Some Pictures for a Snowy Day

It was another cold and snowy weekend. We ended up getting some where between 15-18 inches of snow. Normally the higher snow totals are in the north and east of the state but for some reason this year the higher totals have been by the coast. 

It was very windy during the storm so there was a lot of snow drifts around including some funky one at our front door.

The only shoveling I had to do during the storm was to clear out enough room for Frisket to go out and do her business. It wasn't a lot of fun to take her out during the storm. 

 

It's going to be a while before I will be using the grill or sitting out on the patio

 

The snow does look nice in the woods behind us. But seeing the piles of snow on the street and in front of the house it's going to be around a while. Let's hope it melts enough so I can get out for a ride next weekend. 

Cold Weather

The snow of last week melted but the cold weather has stayed with us which has made it hard to get out for a ride. As long as it is above 20 degrees and there is not too much snow on the ground I can usually get out for some kind of ride. This weekend was at the edge of my limits. I initially was going to join Laura and a few others and ride the canal by Washington Crossing but the temperature was going to be below my limit and then there was the wind. The main reason I wanted to go was because I haven't been over the Scudder's Falls bridge bike lane yet but I can do that when it gets a little warmer. 

Instead I chose to ride the part of Capital to Coast trail (the Edgar Felix part) that goes from Allaire State park to Manasquan. It's a paved trail of about 7 miles. The trail ends in the middle of Manasquan and it's only a few miles to the beach.  Between the trail and the ride to and from the beach you can get put together a 15 to 20 mile ride. This included a ride on the boardwalk along the beach(which is actually not a board walk but a paved path). I stopped at the Manasquan inlet but only for a few seconds because of the wind. I didn't see any boats heading through the inlet. 

The weather by the shore was about 5-8 degrees warmer than at Washington Crossing as it was 24 degrees when I started and almost 30 when I finished. It is not the most scenic ride except by the beach but the trail is close to where I live now and gave me a way to get some miles in. I suspect this will be one of my go to spots when I want to get some miles in on a cold day. There are some spurs to this trail so I will probably explore those next time while waiting for warmer weather.

Winter Wonderland

I wasn't able to ride this weekend because of the snow we got on Thursday night into Friday. We ended up with about 6 inches of snow. I will sometimes try and ride on some of the paths if there are only a couple of inches of snow but the snow from this storm was too deep to try that. 

Instead I ended up walking around the neighborhood and golf course. This streets of this community are very quite with almost no traffic so it is very safe to walk on streets and side walk. The community did a good job clearing the snow so the streets, walks and driveways so there was little to no ice to slip on. This is the first snow at the new house. Because snow removal is part of our maintenance fee I didn't have to worry about shoveling the walk or driveway.

Although I would have rather been riding this weekend it was interesting to walk around the neighborhood. It is a big place so I'm still learning my way around and finding some of the more scenic spots.

I'm sure this will be the first of may walks around my community as it is an easy way to get some exercise in when it is too snowy to bike and another advantage of moving into a community.