Did anyone else love the weather as much as I did this weekend in New England? Blue skies with a bright sun, it seems that spring is finally here. Have you ever wondered about ways you can predict the weather, without having to look at the forecast? The sky, and specifically clouds, can tell a person a lot about what Mother Nature has in store for us. Here is what you can look for and what they mean:

Cirrus Clouds – Cirrus clouds look long and wispy and are high in the sky; they are also known as “a mare’s tail,” because of their appearance. If you see cirrus clouds, you can expect bad weather in the next day and a half.

Altocumulus Clouds – These clouds look like thinly scattered puffs or “mackerel scale.” They also are indicators of bad weather in the next 36 hours. Altocumulus clouds can be present at the same time as cirrus clouds; such a scene means that the likelihood of bad weather is very high. Sailors use a rhyme to remember this: Mares tails and mackerel scales, tall ships carry short sails.

Cumulus – Cumulus clouds are the ones that look large and fluffy. If you see a big, tall “tower” of cumulus clouds, you might be seeing rain later that day.

Clouds on a Winter Night – If you notice that it is very cloudy on a winter night, you actually can expect warmer weather the next day because less heat escapes from the earth on that night.

Clouds Going in Different Direction – Have you ever seen two layers of clouds going in different directions? Did you happen to notice that bad weather followed this phenomenon? When you see clouds going in different direction, bad weather might be on its way, possibly even hail!

Of course, this type of weather prediction won’t tell you about the weather beyond a few days, and there are no guarantees on any given day.  But if we are being honest, even professional forecasters do not get their predictions right all the time.

Note: This article is focused on Mont-Tremblant, the mountain itself as a ski resort. For more about the surrounding pedestrian village, visit our sister site, GoodLifeReview.com.

In English, “Mont Tremblant” translates to “trembling mountain”. With a peak of 875 meters, Mont Tremblant is one of the tallest mountains in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, Canada, making it an ideal mountain for the Mont Tremblant Resort. This past weekend, my family decided to make the drive there. (It’s about a 1.5 hour drive from Montréal.) My final reactions to the resort are a bit muddled.

Before visiting Mont Tremblant, I only had heard great things about the mountain. I heard that the trails were awesome, and the surrounding village was quite cute. My experience on the mountain was quite different. A large portion of the trails was closed, and the majority of the open trails were simple greens and blues. I realize that going during December vacation, without any recent precipitation (aside from rain), explains my less than positive reaction to the mountain. The conditions were less than ideal. I can imagine that with another layer of snow, this mountain would be tremendous fun; however, the ice I dealt with was not.

Though the views are incredible, those strictly looking for a solid mountain to ski or snowboard on should look elsewhere. The lodging and dining around the mountain is extremely expensive; this certainly would be considered a luxurious, if not extravagant, destination. Experienced skiers will find themselves quickly running out of interesting options when most of the difficult trails are closed.

The lifts are quick, and the overall atmosphere is pleasant, but I would not go back unless I knew that the conditions were considerably improved. The lesson learned from this experience is that, even if a mountain has been consistently, positively reviewed, bad conditions can sour the visit quickly. If you do decide to ski or ride at Mont Tremblant or any other expensive ski resort, you should check to see if the conditions are fair, and that most of the trails are open, before you book.

Parkour is the art of moving. Parkour enthusiasts practice the art by maneuvering their way over, around, and through obstacles in the most efficient way possible. The sport requires no special equipment or playing surface. It typically is played in cities, which by their nature provide a suitable series of obstacles.

Parkour originated in France in the late 20th century and retains the original French terminology for many of the moves. The object of Parkour is to move in such a way as you would in an emergency, when every second counts. Practitioners, called “traceurs” for reasons that I don’t know, run as if trying to catch or escape from someone else moving at peak efficiency.

The originators of Parkour resist the idea of Parkour as a competitive sport, instead considering it to be a self-development activity. Predictably, Americans generally don’t view it that way. Here, we consider any physical activity worth doing is worth doing competitively, and competitive Parkour tournaments are making their rounds in cities across the country.

In America, Parkour has evolved/melded into Free Running. The primary difference between the two is that while true Parkour places the highest emphasis on efficient movement, Free Running values creative movement above all else. Parkour features a few predetermined moves, including vaults, drops and rolls. Free Running is constantly generating new and increasingly spectacular movements, which generally don’t have names and often cannot be duplicated.

In the Rowe family, European Parkour, American Free Running, and an episode of “The Office” have merged into something else altogether. Rokour, which is the official name for our own particular brand of the sport, involves my two sons running through the park, going out of their way to jump on and over every obstacle within sight, and yelling “Parkour!” at maximum volume upon encountering each obstacle.

There is no particular scoring in Rokour. There are no winners or losers, per se. The game usually ends when the little one falls down and starts to cry. The game resumes again when he realizes it didn’t really hurt that bad and his big brother is getting away. I highly recommend Rokour for your next family outing. Just be sure to bring the video camera… and the first aid kit.

I’m a city boy now, or at least I’m a country boy who lives in the city. I grew up riding my bike over dirt trails, up impossibly steep inclines, and through tangled thickets unfit for two-wheeled travel. Recently, however, bike riding is done on side streets where I can encounter the least motorized traffic.

Not too long ago, my friend Rick told me about the bike trail not too terribly far from our house. My first reaction was to openly mock my friend for several reasons.

1) The absurdity of getting into his car and driving 15 minutes to ride his bike
2) The goofy looking contraption attached to the back of his car to transport his bicycle to the trail
3) I’m just that kind of friend who enjoys mocking his other friends
4) The very notion of riding a mountain bike 200 miles from the nearest lump that could possibly be considered a mountain

After some gruff talk questioning my manhood, Rick convinced me to give it a try. And it… was… fantastic! I had no idea this kind of trail existed in the heart of Florida. It turns out, they’re all over, if you just know to look.

DeSoto trail is terrific. There are nice, flat, paved trails for beginners, which is about what I expected. But there are also trails that require borderline masochism to ride. Steep inclines, followed quickly by equally steep drop-offs pepper the course. Roots jut out at unsafe angles here and there. The whole trail is a circle, or more accurately, it starts and ends at the same place. To call the circuitous, meandering five mile path a circle would be a grave insult to my 9th grade geometry teacher.

The moral of the story is that outdoor adventure is never that far away, the fear of injury is an inherent part of the joy of mountain biking, and that I can still mock Rick for the goofy bicycle carrier permanently affixed to the back of his Taurus station wagon.

When the clock turned 5:22pm on September 22nd I think I may have been the only one celebrating the end of summer at my work. Some people looked at me as if I were crazy for wanting summer to end, and others just looked at me as if I were crazy. In any matter I was extremely excited for summer to end so that fall could hurry up and pass by. Yes, yes, the leaves’ changing colors is always a glorious sight to see, but being a New Englander, I have gotten used to the fall foliage, and it is not too exciting any more.

What is exciting, however, is that with fall underway, this means that ski season is fast approaching! I probably started looking into buying a season pass to Sunday River back in July, but maybe that is not something that I want to admit.

Anyway, here are some of the deals that you are going to want to look out for at Sunday River this season.

First of all, I think I am more excited for ski season to start than Sunday River is because their lift-prices are still up from 2008/2009. They still have their deals up where from “now” until April 26th you can ski for very cheap prices. They are also offering their “cute”  Sunday River Affair deal where Sunday through Friday for the “rest of the season” you can show a valid 2008-09 season pass from another resort, and you can purchase a lift ticket that day for $39. I guess those are deals to look out for in the way distant future?

In any case, here is the deal on season passes for the 2009-2010 season. They are offering their New England Pass this year; this pass enables you to hit up the slopes at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, Sunday River and Sugarloaf in Maine. If you want to purchase a pass, whether it be gold, silver, bronze, the best time to do so would be before October 12th because the prices get hiked up after that.

However, the best deal still is the college student ticket; if you know you can get up there this season, buy it. It’s unlimited skiing at three amazing resorts for $329! Who could pass up that deal?

Some things are just better outside. With all due respect to the treadmill crowd, you can’t beat a walk in the great outdoors. The best, juiciest, thickest hamburger that can be made in the finest of restaurants can’t compare to an average backyard barbecue burger.

I think of Labor Day as a weekend-long celebration of the outdoors life. We swim, fish, hike, cook, and eat outside on Labor Day weekend. That is the one time each year that no one seems to notice the bugs, or the heat, or any other impediment to enjoying life outside.

This year’s festivities were no exception. Volleyball, a homemade obstacle course, and grilled burgers and sausage highlighted the weekend. For all the times that we’ve paid our hard-earned money to be entertained inside – for every trip to Chuck E Cheese’s or the air conditioned black lighted mini golf course – they can’t compare to the free trip to the park to cook and play and eat and play and eat some more.

I don’t know why we can’t get the whole family together to do this more often. Just like we only cook a turkey once a year at Thanksgiving, we only gather the whole kit-n-kaboodle together once every year to spend a whole day outside. No one ever complains that they don’t like the turkey and stuffing each November, but we wait a whole year before we do it again.

Similarly, no one ever gets bored at the Labor Day picnic. Even the Yuppie cousins from the city obviously delight in every minute of three-legged races, water balloon fights, and roasting marshmallows.

This year, I declare 2nd Labor Day, sometime later to be determined, when we’ll try to marshal the troops to do it all again. Maybe they’ll come; maybe they’ll decline on account of that’s not how we do it. But I’m asking. And whether they come or not, I’m going again.

Some of us are so extremely lucky to live in places where we can go water skiing, rock climbing, snowboarding, hiking, and more. There are others of us who are living the city life– far away from the beautiful Rocky Mountains of the West or the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Of course, most of us live in the city by choice, but that is not the case for everyone.

There are places that city people can go to in order to feel like they are experiencing the great outdoors. For instance, Metro Rock is an indoor climbing gym just outside of Boston that one could go to if one were interested in climbing. However, I can speak only for myself right now when I say that the way that I typically satisfy my need to experience nature is by taking walks.

For those of you who live in Boston, here are a few walks that I love to take. Nearest to me is the walk around the Fens. The Fens is a grassy park right in between Fenway Park and Northeastern University. It is about one and a half miles around the park, but it is a beautiful one. You can see the public rose garden, a newly turfed field, basketball courts, grass, trees, plants, and more.

Another amazing walk is the walk around the Charles. I am not quite sure if there is an official route, but I have a six mile route that I take sometimes. Any walk along the Charles is a nice one. I usually come from the Boston side and then I duck under right before the Massachusetts Avenue bridge. I then take a right and go over the Longfellow Bridge near the Museum of Science. After that I stay on the other side until I can cross the bridge near Harvard University. A walk around the Charles is really one for you to decide it’s length.

Living in the city does cause me to miss nature, but I find my ways around this adoration of it. I hope you can, too!

This weekend is one in which I have had the pleasure in staying with a family in Germany. I am staying with a girl who was on my collegiate rowing team last year and who is going to be living in the same eight person dorm/apartment next year. I decided to book a flight to Europe about a month and a half ago and found out that the cheapest option for me was to fly into Dusseldorf, Germany. I asked my friend Greta where she lived in relation to Dusseldorf and found out that she only lived 1.5 to 2 hours away! She said that she would gladly pick me up, so now I am here with her lovely family.

I am writing all of this because Greta’s mom was telling me all about her next adventure, a 100km bike race. She has been training for a long time, and August 16th is the big day! She is driving out to the start of the race, which is in Hamburg. Her event is part of the larger event called the Vattenfall Cyclassics. There are three categories. One is the 100km race in which about 10,000 people participate, another is the 55km race in which about 7,000 people participate, and the third is the 155km race. About 2,000 people race in the longest event. It is a pretty big and important race, if you could not tell judging by the amount of participants.

It is not that old of a race. It has a short history that starts out in 1996. It was made a part of the UCI Road World Cup in 1998, a part of the UCI ProTour in 2005, and starting this year it became one of the 24 races contributing points towards the UCI World Ranking. So, even though it did not start off as an important race, it grew extremely fast and now is huge.

According to Wikipedia, the route should be challenging enough, so that it typically will not end in a sprint. We will have to see how my friend’s mom does this year! Last year she had an average of 34 km per hour so she hopes to improve from that.

I love my back to nature, just me and the wild, working up a good sweat, outdoors time.  I’ve always seen it as ‘my’ time, alone time – something that I do to get away from it all.  As I adjusted to city life, my pilgrimages to the unspoiled became even more treasured to me.  Then, along came my son.  Then the other.  Like every other facet of my life, parenthood has changed my outdoors routine.

Now, if I want to go for a bike ride, it’s, “Daddy, can I come?”  If I want to get away from it all, part of “it all” comes with me.  Maybe I have overmuch of a soft spot for my sons, but I just can’t say no to such a request.  So, instead of a challenging four mile ride, it’s a slow, level one mile.  Instead of a silent commune with nature, it’s a noisy nature lesson.

Hiking has become walking.  Canoeing has become fodder for “America’s Funniest Videos”.  A healthy enjoyment of outdoor activities is something to be shared and passed down from generation to generation.  To my way of thinking, leaving them out of my routine would undermine the importance and lead them to grow up to be city boys, or worse, couch potatoes.

No, I can’t have that.  So, along they come – spilling my canteen, scaring away the animals, tipping the canoe. I still slip away by myself on rare occasion, but those opportunities don’t present themselves very often.  The funny thing is that despite all my reservations this is even better than my ‘alone’ time ever was.  I don’t miss the solitude one bit.

Sometimes, a good thing is just better when you share it with those you love.

Canoeing can be a great way to see the wilderness, enjoy its peace and quiet, spend time with your family or friends, and get some exercise. If you’ve never tried it, maybe this summer is the time to start.

Before your first canoe trip, it’s essential to do some planning. There are the commonsense preparations you’d make for any boating trip:

• Wear life jackets and sunscreen
• Bring water and snacks
• Let someone know where you’re going and when you should be back

Experienced canoers also offer these tips:

• “[W]e always take two canoes, one adult in each one,” says Sherry Gavanditti, who takes frequent canoe trips with her husband and two teen daughters. This is “better and safer”, she says, but more does not always mean better: “[A]void canoeing with large groups, as most people are not experts at navigation and when everyone is in the water with paddles splashing around and canoes hitting each other, something is bound to go wrong.”
• “It’s a good idea to allow extra time,” says Don Perkins, a long-time canoer in New England, “especially since canoeing in the dark is not a pleasant experience for most.”
• Practice dumping, advises Elizabeth Doyle, a former guide at Outward Bound. Why would you intentionally tip over your canoe? “[I]t’s important that everyone be aware of what it feels like to suddenly wind up in the water and for the whole group to know what to do if that happens.” This can help overcome fears you may feel the first time out.
• More ways to deal with fear: “[P]lay around,” says Ms. Doyle, “Try standing and wobbling the boat, see if you can tip it without using your hands, sink the boat and paddle it when it’s bobbing under water. Turn it upside down and hang out in the air pocket beneath it. Have fun with the canoe!”