Fall, Winter, and Spring in Connecticut

What a grand title.  It sounds like I'll be talking about several months.  Nope.  Just this last week.

Most people have recovered from Sandy.  Before the paint was even dry (or all the electricity was turned back on), we got hit by a Nor'easter storm.  One friend of mine had his power restored for just over 36 hours before he lost it again (luckily it was restored that same night in his case).

With Sandy, we had very Fall weather.  It rained a lot and the ground was covered with leaves.  With the Nor'easter, we had several inches of snow.  This was on Thursday of this week.

A photo from outside my work in the middle of the storm.  Instant winter.

By Friday, the sun was back out shining and the snow was already starting to melt.  The weather this weekend was (partly to mostly) sunny with a high of over 50 degrees on Saturday and into the 60s today.  I didn't get a chance to ride to work this week, but was able to go out for rides both Saturday (yesterday) and today.

The same location at work a day later.  What a difference a day makes.

Saturday was a nice ride.  I put both my monkeys down for a nap and went out. I even managed to get back before they woke up.

I've been trying to explore new areas on the long rides and managed a new path for the end (although I think Andrew and I have ridden parts of this new path before).  There were more hills than I would have liked in the latter part, but they're good for me, right?

At work this last week, I mentioned to Andrew that I'd love to get the big monkey out on one of our rides.  We decided that he could pull the little monkey in the trailer and I'd take the big monkey on the trail-a-bike.  While it probably takes less (leg) energy pulling the trail-a-bike, balancing it does take some practice, so it makes sense for me to pull it.

Today, Andrew came over and I had my comfort bike hooked up to the trailer, the trail-a-bike hooked up to my Sofrider, and two eager kids.  We went just over 8 miles and everybody had a blast (I should have thought to take pictures, but I didn't).  Andrew did very well for his first time out pulling a trailer (he has a very little monkey at home that will be ready for a trailer next season), but we did avoid the bigger hills in the area on his first outing.  We stopped at the local park on the way back.  My big monkey was o.k. with just a short time at the park (she'd been pedaling the whole time), but my little monkey wanted to stay longer.  He was grumpy for a little bit, but wasn't too bad.

It was a good week.  What an array of weather we've had here.  So far, since February I have ridden my Cruzbike Sofrider 1915 miles.  I very much want to hit 2000 miles by the end of the year and assuming the weather doesn't go crazy, I should be able to do just that.  Of course, if the past couple weeks are any indication, I might be in trouble.