The short days and jam-packed weekends have cut into my roller-skiing time: I haven't been able to get out on the roads since trying some of the Arb trails on September 22. Today's cold temperatures made me want to get out there again, though, so after the girls went to bed, I headed out to roll around our subdivision in the dark.
The skiing wasn't hard: I doublepoled, the easiest and most efficient way to move on skis, and the "course" was smooth and almost flat, with an "altitude" differential between the high and low points of just 70 feet over 8/10ths of a mile. I did get blasted intermittently by a stiff westerly wind that drove the windchill down under freezing and at one point there was definitely some non-liquid precipitation in the air.
But honestly, it was sublime. In 50 minutes, I met no cars, had no crashes, never got chilled, and heard nothing more than my wheels humming (a sound I never heard in a summer of rollerskiing), my poles scraping the pavement, a few honking geese, and jets descending to MSP (every four minutes, heading north-northwest). With nothing much to look at in front of me - asphalt at night is about as boring as it gets - I looked all around. I could see but not hear a few cars racing down Wall Street Road out of town, more blurs of yellow light than anything. Manhole covers and water-main access points are located about four feet out from the curb. One house on the golf course has what must be a two-story picture window - pretty, but all I could think was, "Heating bills!" A surprisingly large number of houses were dark, for sale, or both. There was nobody else outside.
It was almost a shame to come inside and to wash the dishes. I'll do the subdivision ski again as soon as I can - though only after putting sharper tips on my ski poles. As the worn-out inner pair shows, 455km of skiing translates into a lot of poleplants.
