Fall has arrived in The County!

I'm sitting at the MWSC office in Caribou right now with my feet up and some warm, cozy clothes on. My toes are thawing out and the tea I'm drinking is slowly bringing my core temperature back to where I like it. This morning I was pleased to wake up to a much nicer day outside...no gray clouds and pouring rain like yesterday. The bright sun, however, was deceiving! With steady winds and the temperature hovering below 40 F, my first step out the door was a shocker!

I went for a long road bike ride this morning, starting here at the office and heading out west of Caribou, swinging south and finally north parallel to route 1. I saw a huge bull moose standing out at the far edge of a freshly harvested potato field. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful but nice just same. The roads around here are great for road biking. Nice pavement, not much traffic, and when there are people out, the drivers are all very careful and cautious when passing. No getting honked at or run off the roads for me!

Yesterday I went to visit "my" fourth grade class in Madawaska. I've adopted them for the year and will visit and keep in touch with them as much as I can. The plan is to write back and forth via email and "snail mail" when I'm gone. When I'm in Maine I'll try to visit at least a couple times a month, and maybe fit in a few ski sessions if I can! Here are some photos from my visit yesterday:

Here we are having a group discussion about where skiing has taken me so far and how I ended up living in Northern Maine and skiing for MWSC. 

Me showing the kids some of the places I've been for skiing and biathlon on their US Map....next week we will try to look at Europe!

Challenging ourselves with a group game that took some cooperation, concentration, speed and provided some pretty good laughs all around. 

Goofy faces for the camera....fourth graders love to have fun and be silly! 

I'm going to fit right in with them!

Smiles all around! I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with these kids this year! They are really well behaved, very enthusiastic, and fun to hang out with! Hopefully we'll learn a lot about skiing together and maybe I'll inspire them to reach for the stars....they certainly have the ambition to go wherever they want in life! 

Oh, did I mention that I learned something from them? 

Jacob wants to be a herpatologist when he grows up....do you know what a herpatologist does? 

After looking it up, I do!

Frost warning again tonight, this time with colder temperatures! There was snow spotted at the top of Waterville Valley down in NH....it is coming! WINTER!