On the Road and Off

Current Conditions
Temperature: -10F
Wind Chill: -41F
Condition 2

It is now dark all day. From about noon to three there is still some ambient light. I'd say just enough to obscure many of the dimmer stars. During that time, the horizon is an eerie blood red in the direction of the sun. That's on a clear day. We've had more cloudy than clear, though, and my issued night vision goggles have certainly come in handy on several drives to and from Arrival Heights, where I can't use headlights.

Today, however, I didn't even make it to Arrival Heights. Driving in Condition 2 from post to post, I suddenly felt the truck drop out from under me about a foot. The road cone I had just passed was 10 feet off the edge of the road, and so was I. I was on a crust that suddenly gave and dropped me into about 3 feet of snow. Just like that, I was high-centered. What can I say, I have a knack.

Here's my ridiculously oversized Ford on a "road" I occasionally get to drive:

Won't be driving that in Condition 2! Though, in this case there's more drifting on the road than off it.

Continuing the driving theme; during a drive to Windless Bight back in January, I came across this:

At the site, next to the outhouse, was another sign. At one point in time, it had read "SPEED LIMIT 25", but the "S" and the "D" were cleverly removed, and a small "ml" was written in after "25".

Abandoning the driving theme...

On my website, in addition to the time lapse videos, I added three videos of "The Improvs" playing at an open mic in late March: http://www.surlyjam.com/html/video.html.

"The Improvs" were an impromptu band I fell in with before half of it split for warmer climes. We generally made the music up as we went, usually starting with a riff from Kish. Russell provided a great singing voice and lyrics from a notebook set to whatever melody came into his head. Shawntel played the violin. Giving her a key to play in didn't mean anything to her, she just played whatever felt right. Very cool, too bad you can't hear her well in the mix. Kish and I form an interesting rhythm section. He has a degree in music and I have no formal training whatsoever. Our styles are very different, but they somehow compliment each other excellently. It was so exhilarating to play in such a free form setting with these three, never knowing where a song might go; louder, softer, faster, slower. We might go from ska to flamenco to psychedelic to funk in a single jam, just taking a tangent whenever a good melody popped into the mix.

Kish is here for the winter, and I look forward to more jams with him. Hopefully I'll cross Russell and Shawntel's paths again before I leave.