Off Day

It's a cold one this morning. 8 degrees. Spray our vent. It's cold enough to freeze this pond. Cold enough long enough to freeze this pond. Should have done this 2 nights ago. I thought I was making sure light bulbs didn't get burst. Box full of helmets? Anyway, I just read this amazing book called Rascal. On the surface, it's this boy who ends up with a tame raccoon and all the adventures they have together in the summer. But what it's really about is the dynamics of relationship, family, community. A lot of beautiful language in there. Read it in like 2 or 3 days. And although Rascal the raccoon and Pascal, the boy who owned him, were a lot of fun in the main story, it's not most of what I got out of it. I found myself looking up to Pascal's dad who had a tranquil philosophical outlook on life. And that's what little Pascal equates to this man living to 99 years old. He said he had a philosophical outlook on all the losses in his life, including his wife who died at 47. What does that mean to have a philosophical outlook on life? I actually don't know. Put your guess down in the comments. He's like, everything happens for a reason type of attitude. Like a bit of an unattached type of attitude. I don't know, it sounds cool. Got the camera working. It thawed out a little bit. Got our bike gear on. We're gonna take a day off, go riding. Just getting it out. I am. Okay, you've been secretly practicing. Trying to, but then I went downhill after. Then you had a baby. Yeah, maybe I have that dad strength now though. The babies are good to you. I hadn't run in 15 years because of these babies. You forgot to say goodbye to me. Hilarious. He said goodbye to Waylon, huh? Look, Henry's got a friend today. He looks so big now. Henry, you're a giant. He's not a bit jealous, is he? No, in fact, he wants us to have the baby to stay here. He said you'll take care of it. Quick stop at REI to get some tires repaired and some riding pants. Problem is, they boys have never been shopping before, and it's been years since we've had a shop. Mom does all that for us. You don't want yoga pants though, right? You want something like this. Little big for you. Extra, extra, extra large. These are better. These are stretchy. I have no idea what my size is. Well, you have to try them on. Okay, large. You're probably not a large. They're saying they're way too small. Yeah, those are right. These are small. Yeah, so those would be good. They're supposed to be tight like that to stay out of your gears. 11 o'clock, ready to head to the woods. I hope it's an uphill first. Not too many others out here today. Separation from the men from the boys today, boys. Should I say men? This is so fun. One other thing that was so cool about that dad is at least 2 times in the book he put a sign up on his office door that said "gone for the day." He took his son out into the wilderness. You know, we have plenty of other stuff we could do, even more important stuff that we could do, but we're putting up the sign "gone for the day." Yeah! All right boys, you ready to start climbing single track? Can't go further than that, I see the horizon. Weight on that back wheel. There you go, good job. Now we get the downhill. Wow, how you guys holding up? Okay, you ready for trail number 2? Are you smoking? That one was moderate, this one's moderate strenuous. You still with us, Austin? For right now, yeah. Meat soup will start kicking in here real soon. Whoa, wow! Jonah and I made it back. We took a wrong turn somewhere. It's fine, we ended up on the roads, missed out on some trail. We're gonna go get the guys, they're tired. I overdid it. Two trails is too many for y'all. What do you think? Yeah, I guess. They start puttering out about 12 miles. I'll be happy to see you coming. What? I don't know, it's making me nervous. Austin's been getting cramps besides tired. Slow down, there they are. You might not be in the mood. He smiled. One more on the trail. For real? Phone? Yeah. Did you? Yep. How far back? I don't know, I mean, I'm not gonna be able to find it. I had to stop at the store a little while ago. Hey, little man, how you been doing? How you doing? Hey, little man, we are back together again. Two trails is too many, one's not quite enough, so I guess you're just gonna have to fill not quite enough. I'm gonna go real hard on that one. Those never tasted so good after a ride in the woods. I should make Mexican for you guys. Please, that's what we're saying. That's the best. Cheese dip, lots of corn chips, plenty pork rinds, pork rinds, enchiladas. That's gonna be the tradition.