in the middle of pandemic I don't want to completely give up on cycling. Given the situation, the best thing I could do is to ride in more remote places, where I know I won't likely see anyone.

Stay safe. Stay healthy.

What happens at deer camp, stays at deer camp

What a weird time to be alive. I've been sitting at home for what feels like forever (actually just over a week), things have been pretty quiet outside, no school, low traffic, people trying to avoid each other and, of course, ... shortages of toilet paper.

Anyway, the last weekend I had a long-planned trip to Vermont and at first I questioned whether I should still go. I would be spending 2 full days in a group of 10 people after all - and that's maybe not the best idea in times of social distancing. But then, I thought that since most of these people would be from rural Vermont and I likely have a higher chance of catching any illness by just going to my local grocery store, I decided it should be safe to go.

The "2020 Eira Experience" organized by Analog Cycles, was originally planned as a fatbike ride through the snowy Green Mountains of Vermont. However, since this winter has been unusually warm, there was no snow left, not counting a few frozen patches deep in the forest. We did face plenty of very mushy mud though and some flooded trails.

Since I don't own a fatbike, I decided to rent one and generally, it worked great. We rolled through some soggy snowmobile trails and often (ok, way too often), we pushed bikes uphill. Basically, it was lots of pushing and crawling.

Finally, we reached our camp for the night - a hunting camp in "secret location". It was cozy and warm, with a large wood-burning stove in the middle.

We ate tacos, shared stories, drank bourbon laced with maple syrup and sat by the fire. (Plus some of us decided to consume mezcal grubs for a midnight snack.)

The next day morning was noticeably colder, with only 23F (-5C) outside. We had breakfast, slowly packed up and head back to the shop. It was a great way to break up this winter, even though it unfortunately had to happen in the middle of virus outbreak.

Let the warmer days arrive.