Friday

Nations emailed to say the truck was ready. I had been mapping routes to hike in and get it but with the snow I bailed on that plan and riding my trials bike in I bailed again. But I was running out of the individual bottles of propane so I stuff seven of them in the back of the Jeep and drove in to get the truck and switch them out. I've stuck a propane heater in the living room, one in the office, and one in my bedroom and it's way easier then burning a whole bunch of wood. Usually it would take me four loads of wood to get through the winter and in those days they were about $130 a truck load until I found my current wood guy who's about $80. Then there is hauling it back, carry it into the living room containers, get the fire going and it takes a little while to warm up. The propane heaters are almost immediate if you're close enough. So big saving on time and easy to change them out plus it looks like my winter costs will be about half versus wood. The up front expense is more, heaters, hoses, propane tanks, but the money and time savings are a lot.

This is what every morning since Tuesday's snow looks like. The sun just never breaks through.

There were no tracks in the road going up Hurrah and there were two part way down the other side that looked like they started up and turned around. Without tracks in some places it might be hard to make out the road but since it's straight up on the right and straight down on the left there's no problem on Hurrah.

It got into the 40s and the snow was melting quick slopping up the road. Somebody had issues.

On the way back the truck drove like a dream after ten years plus getting beat up on this road. Nations said they had to replace almost every part in the front end. Was five hours before I could get back with other errands and a lot of snow had melted.

I think one of the reasons I have driven so many vehicles out for people rarely touching bottom while they say they hit a whole bunch of times on the way in is from all my years riding competitive trials events. I'm really good at picking a line without suffering myself or the bike, and now transferred into guests vehicles. But I was really surprised though since I was the only set of tracks going out and back starting on Hurrah how often I took a different path in the road on the way back than I had taken on the way out. I think it was about the first time I had actually been able to compare with the absence of all other tracks.