For the most part, being a one car family has worked out pretty well, but there are a few times when it can be very inconvenient. Juliette needs the car several days a week because of work commitments and school, so I have been passing up on climbing and riding in the evenings. There are also a few days in the winter that it is very dangerous to ride, so now my commute is over twice as far, I wanted some options.

Juliette and I have been batting the idea of a second car around for months and with winter fast approaching, we decided it was finally time. Fuel efficiency is important to us and we don’t need too much room for cargo because we have the Mazda, so we have been looking pretty seriously at the Smart car.

I found a few online today, so I went out and test drove two. I was surprised how roomy they are inside and how well they drive. It is more comfortable than the Civic was and even has more pep. In the end, I bought a 2006 diesel convertible with only 37,700km. Hopefully the Mazda will still sit in the driveway most days, but at least we have alternatives now.

The big day is fast approaching and we are getting excited. A little bit too excited actually, I have been lying awake at 3am every morning this week thinking of everything that I need to get done.

Luckily we are pretty much packed up and most of the boxes are already in the POD. We just have the heavy stuff like couches and appliances to take out and then we are done. I must say, a POD is a very civilized way to move. They drop a container in your driveway, you pack it at your leisure and then on the day of your move, it appears at your new place to unpack. There is none of the stress of the one day dash to get everything moved!

Saturday, we are having a yard sale to get rid of a lifetime of crap that has built up. The new house is much smaller, so we have already given away and sold a fair amount of our furniture. It will be nice to live with less.

I have updated my map of the mountain biking trails around Ellicottville to include Golden Hills and Allegany State park. I have also created an installer for easy installation and have an experimental release for my friends with Macs.

This map has a transparent background, so you can load it and it will show on top of your other maps. I would recommend Garmin’s Topo US 2008, or if you want to save some money, the excellent free NY Topo. This map is for Garmin GPS devices only and can be loaded into their free MapSource software.

Thanks to Jon Sundquist for the Allegany State Park information.

Downloads

1. Installer for Windows
2. TGZ file for Mac

The Apple version of the map is untested. Please let me know if it works.

Please send feedback, corrections and updates to rob (at) prouse (dot) org. You can send new trails in GPX format, but I can handle most common GPS file formats. If there is enough interest, I will try to release the maps compiled for other GPSs.

The maps are for reference only and contain inaccuracies. Data for the trails comes from many sources and all have not been verified. Trails also regularly get re-routed, trails are closed and new trails are opened. I’m not responsible for how you use the data, or any inaccuracies.

Over the past few months, I have been slowly compiling data on the mountain biking trails around Ellicottville so that I could create a map for my Garmin GPS. This week, I stumbled across the The Ontario Trails Project which inspired me to finally pull everything together and release it to the public.

This map has a transparent background, so you can load it and it will show on top of your other maps. I would recommend Garmin’s Topo US 2008, or if you want to save some money, the excellent free NY Topo. This map is for Garmin GPS devices only and can be loaded into their free MapSource software.

A big thanks goes out to the Western New York Mountain Bicycling Association for the data and maps that they provide. They gave me a great start on this project.

Installation

1. Download EVL.1.13.zip UPDATE: v1.14 released.
2. Copy the contents of the ZIP file to C:\Garmin\EVL
3. Navigate to C:\Garmin\EVL and double click on Ellicottville Mountain Biking.reg to install the maps into MapSource.
4. If you are running 64 bit Windows, instead of #3, double click on Ellicottville Mountain Biking x64.reg to install into MapSource.

Currently, I only have the Ellicottville trails covered. I will add other areas as I get time, probably starting with Golden Hill.

Please send feedback, corrections and updates to rob (at) prouse (dot) org. You can send new trails in GPX format, but I can handle most common GPS file formats. If there is enough interest, I will try to release the maps compiled for other GPSs. I will probably also try to create a Mac version for my Apple minded friends.

The maps are for reference only and contain inaccuracies. Data for the trails comes from many sources and all have not been verified. Trails also regularly get re-routed, trails are closed and new trails are opened. I’m not responsible for how you use the data, or any inaccuracies.

Most of all, have fun and play safe.

Juliette did the house inspection on Beach Blvd last night and everything is fine, so we have waived all of the conditions in our offer and the deal is done. We take possession on November 2nd.

While we were there, I took a bunch of pictures and uploaded them to the photo album so that we could remember the layout and size of all the rooms. The house is much smaller than our place on Rossmore, so we are going to have to sell or give away a fair amount of our furniture. It will be nice to make a fresh start!

The only issues with the house are some aluminum wiring and the wood stove is not to code. The aluminum wiring is all done properly, and the inspector said it should easily pass an ESA inspection, so insurance may not be a problem. As for the wood stove, we’ll have to see what the insurance company says. Worst case, we won’t use it, or replace it with a gas unit.

We are home for the weekend so Juliette could do a final exam, so I am spending this rainy day going through everything and throwing the accumulated crap away. It is a liberating feeling.