Been pretty busy the last couple days waiting out the weather. But, I couldn’t wait long enough. Last night it got to close to -30. The high today is supposed to be -13. I’m thinking/hoping it is a good day to head back to Kansas.

I am pretty positive that I’ve figured out the problem with my van. It is a EGR cooler problem. I wasn’t really familiar with an EGR cooler, but am pretty familiar now. It’s a small radiator type devise that that cools the exhaust gas. It has a small hole in it so when it leaks pressure into the cooling system, it pressurizes it and blows the coolant out the radiator cap, since it only holds 16psi. Anyway, it isn’t a great problem. If it completely fails, then all my coolant is going to go into the cylinders and spit out the exhaust. Needless to say, the van won’t drive very far that way. The is a small chance it could actually be a head gasket, but I’ve pretty much ruled that out. Either way, I’m crossing my fingers it has 700 miles left in it.

I skied 30 km two days ago. It was cold, but slow. We shovelled Dennis’ back porch, which was nearly 4 feet deep with roof snow. Then we installed new lights in the wax/bike room and then some more upstairs in the loft. Bromont is loving it here in the cold. It seems to be no problem for him to do his hour or hour and a half stints in the deep snow, hardly ever sticking to the beaten path. He is a total muscle man now. Plus he’s eating twice his normal amount of food. He has been in heavy training. I’m a little jealous.

Trudi flew out of Duluth on Saturday morning, heading to California for a BMC training camp in Solvang. She flew into San Fransisco to get a team car to drive down. But here luggage never showed. She had to wait until late last night for her bag, so had to drive until the wee hours this morning. What a bad way to start out a hard week of work.

Okay, sorry this is a short one, but I got to get moving. I’m not sure if driving slower is better. Or if driving on pretty much the coldest day of the year is smart. I had thought about driving last night, but when it is this cold, I had no desire to be in a broken down car. I know that big turbo boost is not a good thing. I have a couple gallons of antifreeze, plus a couple more of water. If I go through that much, it is going to be a pretty ugly drive. Wish me luck.

The Namekagon river is still flowing with a week or temperatures way below zero.

Dennis’ porch before…..

And after.

New lights in the waxing room.

Dennis cleaning up the loft after installing new cannister lights.

Trudi getting a little exercise, trail blazing, before she left.

Went over to my friend George’s property to take a sauna at -15. This is a little out building he built to retreat to when he needs a little space.

The sauna is a few hundred meters away. It is wood heated. It was super hot, like over 200 degree +++ hot. It was great going out into the snow after roasting. It was pretty strange, standing nude in the woods at close to -20 degrees and feeling pretty warm.

Update-One hour in. -24. Full of coolant still.

He’s not stressed the least.