Another Cold Ride

Snow storms and cold weather has made it almost impossible to get out for a ride. We had a few days of warm weather and rain, this week, which got rid of most of the snow. Of course then it got cold for the weekend. It was just warm enough for me on Saturday to attempt a ride. My go to place for a cold ride from my new home is Allaire state park. There is a pave path to Manasquan as well as some dirt paths and single track. 

Even though we got a small dusting of snow Friday night the path to Manasquan was mostly clear. The couple of spots with snow were crunchy and not icy. When I got to Manasquan I rode along the beach the before riding the roads along the Manasquan river to get back to the path

 

It was cold but I had every piece of warm weather gear I own on so I was warm enough. It was the strong west wind that made the ride painful. Still I don't like indoor trainers so I would rather deal with the cold and wind than spin on a trainer. Hopefully the weather will warm up a little so I can get longer ride in.

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.

The True Meaning of Christmas

Christmas means different things to different people. Everybody has their own tradition. For some people its about wearing ugly sweaters or singing Christmas carols or just getting together with family. For other people its about how many lights they can put on their house or how big their Christmas display can be. Last Thursday, I took the day off, and rode part of the Henry Hudson trail from Matawan to Sandy Hook and back. I got Jack, Ricky and Pete to join me. It was a windy day so it good that we were on a trail surrounded by woods most of the time. 

On the way through Hazlet I made a detour off the trail. I had read on NJ.com about a house that had one of the largest Christmas displays in the area and wanted to take a look. Even in the day time without the lights the amount of Santa's, snowmen and other figures was ridiculous.

After checking out the display we headed to Sandy Hook on the trail. It was about 15 miles to get there. Because of the wind we didn't go past the second parking lot. On the way back I decided to check out the Mt Mitchill overlook which I always wanted to do. 

It really wasn't a hard climb to get there and it gave a really good view of Sandy Hook. We road along the cliffs for a few miles continuing to get some views of the bay before we made our way back to the trail. On the way back the only thing of interest was some kind of cat half way house.

It was parking lot with some cat houses on one side and bowls on the other side with cats eating out of them. 

On Christmas eve while driving home we decided to make a stop at the same house in Hazlet since it was only a few miles out of the way. It was worth the stop to see it at night and was a fun thing to do. At night the brightness of the lights was almost blinding. We walked around the display for about 10 mins and took some pictures. The display is not only in the front yard

But spills over to the backyard.

Putting out a big light display may not be part of your Christmas tradition but I hope you all have a joyous holiday season.

Home Improvements

 

We are entering the winter doldrums where you are either riding in cold, windy or wet weather and sometimes all three. When the weather gets colder the rides get shorter and less often. If I'm lucky I usually get out once a week for a 40ish mile ride. The last few weeks I have been doing rides from MCP, Reed Rec Area, and from my house. Although these rides let me keep riding and hanging out with the posse there is nothing much worth writing about for these rides. 

The winter is also the time when I work on some home improvements since I have more time indoors. One of the reasons we moved was to have a house that required less maintenance. The house we bought was in pretty good shape so there is nothing urgent that needed to be done. Still there were some improvements we wanted to make to keep it in good shape and enhance it to fit us a little better. 

Although we had the interior of the house painted right after we moved in there was one room we didn't have painted.

When we bought the house we weren't sure that we wanted all the book shelves and cabinets in the office as we don't have a lot of books to display or files to store. We thought we might want to remove some of the cabinetry but after living with it for a few months the built in desk and shelves work pretty well. We may add some doors but otherwise we like the room so I spent a few days painting it a better color.

So now every room in the house has been painted and we shouldn't need to do any more painting for quite a while.

The house we bought is 17 years old so there are a few things that needed to be replaced. The first thing we replaced was the water heater. Although it was it good working order it is better to replace a water heater before it starts leaking and causes damage. The other thing we replaced was the stove. It was the one thing in the house that was really worn.

It was not only scratched up but one of the burners was actually not working. When they built the house the put both electric and gas fittings under the stove so we replaced the electric stove with a gas one which my wife had been wanting for years.

Even with the supply chain issues we got lucky and only had to wait a week to get the stove. The dishwasher which we also decided to replace will probably take a few months to get.

One of the other home improvements I have been working on is making the house more automated. I updated the thermostat to a smart the ecobee lite which not only works a lot better than the old thermostat but I can control it from my phone which means when I'm away from home I can now check to see if the heat is working and not worry about the pipes freezing.

I also added some smart switches and plugs. This not only make it easier to set timers for my lights to go on and off but also allows me to control then using voice commands. This is convenient when the dog gets up in the middle of the night and I need to put her out without tripping over the furniture.

As any one who owns a house knows there will always be a list of things to do to maintain and update a house.  I still have a number of projects that will keep me busy this winter. Although I have started to build a small workshop in the garage it still needs more work to be fully functional. I also want to improve the shelving inside some of the closets to provide better storage. I enjoy these type of projects so look forward to taking the time to make the house work better for us. 

This house does not require the same amount of work as our old house especially since the community takes care of all the landscaping and yard work so I have had more free time which I have been using to explore the area. I have been walking the golf course in our community when it is closed to golfer and have taken a few good sunset pictures like the one at the top of the post. I have also visited some of the local parks. There is one right behind my house that is a good place to hike and do some mountain biking. 

It has been fun getting to know this area a little better. Between the home improvements and area exploration the new house is starting to feel like home.

Lunar Eclipse

This past Thursday there was a partial lunar eclipse which means the shadow of the earth would cover part of the moon. However at the peak of the eclipse the shadow would cover 97% of the moon so it would be close to a total eclipse. Clouds and rain were in the forecast and it was cloudy for the beginning of the eclipse but it cleared up by 4am when it was peak and I was able to see the last part of it. 

Unlike a solar eclipse the moon doesn't go completely dark during a lunar eclipse but turns red. This is because the light from the sun get refracted by the earths atmosphere and lights up the moon. The color the moon turns depends on the clouds, dust and other particles in the atmosphere. Its different each time.

As the shadow recedes from the moon the color changes from red back to the normal gray. You can see the progression from the composite picture at the top of the post. I took those 7 close up pictures of the moon over the course of about 2 hours. 

Here is what it looked like out my front porch at 4am.

Luckily I was able to view the eclipse from my front yard. That let me go back inside and warm up between shots as it was cold and windy. Here is composite view up my street showing the approximate position of the moon over the two hours.

I'm getting a little better using GIMP to combine the close up moonshots with a landscape view. There is no way to take a single picture that will have the correct exposure for the landscape and a bright moon so you need take two more pictures and do a little photo editing to show how it looks to the human eye. 

On the evening of the eclipse I got a good shot of the moon rise. It seems our street sort of goes east to west so occasionally there is an opportunity to get a good shot of a sun or moon rise.

 

Lunar eclipses occur a lot more frequently than solar eclipse. The next one is May 15 2022 so expect to see some more picture here if the weather is good.