kareina

One of the things I really love about living in the north is the winter—I love snow and the long winter nights. We got a fair bit of snow in December, but then we had those warm days around the New Year, when the top layer snow melted, and then froze back up again, and since then we had had no fresh snow. As a result all of the snow machine tracks through the forest and over the lake had become very good walking surfaces, and I was really wishing I had a spark, so that I could even more quickly get to uni via the snow machine super highway that is the lake surface.

Therefore I find it amusing that once we finally found a spark that we also got our first snow fall of this calendar year while we were busy with the work of repainting it and getting it ready to use. After we got the spark reassembled (and in way better shape than we got it) last night, lord_kjar and I went out for a walk to admire the beauty of the moonlight on the snow, and to look and see any snow machines had yet made tracks in the fresh snow on the lake. Nope, nary a one had gone that way.

Therefore this morning I decided to take the spark on the road, since they don't work so well in soft snow, but are designed for well packed snow or ice. Since I had stayed up way too late Saturday night (read: 06:00 Sunday morning) to add more coats of paint to the spark I was still on a bit of a weird schedule by today, so slept in later than, perhaps, I should have done, but that turned out to be a good thing, since it was nearly 09:00 before I set out the door, which meant there was hardly any traffic on the road.

I am pleased to report that my spark works very well, and gets a decent speed going on the hard snow surface of the road. It will be interesting to see how it goes on snow machine tracks, but I suspect that it won't be quite as fast on that surface, though it will be nicer going, since there will be no cars. Snow machines can more easily go around one—there is an entire lake surface available to choose from, not just two narrow lanes.

I can do the walk to uni in as little as 45 minutes, if I really push it, but 50 is more common. My first try on the spark took only 39, despite stopping a few times to make adjustments (unbutton coat, take off hood, etc.—it gets warm fast when kicking one's way down the road). But even better than the saving time, I really, really like the part where, instead of wearing my backpack I can put it on the seat of the sled, and just push it. My shoulders are much happier with me!