FROZEN JANUARY 2024

January wasn’t ALL bad, but it sure had a lot of weather.

We started the first day of the year as usual with a Rainbow Ride: FROSTY (First Ride Out Starting The Year). Kristi and Kristin hosted us for food and socializing after the ride. The dramatic sky shows the type of weather we were getting into, but we did not have a drop of rain (or snow) for our annual ride.

Our turn around spot.

Getting the ducks in a row…

One by one we enjoy the day…

Within about a week we were in the Deep Freeze with temps in the teens. We had just a touch of snow a few times, with little on the ground, but the temps stayed low enough to freeze everything around us. I think it was close to two weeks before I could ride my bike! So we took walks instead.

First sign of snow.

Walking along the “library trail” near our house gave us good outdoor time and some nice wintery scenes.

Oh, and to help me get through the freeze and no bike riding, I took an online Haiku class ;’).

Icicles attached

A log crosses the cold stream

Sun glistening both

It was cold and icy for days! We met our friend Kathy for another walk along Spencer Island.

Then came the day!!! I could ride. Sun. Shadows. Just small patches of snow left to melt.

I would ride ANYWHERE. My old usual routes that I do over and over, were NOT at all boring and in fact, felt fresh as I enjoyed my bike and the sunny days.

I have not taken a photo of our goat, Beverly (she is on Beverly Blvd) for a long time. Here she is decked out for the holidays.

We continued to take some walks as well. Another diversion to help us through the cold freeze was to join a ‘walking challenge’, challenging only ourselves. More about that a little later.

One of our walks was along the waterfront of Mukilteo with our friend Kathy.

Another beautiful January day came available for a ride with Kathy to Lake Cassidy. It is one of the “usuals” and always a pleasure to ride and for a picnic stop. On the way I could not pass up the old barn.

Took my bike out for a short walk on the dock to the lake. She loved it ;’)

As I mentioned, both Susan and I had a couple of diversion to help us get through our ice age and then our ‘atmospheric river’ conditions that concluded the month. I did my Haiku class and a great Tai Chi online that I discovered (loving it). Susan does a German language course on tape. And we both do the “StepBet” walking challenge. We pay up $40 each and if we are successful at walking our prescribed steps each day for 6 weeks (one day off a week), we are guaranteed our $40 back. AND if others drop out their share is put into a pot that will be divided amongst the finishers. Today is our last day and I think we have about $46 coming to us! Wealth.

I started out this post with a photo of the sky. Let’s end it with a photo of the sky that Susan took on a nighttime walk we did.