Marshmallow World

Desperate for some exercise this afternoon, Scott and I suited up in snow pants, gaiters, and parkas for an expedition to the gym. The roads are too treacherous for running and the iced-over snow is too lumpy for a decent ski. No hope of getting the car out--the driveway is several inches under and the drifts against the garage door are plastered with a quarter-inch glaze of ice. Besides, most of the roads haven't seen a plow and the other people out there are too busy talking on their cell phones to figure out how to drive in the snow.

The first leg of the journey, a quarter-mile hike to the bus stop, went off without a hitch. Thanks to the online transit tracker, we even timed our arrival shortly ahead of the bus to avoid standing in the blowing sleet long enough to frost over. Leg two was a short bus ride to an intersection where we had to change buses. This is the tricky part. Trimet seems to get a kick out of scheduling buses so that you arrive to make a transfer just in time to watch a bus pull away from the stop. Three people were already waiting so we knew we hadn't just missed one. The new bus was on a snow route, though, skipping some of its stops, and we weren't quite sure from which direction it would come. We only waited about five minutes, all in all a successful journey.

The gym was pleasantly empty. After an abbreviated weight lifting session, I hopped on the stationary bike for some sweat-inducing cardio. Grinding "uphill" on the bike, I imagine a scorching day in June, subconsciously steering my mountain bike toward scattered patches of shade on a gruelling climb in the Cream Puff 100. Jolted from my visualization by a song change on my iPod, I glanced outside and my heart leaped at the sight of the blizzard that was going on. The sleet had been replaced with big, white flakes tumbling from the dark sky. I picked up the pace a bit on the bike, thrilled with the snowstorm that envelops us.