It's getting that time of year when at any given moment, snow could happen. That's right. We can go to bed at night after a beautiful fall day, only to wake up to several inches of snow.
That's right, snow. And snow means you can legally put away the lawnmower. It also means you can fire up the old sled and run it around the house a couple of times, just to make sure it works. (This also informs the wife that she no longer has the right to schedule your weekends with honey-dos.)
If there's a little snow around your home, there's got to be a bunch more snow up in the mountains. And we all know that snow is a delicate commodity that can be eradicated by just one day of warm sunshine. So you need to act fast before Mother Nature can change her mind on winter.
Acting fast means that following the second loop around the house (to inform the wife) you need to drive your sled right up onto the trailer and make haste for the mountains.
For those who are organized, your snowmobile gear should be hanging in your closet with everything together and ready to pack. For those who are super-organized, your gear is already in your bag from your previous ride last spring. And other than a strong smell and some mildew, you're good to go.
But what sometimes happens is that after that ride last spring, you may have removed something from the bag, be it your boots, gloves or even helmet, because at the time you thought it would be a good idea to allow some item to dry out. And now, when you're pressed for time because of the chances of warm weather is still great, your haste causes you to leave behind something that could come in useful on a ride.
So before we fall into that predicament, let's take time now to locate our riding gear, change batteries in our Av beacons, and get things lined out for the first ride. Who knows, maybe cleaning things out of the gear bag now will save us some real headaches down the road . and reduce the chances that we smell like a wet dog for the first half of the season.
And to set the record straight, you really don't need that first inch of snow on the ground to make a couple of passes around your house on a snowmobile. It's time to let our wives know that for us, summer is officially over.
SJ