it's over

i'm done. the long drive is over. maybe i'd rather not stop. i was starting to like life on the road.

yesterday i drove all day, from somewhere in idaho to mount hood, oregon. mount hood is home to wet planet and world famous riverboarder liz arnold. this morning i went rafting down the white salmon river with liz, chef rick, and a new wet planet guide - jamie. we were the 'safety' boat for a tiny outing (of 2 customers.) the highlight for me was jumping off the bridge immediately after husum falls. it did not look very high from the boat, maybe 10 or 15 feet, but standing on the railing it felt way way high, probably 20 or 30 pinkbike feet. like don masoni says 'turn off your higher brain function,' i walked up, climbed up on the railing, waved, and jumped. i don't even know how i moved my feet, like both at once or one and then the other, i just don't know. the fall is long. you have some time to think, and to appreciate how far and how fast, before you hit the water, into which you plunge over your head. neoprene does a great job keeping you warm, which is important because the water temperature is in the low 40s. wetsuits are definitely a rad invention.

the day before, thursday, i rode the slickrock trail. slickrock is good, it feels good to climb so much. the descents are a mix of nice rolling coasts, and wicked steeps that dump you into sharp turns or sand traps. it's difficult to keep your momentum on those parts, but the climbs are rewarding in their own right, so on balance it's a great trail with some real challenges to conquer.

peace.

mecca

so i enjoyed fruita, 18 road was awesome, and the loma trails were jaw dropping, particularly horse thief. but porcupine rim, in moab, utah, is the One Trail.

my sunburn has gotten better, it was making me pretty ill yesterday, but some hot food and sleep cured me. i feel good, i haven't crashed much so far, and nothing's hurting.

i caught the poison spider shuttle van at 8:00, which drove up for forty minutes, to part way up the kokopelli trail (which runs from loma to moab. on the shuttle i met a couple of rad canadians who were down from BC. and then i dropped off the face of the earth, for over 2 hours. i have never had so much fun.

koko was a great warm up, big and easy, just enough to let you get your legs awake for the fastness. from there it was down the road for a mile, hang a right past the cattle guard onto the LPS trail, which drains into porcupine rim proper. LPS is tight and twisty, with lots of flow and nice berms, it's downright hard to blow a corner on this ride. i met another trio of british columbians, three girls that were ripping it hard, and repping for their gender :P part way through LPS a steep rocky chute, which would not generally be described as ridable, dumps onto the plateau on the top of the rim. it's a fast flowy technical ride to the edge of the rim where the trail skirts the edge for maybe a mile. it's difficult for me to even remember what the rest was like, it blew by pretty quickly. it widens up and then it turns crazy fast. maybe even fast and furious. rock ledges are everywhere, i mean these things abound. i think i've done more small drops in two hours today than i have in my entire life. after an eternity the trail starts to run around the rim of a canyon, blowing altitude to get down to route 128, which runs next to the colorado and into moab. this singletrack section is intense. there are two or three more virtually unridable sections, and there is a lot of exposure and plenty of consequences. and then it's done, and your back on 128, and you ride 3 miles into town.

i don't really have any good pictures of biking in MOAB, so pretend that these are all of MOAB which is probably the best place i've been so far in my life.

tomorrow i'm going to ride the slickrock trail, from there i'm back on the road, heading north west this time.


here i am, at the mondo cafe


look closely, you will see an absurdly large bridge. going nowhere. in the midwest they need to build big things because the land is boring.


here are a couple of mondo wind turbine blades on a flatbed trailer. these things were long, i mean long long. like half again as long as a regular semi.


here is a shot from highway 128. i didn't take many pictures of the rocks. the rocks are beautiful. but images don't capture it. or they only capture part of it -- they give you the texture, but what they don't give you is the majesty. the depth of it all, the immenseness, the far awayness and the nearness. these things you're eyes can see, but a camera cannot. so i didn't take many photos of the rocks. highway 128, like route 70 through vail pass, is a road that makes the whole trip worth it.


this is where i woke up this morning. that's the colorado river you can just see below the cliffs, and down the slope. it burbles.


tomorrow, slickrock.

I'm in Fruita now, arrived yesterday. The Bookcliffs alone have made this whole trip worth it. I'd say that they're like the mini-Kingdom of Colorado. I wasn't originally planning on staying an entire day in Fruita, but after talking to people yesterday I decided stay the night and hit the Loma trails just outside Fruita today. With luck I'll make it to Moab later today. Man am I sunburned.

this is a long drive

i'm at the sacred grounds cafe in glenwood springs, colorado - a little west of vail. sacred grounds has promising appearances but bad follow through. the coffee is generic, the music is generic, the clienetele is generic, and worst of all, their internet connection is broken. negative one stars.

the mountains here are ridiculous. maybe someone else can put better words to how and why. i can't. just west of denver things start to get crazy, and it gets more and more fairy tale every mile further west on route 70. i am scared for the car.

today i will get to fruita, my first stop, i don't know how things will work exactly, but i envision mountain biking, and that will be enough :)

the song of the day is levon helm's wide river to cross from his new cd, dirt farmer.



listen to it

i thought a little more about the whole regret what you don't do more than what you yadda yadda yadda, and i think another way to put it with essentially the same meaning, is: don't be a scaredy cat.

for those that have been wondering, yes the plant is real - it's a jade tree, it's in a box full of packing peanuts so that all the stopping and starting of the going across of the country doesn't wreck it. it seems to be holding up great!

Greetings from the "Primary Iowa Welcome Center." Which is very nice, much nicer I am sure then the secondary or, god forbid, the tertiary Iowa welcome centers.

The day thus far, in list form:

• Ohio was fat,
• Chicago was windy,
• Indiana was mostly downhill.

In Ohio I discovered Ol' Glory -- America's best energy drink, a fact clearly stated on the can. Ol' Glory can be found in Wal-Marts across Ohio. I do not know what Ol' Glory tastes like, but I'm definitely going to buy a can at my next opportunity. How often do we get to taste sweet Liberty?

I beheld the mighty Mississippi.

My front seat companion for these travels.

It rained really hard somewhere in Indiana

People say we regret what we don't do more than we regret what we do. There's a truth to that, I think, but it's tough to distill. I don't regret not listening to the radio. That's an opportunity I can live without. But I do regret piling the bikes in on top of the stuff in the trailer. I messed up one of the stanchions on my new Boxxer. I knew things might shift around when I loaded the trailer, but I was in too much of a rush to take care of it. I guess the truth is that if you think something is risky but that it may be worth it, take the chance. However if you overlook a risk and don't weigh the consequences you will regret it. Or something like that.

the first day, it went quickly

I started my day early. It's 9:30 now, and I'm writing this from a poached internet connection at a Comfort Inn somewhere in Ohio.

I managed to get rid of a couple possessions at the last minute, thank you lord for sending me The Internet, and specifically Craigslist. I've been pruning some dead branches out of my life, it's tough to let go at first, but it feels very good to have closure.

It struck me today that there are two kinds of people, those that need closure and those that don't. I've always needed closure. I like to know that something is done, success or failure is irrelevant, I just want to be able to stop remembering about it. I think it's why I still have The Count of Monte Cristo checked out of the Saratoga library, even though I've moved and the book is well over 12 months overdue. I need to finish it, but just haven't had the time. Hopefully now, on this trip, I will have the time. The people that don't need closure look like they lead free-er lives. As if they're not burdened by stale thoughts.

Tuesday I took my last ride at the Stables in a while. The new dam trail is not to be missed, the whole trail system just keeps getting better. It's one of the things I will miss most after moving. I hope to return and ride again soon.

And now for the pictures:

Stickers have been applied.
The trailer is now completely bitchin'

My rig, it is ready to roll.

You can't see it in the picture, but the trailer in the last picture has a sign that says "Good Stuff, Trucks Bring It" LOLcats are on ur truck, writin ur signz

Started packing yesterday, around 9AM. This shot of the trailer is from about 8:30PM. I've got to get rid of some of this stuff! Fortunately this is a lot less than I moved the last time.

so i'm driving to oregon, i'm leaving in a few days, to get a little closer to my family. my father was just diagnosed with b cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia and is going to start chemo soon. i want to be around.

it's tough to leave. as much as i know that albany is an imperfect place, and that my life here has some problems, i cannot help but think of all of the good things that i am leaving behind. i am going to miss these things. i already do.

but i'm looking forward to the trip.