December 4

The days continue to get shorter and shorter, but only for about 3 weeks. In fact, daylight will be back to what we have now in about six weeks.

What is more important is that our extraordinarily warm autumn continues. Our high temperature was forecast to be in the mid-40s. Therefore right after lunch I jumped on the cycle and headed out to verify that King’s Mountain Christmas Tree Farm was open. It’s about 10 miles down there, mostly on back roads. The roads were clear except for an abundance of mud near one of the farms. Easy does it.

I saw a couple of other bikers out there, one on a big cruiser and one on a small Ninja. I wore a particularly warm LL Bean wool sweater under my jacket, long johns under my Firehose jeans, and my Olympia Wind Tex gloves. Though I had wool socks on I decided if I ever get any heated clothing, I’ll start with socks.

The ride was cut short because once I verified that Christmas tree farm was open, I needed to get home so we could go out, get a tree, get it home and up. That process negated any more time on the cycle. Even if the temperature gets warm enough, the window is so short and as the sun goes down it gets so cold.