Stuck in gear

Sometimes I wonder where all the “bad” days went. Those days when the weather was considered crappy, giving me an excuse to stay inside and catch up on a backlog of tasks I’ve sat aside for months.

Summer in Alaska is manic. We pack all the fun we can into each long day, so only the must-do chores get done. I usually have a pile of things I intend to do when summer ends and the weather turns hard. Problem is, some of the items on that list have been ignored for a couple of years now.

I recently realized that this coincides with my decision a couple of years ago to purchase a few new pieces of clothing to keep me warm and (relatively) dry while commuting in autumn’s freezing rain. It also matches up with my decision to buy a fat bike so that I can keep rolling after a fresh winter snowfall, instead of taking a few days off until the trails get packed again.

Yeah, there are still some days when a glance out the window is enough to quash any thought of going outside, but those days seem fewer and farther between than they used to.

The better gear gets, the easier it is for us to get outside.

Maybe some of the stuff on that list just wasn’t meant to be done.