December

Once again, less riding this month... Knee still recovering from strain. Cold. Snow. Nowhere to even go. It's been a pretty crap end to an utterly crap year. I don't want to tempt the fates by making a statement like; Next year HAS to be better... because... you know... I'm sure it COULD be worse... But I am trying to stay positive and hope for a better new year... or at least a year that a bit less of a global dumpster fire! 

Riding somewhere with Amanda. I probably should have wrote some commentary earlier in the month when I actually TOOK the photos... 

Pretty sunset. Pretty lady. 

More sunset

Sun rise. 

Fog on the river.

The day before this, it was -2°C

The day after it went up to 0°C

But this Friday, when I had a physio appointment and then had to go back downtown with Keira for a Library run it was  -20°C (with -30 windchill)!? 

Yeah, that's actually me. 

I made two trips out on Monday the 28th - on the way home from the first trip, I saw a duck on the river that I couldn't identify, but before I could get my camera out it dove under the water. On my way out to an appointment later, I saw the same duck under the same bridge an rummaged through my pocket for my camera. While I was doing so, a second one popped up from under the water, then a third! I still have no idea what kind of bird they are.... 

The city has been doing a pretty good job of clearing the snow from the Victoria Avenue separated bike lane.... except for here... apparently they decided it was cool for the adjacent apartment to use the bike lane as storage space for snow removed from their "parking lot"...?   

Had to pick up another tub of drywall mud - the closest place I discovered was closed until the 4th and thus had to travel a little further afield. The Co-op Home Centre (10Km round trip) was the next closest place. That's a 18Kg tub of mud. It was a little off-balancing. Which made riding on snow and ice... interesting... 

A couch. In the River. ON New Year's Eve. At first I thought someone just carried it down and chucked in in there... but there were no foot prints, and it would have been a long way to carry it from any building or from the nearest point a car or truck could park... someone must have dumped it in the river upstream and it actually floated down and washed up on the shore. 

Alleyways. Less cars. Usually less ice.

Well... that's it.

Hopefully next year is better and we all get out for more rides. 

Oh NO! Vember Continues

With snow and an injured knee and not much else going on... I barely left the house the last few weeks. I did get out for a few rides. Mostly quick Library Runs downtown, groceries and a trip downtown for another x-ray of my finger (STILL BROKEN!?). 

It's actually been quite warm this last week - the forcast is calling for temperatures above zero, which somepeople will probably love... but oh, man, the streets are just going to be awful when all this snow starts melting during the day, then freezing up again overnight... 

Heading out for a library run. 

In the week since we last went out they'd done a much better job of clearing away snow on the trails - and especially downtown. 

Most people seem to have figured out the bike lanes... the rest... at this point...? Well, I'm just not sure if they're complete, utter morons or willfully ignorant, psychotic, bike-hating cusses...? 

Heading home from picking up some groceries on Broadway. 

Amanda and her Moonlander. 

Oh NO! Vember

Seriously... where did this year go..? 

How are we half way through November? It's been such a weird year. It simultaneously feels like it's just flown by... but also like it's been going on for-EVAR!?

The first week of November was just lovely. 

One day it was +17°C!

I went out for a longer ride and took lots of pictures - the plan was to use them as references for background in the Dinovember 2020 Project.

Busy Beavers.

Warm enough to ride without gloves or mittens in November! Woo! 

Finger still in splint... not-so-woo... 

Afternoon Beaver! 

Just swimming around in the river like it owns the damned place. 

Three new buildings downtown. Seeing the three from this angle reminded me of the Bona Reactor in Simon Stålenhag's Tales From the Loop. 

Another day I actually got out for a ride with this guy. 

On Thursday, Girl-child and me rode up to my folks new place - so she could see where it was and stop by for a short visit. 

Trying a different route to get up to the building. 

Which meant we got to use this bridge over the freeway. Seriously, why aren't there MORE of these!? 

Grandma on her balcony. 

Anyone under 16 aren't currently allowed in the building, so my mom came out for a little picnic by the front entrance. No hugs allowed. This pandemic is really getting us all down. 

Friday we did some errands downtown - buying paint for the basement and picking up books from the library. 

Amanda was in a panic because she wanted to get a bunch of stuff done before the weekend because Environment Canada was forecasting a Major Snow Event! 

Saturday it started snowing. 

Strangely I did't take a tonne of pictures. 

I didn't leave the house all weekend. Which kind of turned into a long weekend. 

Tuesday, I walked downtown for an appointment. Outside of downtown the streets were unridable - wven with a fat tire bike. heck, most of them were UNDRIVEABLE - unless you had some kind of serious off-roading 4x4. 

Everywhere there were windrows of snow blocking crosswalks - or sometimes even access to the road!? 

By Friday, we hoped that things had settled and/or been packed down enough we might make it downtown to the library. The streets were STILL just awful - but the Meewasin Trail had been cleared - and we are able to take a route along the Meewassin and other multi-use trails that require only two blocks of street riding - in separated bike lanes - to get to the main library downtown. 

Lots of emergency vehicles on the University Bridge. I counted at least eleven. I thought there must have been a HUGE pile up... as it turned out there had been no automobile accident, a woman had jumped from the bridge. 

The bike lanes downtown. The city had been quick to clear them... but then property owners cleared their sidewalks INTO the bike lane... nice... We had to walk this intersection. 

More windrows covering crosswalks. 

I mean, I get that they're trying to facilitate the movement of car traffic... but what are they imagining people do once they've driven downtown and get OUT of their cars...? 

I read that last year Saskatoon had five major snow events. The amount of snow that fell this first weekend was more than all five combined. 

Fun times. Luckily, I don't really NEED to leave the house much... 

And a Few More Pics from October

 

Despite the broken finger in a splint, I tried to stay active the last eleven days of the month. 

Things actually picked up a bit! 

Still not at the same activity level I was at in the spring... but not bad considering how cold it's been the last few weeks, and... well... BROKEN FINGER!!?

Because of said Broken finger making it a pain in the... well... finger, actually... You're just getting a photo dum p of pictures taking during rides over the last week and a half... 

Okay... the last few were taken today... which is now November... Ah, well...