Smoothing Things Out

We've been having some splendid weather -- 30F and sunny and nearly windless, which translates to wearing jeans and a fleece outside.  I like having a sort of work uniform, and so feel a bit exposed without my insulated Carhartts, complete with notebook and pens in my pockets.  But on such balmy days I enjoy strolling around town in my second-hand rainbow-glitter boots. 

This is a social experiment to see if more people click on a post if there's a human in the picture.

I prefer pictures without humans, but I'd guess I'm in the minority.

The warm weather, though, is making parts of the road go to shit.  A crucial half mile section called "the transition" goes from our rocky island onto the permanent ice shelf, and features long cracks, large bumps, and most recently about two-foot-deep sand-like slush.  I first tackled it with some trepidation in (thankfully) a van empty of passengers.  Returning to town, though, I had a crowd of Air National Guard guys, tired after a long shift and full of bro-y banter.  Managing to sound both apologetic and gruff, I told them the ride was going to get rough.  I connected with my deep northwoods roots and powered through this wild stretch of soupy snow and transmission-ravenous ice potholes; we nearly mired down in haphazard ruts and it felt like we were offroading over boulders.  But I sufficiently gunned it and kept pace with the wildly spinning wheel, eliciting cheers from my passengers.

My roomie's fruit hoarding is reaching clinical diagnosis stage: he's squirreled away a dozen apples, a basket of mandarins, several recalcitrant hard pears, and 40 bananas -- "for the winter."  Since ours is already maxed out, he's colonizing a larger warehouse freezer to continue misering his doomsday smoothie ingredients.

Some sort of contraption that supposedly improves the snow road.