The thoughtful feedback and comments I get from you guys is one of my favorite things about this website. Beginning this week I’m going to post semi-regular questions that swirl around in my brain.
53,280.
That was how many minutes until the first cross-country race of the season, from the moment that my son Calvin asked the question recently.
He was sort-of joking when he asked the question, but he was dead-serious about his anticipation of going and competing there. He was making plans.
So I pulled the USXC schedule up on the iPad, grabbed the family calendar off the refrigerator, did the math and got the answer.
With the calendar in front of us, I started writing down our plans for the winter. First came the USXC races, followed by other A-list events: SHOF/Ride with the Champs weekend; Waconia Ride-In; Duluth and Canterbury snocross races.
Wow, that consumed a lot of the available weekends!
As the available days dwindled, the possibilities expanded: A family snowmobile trip to the cabin over New Years; one of the F.H.U.C.-S.T.I.C piston burners or races; a bushwhacking trip from Thief River Falls to Grand Rapids, Minn.; a two day up-and-back saddlebag ride to Brainerd, Minn.
And then the biggie that’s tugged at my imagination all summer and fall: a saddlebag trip around Lake Superior.
Thirty minutes into this exercise, Cal had moved on to other things. But I was full-throttle into thinking about stuff I wanted to do this winter.
There were the regular Wednesday night rides with my neighborhood friends, the Thomas Sno-Sports Demo Day; and long talked about family trip to West Yellowstone.
Every weekend from December through March was accounted for, and then some.
I sat for 10 minutes, staring at the heavily penciled calendar and thinking about all the great snowmobile experiences on tap for this winter.
For sure we’ll push some of these plans to next year’s calendar, or the one after that, the casualties of too little time and resources. But we will definitely make good on enough of these plan to satisfy our souls.
Those are my plans for this winter, and now I want to know about yours.
This week’s Trailside Chatter asks, what are your plans for this winter? What’s on your wish-list?
