A Bike Ride, a Snow-pocalypse and two Squash

A Bike Ride

We expected a cold and possibly rainy ride on Saturday morning, ride two of the Winter Training Series. What we got, however, was a frigid, slushy, sleety slog-fest. I am glad we finished and no one got seriously hurt, but if I had known the conditions we would be riding through, I probably wouldn’t have gotten out of bed in the morning: die another day.

The start of the ride was warm and dry to the point where I was cursing myself for dressing too warmly. My hands were downright hot in my ski gloves and liners; I unzipped my rain jacket so that it flapped behind me like the Wicked Witch of the West in Wizard of Oz.

Wizard of Oz

Finally, I decided to stop and shed my outer head covering. This marked the beginning of the end in terms of the pleasantness of the ride. As Ben and I waved the rest of the group on, we finished stripping and stowing gear. When we eventually rolled, we were a good five minutes behind the group – a doable chase, but we never saw them again. I popped my back tube yet again (third time in a week); this time the culprit was a shard of brown beer bottle. The complication that further delayed our roll was a rear wheel wobble. This happened a month ago and Ben used a wrench to tighten the cones and locknuts to fix the problem. Thankfully, Ben is one strong dude and was able to tighten the cones by hand so that I could finish the ride, but we did so on our own - two bikes in a sea of cars and…SNOW.  

That’s right, my friends, the weather turned and we found ourselves riding through freezing sleet. It was so cold that Ben’s mud flap acquired road sludge icicles! Right about this time, we lost the route and let me tell you, it is awfully disheartening to be riding through sleet and LOST. All you want is to be warm again and that probably won’t happen until you finish the ride and you can’t even make progress towards that because you have no idea where in the Sam Hill you are!

It was a dark day in bike land, but we persevered. Despite being completely unable to find even a single coffee shop in the little town of XXXX, we did eventually find I-5 and that was our ticket back on route. The sleet slacked and we cranked our way out into the picturesque countryside. My favorite memory from this section of the ride was when we got shot at…sort of. The rapport of a shot gun startled us and I spotted a duck wildly flapping an escape. Several more shots left the hunters skunked and the duck far away. Tee-hee-hee-hee. 

The weather didn’t hold for long, however, and we knew we were in for it when we started seeing cars approaching us with thick layers of snow blanketing their hoods. Additionally, the road turned hilly and zooming farm trucks occasionally splashed road sludge on us as they zipped past. This was when I began wanting to ask Ben, “Are we there yet? How much further?” I refrained and we slogged on. Soon we met a rider going in the opposite direction. “Are you with the Randonneurs?” he called. “Yep!” “Great. Can I follow you home? I am cold and confused.” He was a tough old man, but cold and confusion are a deadly combination. We gladly accepted his shadow and shepherded him home.

Finally, I broke down and had to ask how close we were getting, “10 miles.” That’s a manageable distance, I thought, but hot damn! Those last ten miles stretched on FOR-ever. They started with the steepest downhill section I have ever ridden on a bike, not to mention on sludgy roads, with numb fingers and wet brakes. It was treacherous. I skid out at one point when I mashed the brakes too hard and gravity refused to release my bike from its iron grip; I thought I was going down, but somehow recovered. My fingers were cramped into claw hands by the time the grade eased and I sighed a long stream of cloud as I unclipped at the next stoplight.

Ben navigated us back to the Burke-Gilman Trail and we knew it would be an easy four mile ride from there because we wouldn’t have to compete with traffic or traffic lights. Nevertheless, the cold was making us loopy. Numbness was creeping from the extremes of my extremities up my forearms and calves. My lips had lost some muscle control and my cheeks felt awfully funny. It was hard to focus on pedaling because I was so preoccupied with wiggling my toes and fingers and making faces to keep as much blood as I could flowing through my coldest bits. I’m sure the middle-aged couples out for an afternoon stroll thought we were mad: Ben was grunting on every pedal stroke and I was puffing my cheeks and roaring like a lion.

Getting to the car was supposed to mean we were safe and would soon be warm, but the opposite occurred. As soon as I dismounted I realized I didn’t bring an extra set of dry clothes and that’s when I started shivering. I didn’t think I could get colder than I was while riding, but I most certainly did. I didn’t bother removing my helmet or gloves while we quickly stowed the bikes and I stuffed large handfuls of trail mix into my gob hole. Our old man biker friend disappeared into his car with hardly a goodbye – it was too cold for pleasantries. We couldn’t figure out where the rest of our crew was: surely they beat us home. We had stopped multiple times and got lost. But just as we were heading into the bookshop to get warm, they rolled up. No one could figure out how we had beaten them home and we stood around in the cold trying to figure it out for some time before we realized that that wasn’t the best plan. (We were all a little too cold to think straight.)

Before I could head to the bookshop, I wanted to trade my clipless shoes for my other shoes (house slippers), but I a tough time. I had duct-taped clear-plastic vegetable bags from the grocery store around my socked feet in an attempt to form a wind and rain barrier and I couldn't seem to tear the tape. I can’t believe that I didn’t stab myself as I wildly wielded a pocketknife with numb claw-fingers. After freeing my only slightly damp feet, I followed the crowd to the bookstore. It was a long trudge, not by distance, but by time. My brickfeet kept slipping out of the slippers and refusing to step when I asked them to. My hair was drenched and dread-like tendrils were escaping my do-rag to asymmetrically and unflatteringly frame my wind-burned cheeks. My rain pants were both hiked up far past my bellybutton and cinched tight mid-calf, effectively giving me balloon pants that stopped above tall blue hiking socks and mud-splattered house slippers. I was a mess. Needless to say, some considerate patron held the door open for me as I boldly walked my dirty, tired bones into the warmth.

It was an adventure: 50 miles through sleet. I feel like I more than earned some sort of foul weather merit badge. You know, the one you always knew you never wanted. I’m glad we lived to tell the tale. I don’t even know how we could have aborted the ride midway through – we were alternately in the boondocks and towns far outside Seattle. How does one call a cab to a farm road? How do you stash two bikes in a cab? Will a cab take you from a farm town into the city? These all seemed insurmountable at the time, but if the roads had turned icy, I’m sure we would have surmounted them.

On the way home, the clouds broke and for the first time I felt angry when I saw the day  brighten into an astoundingly sunny, gorgeous afternoon – it seemed to negate the hellish ride we just dominated. Oh well.   

<<Improvements to Consider before Next Ride>> 

          1. Rig a way to reference my own cue sheet

          2. Patch and/or buy more tubes, possibly new tires 

          3. Diagnose cone/locknut issue and carry appropriate wrench 

          4. Stash food in a ride-accessible place 

          5. Bring a camera in the car 

          6. Remember dry clothes for after the ride

          7. Consider glove/shoe improvements, possibly involving HotHands warmers 

          8. Attach a rear mud flap for a pack-friendly spray

A Snow-pocalypse

At 7am on Sunday morning, I cracked an eye and saw white rooftops. I closed my eyes and the snow melted into a warm summery day. At nine, I peeked out to find the snow was indeed real and that it was piled high and falling in great big, puffy flakes. SNOW DAY! I started the kettle to boil for hot chocolate and made a snowman, grinning like a two-year-old, cracked out on birthday cake. 

Picasso

Realism

Later

The snow didn’t stop falling until late in the afternoon and it was awesome. Nothing transforms reality like mountains of white powder. As if God upended a giant bag of flour, every branch and rooftop became a magical scene. I spent most of Sunday with two hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate spiked with coffee and my chin resting on a windowsill, gaping. We have lots of windows in our house and I had to visit them all periodically marveling at the slightly different views they afforded.

The branches collected a lot of snow.

View from the Front/Back Room

Blue Sky?

View from Ben's picture window

Spiderweb

Two Squash

Although our larder is getting low and it was hardly a day for grocery shopping, I dug two squash out of the back of the pantry and made three new recipes during the Snow-pocalyse. The original plan was just to make butternut and acorn squash soup, so I roasted and de-seeded one of each. This yielded twice as much squash as the soup recipe required and a mound of seeds bursting with potential. The seeds were painstakingly separated from the strings then roasted with garlic and parmesean, while the remainder of the squash was used to make squash spaetzle. Triple score. 

This is what the squash looked like before I ate it.

The curried squash soup recipe was taken from Mollie Katzen’s The New Moosewood Cookbook. Unfortunately, I discovered that I don't particularly enjoy curried squash soup and thus will not pass on the recipe.

The seed roasting procedure was taken from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and the buttery, garlic Parmesan flavoring was a tip from here. 

Garlic and Parmesean Flavored Squash Seeds

Clean and dry the seeds. Spread them into a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and stir them to coat. Bake at 375F for 5-10 minutes, until you hear the first seed pop or they start changing color. Add as much butter as you are willing to eat in one sitting, sprinkle with garlic powder and Parmesan cheese (shredded and not from a green plastic container, preferably). Stir to mix as the butter melts. Return to oven for five minutes.

Garlic and Parmesan Flavored Squash Seeds

 The squash spaetzle recipe is from Hank Shaw’s Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog. Too much nutmeg though.

Cheesy squash spaetzle on a bed of sauteed kale

Dinner Journal:

Tuesday: Cheese Enchiladas from Homesick Texan (added roasted poblanos and black beans), Cilantro-Lime Rice (left it too long in the rice cooker == GUMMY), Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa adapted from Mark Miller’s Tacos.

Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa
First set of ingredients:
1 pound Tomatillos (husked and quartered)
1 small white onion (quartered)
2 cloves garlic
2 serrano peppers (seeded) -- pepper content is flexible
2 jalapeno peppers (seeded)
1.5 cups H2O

Second set of ingredients:
1 bunch cilantro
2 tbs lime juice
1 tbs salt
1 large avocado

• In a sauce pan, add first set of ingredients.
• Boil until tomatillos and peppers are blanched (about 5 min)
• Transfer to a blender and add second list of ingredients (maybe go easy on the salt if planning to eat on salty chips).  Blend.
• Can eat warm or cooled.

Wednesday: Tacos made from the enchilada fixins’ leftovers

Thursday: Mushroom Casserole from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks blog (made by my friend Shannon)

Friday: The Veggie Chimichurri burger from Schultzy’s bar

Saturday: Porto Risotto from Coastal Kitchen (dinner with Libby and Taylor!)

Sunday: Curried Squash soup

Monday: Tortilla Soup from Amanda McGlothlin's Little Kitchen and Hindu-ritos and Short Chuck's Tall Sauce