The weeks news. Catching up, a new snowmobile, and a young driver.
It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.
My old laptop decided to die on me, and though we were able to revive it, I really needed a new one, which is why I haven’t written anything in a couple of weeks. Much has gone on here since I last wrote, so I will give a quick summery.
Ah, to be young and stupid again. A teenage girl, driving her parents pickup, thought she would go exploring up here on the mountain, on unmaintained roads. She only got about ¾ of a mile before realizing she was on a solid sheet of ice, covered only by a couple of inches of snow. She tried backing down, only to slide off the bank. Luckily for her, she wasn’t going that fast, and once the rear wheels left the road, the frame hit the ground, holding her in place. Sheriff’s deputies were called, and a wrecker was dispatched. The wrecker needed to put on tire chains to reach her. I’m sure she had a stern talking to, and was probably banned from using the family pickup in the future.
The lovely wife’s snowmobile, an ’87 Arctic Cat JAG has been having trouble, and though it’s a really good machine, easy for her to start and move around if she can’t turn, it’s showing its age. I had had to repair a broken tie rod, using one from an older Skidoo. After this, it started to bog down on inclines. So, I started looking for something that would work for her. What I found was a ’97 Polaris Indy Ultra Touring, with seating for two. It has a back rest and heated grips on both the steering handlebars and passenger hand holds. It is electric start, has reverse, and only has 1400 original miles on it.. The price was a bit more than I really wanted to spend, but the machine could be considered new because of its low miles. It needs all three of the carburetors cleaned, and the drive belt was stretched out, so not grabbing as it should. The last owner, I believe, may not have realized that drive belts tend to stretch over time and should be replaced every couple of years. I will have the carburetors cleaned this summer, and have already ordered new belts for it. Since it hasn’t been used that much, or even that hard, I think we will have this machine around for quite a few years. I did figure out what is wrong with the JAG, and will be making the necessary repairs soon because I like it, and it is always a good idea to have a spare around up here. However, with the addition of the UTV, as soon as we have tracks on it, the snowmobiles will be regulated to secondary uses only.
We’ve had a few snow storms blow through the last couple of weeks, bringing our snow level closer to normal depths, but we’re still lacking what we used to get a few years ago. The weather service is calling for temperatures to climb up into the 40’s before the end of this month, with rain instead of snow. We will see what happens.
The puppies are enjoying the fresh snow. Shikoba runs around sticking her whole head into it where ever she can, coming back in covered in snow. Amaroq isn’t as enthusiastic as his sister, but he does like to grab a mouth full before coming inside, only to have it leak all over the floor.
Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.
