And this evening, thanks to Heddy texting "colorful sunset tonight," I ran outside in my slippers to catch it.
8 March 2026
Last Sunday I did a solo ride in the late afternoon with my GoPro mounted on Janice's handlebar. Of the 30 miles I recorded, 22 became a Rouvy route that, if you're a subscriber, you can find here.
In order to submit a clean ride, I need to be by myself or out in front. Nobody wants their butt to be part of a permanent Rouvy video. I had mounted the camera for the ride I planned to lead yesterday, but, given the size of the group and the murky skies, I removed it before I headed out.
I'd promised a mellow ride with what I thought was an accurate measurment elevation gain. We got the former, not so much the latter. I have a route from Pennington to Lambertville that I like so much I'd already used it twice before yesterday.
The usual cadre of fast climbers was absent, and a few others hadn't been out in months. That left me in the front of the pack for almost the entire ride. I regretted not having the camera, cloud cover be damned. This means, of course, that I'll be wanting to do this route again, under blue skies, either by myself or with people who are willing to stay behind me or be so far ahead that they'll be out of camera range.
Almost all of the snow was gone. The roads were damp from overnight rain. The temperature was in the mid 40s, which felt balmy compared to the February deep freeze.
There was a slight wind out of the south. I think that helped us climb.
We did the usual stuff: Stony Brook to the ridge, then over to Rocktown to cross at Route 31. There were traffic-counting tubes on both sides of Rocktown. Either a giant development is coming in (not likely), or some sort of traffic calming measure is planned (please please please). Plain Jim took the safe route down the shoulder of 31 to cross at Rocktown Hill Road. The rest of us waited forever for a break in the traffic.
We did stop briefly for the Mount Airy cows. "If you search my hard drive for 'Mount Airy cows,' I said, "you'll get hundreds." I'm doing a search now, which only has photos since I bought this laptop in 2021. I am very wrong. It's only 27, plus these 5.
1 March 2026
Much of Monday's snow dump has melted, enough that Tom invited a few of us to ride the sunnier roads between West Windsor and Plainsboro.
I rode to Mercer County Park from home. The shoulders were still half-covered in snow. That wasn't a problem. Riding through the shadier sections of Mercer County Park's main road was almost a problem. Melting snow had frozen overnight into fingers of ice reaching out from the side of the road. The ice was melting as I weaved around it.
I wanted to get a picture of the Assunpink from the wooden bridge. I decided not to take the paved path through the park to get to it, and I'm glad I didn't, because the section between the bridge and the East Picnic Area parking lot was still covered in snow.
Tom led me, Rickety, Blob, and Our Jeff to the Caspersen Rowing Center on the north side of Mercer Lake, solely to look at the ice and take pictures.
I left the other backyard glass outside. I don't care about those as much. I'd already taken the glass balloons inside before the previous storm, which was a good thing, because they'd've been half buried.
Anyway, with the vases washed and the laundry folded, I settled in by the new bow window and watched Clementine and the birds as the snow began to fall.
The township plows our street, which is good of course. However, they're very thorough. A single pass down the center of the road doesn't cut it for them. No, they have to clear every inch of blacktop. What this means for us homeowners is that we will be met with a wall of snow chunks at the feet of our driveways.
What I do to make this easier on my back is to get out there and shovel early in an attempt to minimize the height of the eventual wall. I'll shovel past my driveway and a third of the way into the street if the snow is going to be deep.
I heard the plow go past at 9:30 p.m. I suited up and started digging out. My neigbor revved up his snow blower. He told me in December not to bother clearing the sidewalk in front of my house. "My mother never let us play in the snow," he explained. "This is me playing."
I cleared my driveway and the walkway to the front steps. The bird feeders were coated in a thin layer of ice. I tried to clean them off a little. My neigbor went through with his snow blower. There looked to be about six inches of snow so far, and in the 40 minutes I was out there, another half inch had come down.
There's so much ambient light in our neighborhood, especially when it's snowing, that shoveling in the dark wasn't shoveling in the dark at all. My motion-sensitive floodlights are bright too, and the wind was keeping the crape myrtle branches moving.
I'd started from the back patio. I needed to dig a path from the door to the side of the garage so that I'd be able to drag my glassblowing toolkit to the car. I'd stashed the recycling bins on the patio too. Otherwise, they'd either get blown across the neighborhood or filled with snow.
By 11:00, snow was sticking to the window screens. When I woke up at 7:30 this morning, the snow was so deep I couldn't tell where the street began.
Jack took a picture of the deck railing from our kitchen window.
It was still snowing. I came down a few minutes later and framed the shot from a distance.
The juncos were at the feeders.
When we replaced our windows, we chose frosted glass for the lower half in the bathrooms. Now, the pattern I picked, which looks like frost, could easily have been the real thing. (And no, I didn't make that ornament.)
The plow had done a single pass several inches ago and didn't seem to be returning. At 9:45 I ventured out through the back patio.
When I opened the east door, there was a drift two feet high still standing.
I took the picture as I was digging out the driveway. The problem wasn't so much the depth of the snow (more than a foot, it seemed) as where to put it. I ended up carrying shovelsfull toward the fence side because there was already so much snow stacked up on the house side of the walkway that whatever else I added fell right back down. After I figured that out, I settled into a pattern of carrying or heaving depending on where I was.
Several things pass through my mind as I shovel. One is that I need to be very careful about my back. Another is that it's a good thing I'm not a fall risk (right, bird bones?). A third is that I'm glad I lift weights and do endurance training. A fourth is that I should get a snow blower already.
My neighbor was starting his up at the top of his driveway when I was halfway through digging out the sidewalk. First I had to find the sidewalk, because there was scant evidence that it had been cleared last night. A slight indentation was the only clue.
I was faster with the shovel than he was with his toy. The snow was wet and starting to melt. Nevertheless, I let him have the last few feet.
When I was finished, I checked the time. I'd been at this for two hours and fifteen minutes. I'd replaced Rockefeller's Teeth with the White Cliffs of Dover.
I went inside, fetched a yardstick (it came with the house when we moved in back in 1999). In the back yard, the snow reached almost fourteen inches.
In the front, it was fourteen.
