Some additional thoughts on the new year

Well, I was in a bit of a rush yesterday and forgot to mention a couple of items.

Trail Conditions:
Things are looking up. The leaves that have been piled high and slick are mulching down and turning to good traction. There are still plenty of sections that are slick, but it is nice to see an end in sight for it. So long as the rains stay brief drainage also is looking good. I had a couple of short mud bogs and puddles on my ride, but no slog fest. That's great considering we have had on and off rain for the past week.

Weather:
It is hard to figure out what attire to bring around these parts. One day it is near 70 degrees and the next it is in the low 40s. It is just weird. I have heard that our geographic location is the cause of this confusion. We are located where the cold Northern system and warm Southern systems meet. This is also why we get tornadoes. As the line where these systems drifts North and South it has a pretty drastic effect on the temperature here in Huntsville. We have had some snow flakes, but only light fluff that melts on landing. Still pretty cool though. I even saw a bit of that this morning. BTW, it is fricken cold this morning. Currently the bar at the top of the page is giving a real time temperature of 23 degrees. With wind that chills right to the bone.

In other news...
I forgot to mention that we had our second visitors stop by about a week ago. Rodney Lewis, one of my best friends from high school stopped by. I haven't seen Rodney since 1997, but tried to get in touch with him as soon as we moved out this way. Through a series of fortunate events we ended up getting in touch and as he was passing by to go to some family in Birmingham he stopped in for a visit.

It was great to see him. He really hasn't changed much, which is good. It didn't feel odd or like we hadn't seen each other in a decade. It was just easy to pick right up as friends. I am glad to have a close friend who also lives close by (relatively close at 80mi).

Rodney is still slender. He probably doesn't weigh more than 150lb. But he looks healthy and happy. The only thing unhealthy is his cigarette smoking. Guess you can't win them all though.

Rodney was accompanied by his wife Cara, their daughter Skyler (6 years old), and their new born son Jack Douglas. They look like a nice all American family. Cara is a nice girl who is born and raised in the south. She has a couple of uncles who are mayors of towns up in Tennessee. From the looks of it she will keep Rodney straight and he loves the heck out of her, so I am very happy for them.

We visited for a couple of hours and had dinner. We will need to take a road trip out to their house soon to check it out. Sounds like they are a bit in the woods and off the beaten path. But they are happy where they are at, rent a nice home, and have property to play on without anyone bugging them. Sounds like Rodney's dad has a camper and lives there as well.

Rodney's parents split up years back. I don't remember when he said, but it was over 5 years ago. His brother did grow up to be bigger than him and a bruiser for a while, but it sounds like he has slimmed down very thin. Rodney's descriptions of him are a bit mixed. Basically he mentioned that he was something like 6' and 250lb, but now he is smaller than him. So my interpretation is that Jed is 6' and 150-165lb at current. After getting into some trouble he has straightened out and is in the Army. When he finishes up there he should be in good shape.

That's it on the Rodney front. Let me know if you would like to get a hold of him.