My ride home from work was rather … interesting. It was the perfect combination of my least favorite commuting conditions: Completely dark. Temps in the 30s. Pouring down rain. With 20 mph winds.

I’ll take snow over this, any day. There’s just no way to stay warm when you are that wet. And no way to stay dry when it’s pouring that hard. And no way to see, when your glasses are covered in raindrops, and fogging up. Rain drops pelted my face, stinging, until the numbness set in. In hindsight, I should’ve had another layer or two of clothing.

So, it wasn’t exactly a glorious day for commuting. These things happen, but I made it anyway.

Tomorrow looks to be interesting as well, but with snow, rather than rain, and 50 mph winds. Whatever the conditions are where you’re riding … be careful out there!

Last night, I wanted to go for a ride after work. There was hardly anyone in the office, and I left a bit early. This let me get a bit of an earlier start than usual, but I knew it was going to get dark during my ride. It was cool — in the 40s, and windy. So, I brought lights and dressed warmly.

As soon as I got outside, I noticed it was drizzling. I hadn’t counted on rain, but I was dressed warmly enough that I wasn’t too worried.

I rolled away from town, heading for some back roads. I got on Mount Gilead Road and the rain picked up slightly. It wasn’t raining hard, but the roads were wet enough to be rather slick. I rode my brakes down a big hill, and at one point I felt my rear tire slipping a bit. This is the second time this has happened; I think it’s time to get a new tire.

I reached the bottom of the hill and turned onto another road. I stopped by a creek to turn on my headlamp and take a few photos. I wasn’t sure if they’d turn out, as my point & shoot camera does not do too well in low light, but the gamble paid off. Actually, if anything, the photos look too bright.

I cruised for a few flat miles, seeing a few deer along the way. Eventually, I had to ride on State Road 46. By this time, it was getting quite dark, and the rain had picked up. I was glad I had dressed warmly enough, and glad I wore my wind and rain-resistant cycling vest. I had many lights blinking but I was still nervous about this brief section of highway. It was over in a few minutes, with no problems.

I turned onto Friendship Road for a brief section of gravel, and stopped on a bridge over a creek to snap a few more photos. I’ve taken photos here several times before, but of course it looks different when it’s raining and nearly completely dark. My glasses kept getting covered with rain drops, I would wipe them off frequently, but it didn’t seem to help much.

After a brief section of gravel, I turned onto Lampkins Ridge road for a long climb. By this point it was completely dark, and it started raining even harder. The climb seemed very long in the dark. It was hard to tell I was, or how much longer I had to climb. It didn’t help that a dog chased me; I always hate being chased uphill, and since it was dark, I couldn’t tell if the dog had stopped chasing or not.

I made my way back toward town, soon reaching Smith Road. From this point it was only a couple of easy miles home.

This was a surprisingly fun ride, given that it was cold, windy, raining, and dark. I loved it!

On Saturday, Sarah and I hiked at Big Pocono State Park. It was cold, with the high temperature for the day in the 20s, and quite windy — with gusts to about 30 mph. We felt every bit of it, too, as the park is at the very top of Camelback Mountain, and that is where we parked, completely exposed at around 2100 feet. The wind was so strong that it kept blowing the trunk closed as we tried to get ready for our hike. The road going to the trailhead was closed, so we parked in the main lot, I snapped a few photos of the views, and we started our hike.

Panoramic view to the north

View to the south

The Delaware Water Gap is visible in the distance

This hike was also a gear test for my new GPS. I had one previously, but at some point it stopped working, and it never worked very well on my bicycle. The new GPS, a Garmin eTrex Venture, worked incredibly well. It gets a much stronger signal and seems to be more accurate than my old GPS. This will allow me to do some cool things like geotagging my photos, and posting maps of our activities. For example, see this hike on motionbased.com, or this interactive Google map:

View Larger Map

I have a lot to learn about that stuff, but I think it will make for some interesting ways of presenting photos combined with maps. Another fun way to look at it is in Google Earth. Here’s an example.

Google Earth view

Since this hike starts at the top of the mountain, there’s nowhere to go but down. It started with a smooth, gradual hike down the side of the mountain, and once we got away from the mountaintop and into the woods, we weren’t as exposed to the wind. Eventually we warmed up from the physical activity, but for the first 15 minutes or so we were quite cold.

Easy hiking through birch trees

You can see how cold Sarah felt

Snowy moss

Me

Sky

The trail got perpetually rockier as we hiked. After a while, we reached the edge of a cliff, which the trail followed, quite close to the edge. This afforded us some great views of Tannersville below us in a large valley, with the Delaware Water Gap and New Jersey in the distance.

Rocky trail

Panoramic view — worth viewing large

Unidentified building

Big rocks, part of the trail

Delaware Water Gap

Sarah

Precipitous trail

The trail turned back away from the edge, and now it was time for some climbing. The rock-to-trail quotient increased further. It was slow going, but we were having a lot of fun. The sun was getting low in the sky, the trees throwing long shadows, and we enjoyed the quiet and beautiful hike back up the mountain.

Hiking into the sun

The trail climbed this rock wall. If you look closely you can see an orange blaze on a rock.

More rocks

We reached the connector trail that went back to the car, but we hadn’t had enough. We looked at the map and figured out a way to extend our hike by about another mile. It looked like it would be mostly flat, but there was still significant climbing ahead of us. In a way this was preferable as the more we climbed, the warmer we felt. And as the sun followed its downward trajectory the sky took on new hues.

Climbing

Looking back at Sarah, and the elevation we’d gained

We reached a power line right-of-way, and peering down we had a great view of the valley below us to the south. There was a small lake that appears to have been Mountain Spring Lake, and another, Trout Lake, behind it, and the whole scene was illuminated by nearly-sidewise rays of sunlight. I fought my way through a bush to get a good shot.

Looking toward Mountain Spring Lake

A short while later I discovered that my efforts to find this clear view were not necessary. We found a vista, complete with a rock on which to sit, or stand. I stood atop this rock and gazed down on the land below, the lakes, the Delaware Water Gap in the distance, and who knows what, beyond that. I watched as the clouds caught the sunlight and refracted it erratically. I took a deep breath, drinking in this crisp mountain air, and held my wife close to me. It doesn’t get any better than this, peering out over the land in our new home, with my beautiful wife. When we lived in Indiana, we grew to feel a sense of ownership of the land. We were familiar with every twist and turn of many roads, the topography of the land, and many of the sights and sounds. I knew, standing here, that soon we’d feel the same way about this place. But more importantly, that we would discover this new land together.

Taking in the view

Panoramic image of the view (view large)

An even better view, if you ask me

We had a little hiking left, but we were almost back. It wasn’t the longest hike we’ve done, or easiest, or the most challenging, but it was quite beautiful, and even more memorable.

Sunlight

Solitary tree

Back in the parking lot; one last look to the north before heading out

Sarah again. If she ever runs for office, maybe she can use this shot.