Dennis and Kiki To the Rescue

The morning had started out so promisingly. It was chill - there was frost on the ground, on the autumn leaves. It was still dark when I set out for my run, and the stars were stark and bright, gleefully disregarding the sliver of moon's eager but diminished glow.

Anyway nevermind all that. Before long I pulled a muscle in my calf and walked home.

After work I decided to go for a road ride to make up for the morning's unsuccessful workout.

I realized I'd forgotten my saddle bag with my road tools in my friend's car on my last road ride. I didn't want to take the time to go to the bike shop, as light fades fast these days, and I thought I could chance it because probably I wouldn't get a flat, right? But then I decided hope for the best but plan for the worst, I'd rather take 10 minutes to swing by the bike shop than have to walk-a-bike ten miles.

As it turns out it didn't matter because when I got the flat I looked at my CO2 cartridge only to discover in my haste I'd grabbed one with the wrong head - it wouldn't fit on my valve. Turns out that's an important detail. Who knew.

So there I was. On a beautiful Black Hills back road on a golden autumn evening with a broke down bike being scolded by a squirrel for loitering beneath his tree can it, squirrel, it's not like I stopped here on purpose. As you seem more mobile than I at the moment, why don't YOU move or come down here and help. Then he was all no YOU move and I was like YOU and so it went until someone pulled over and was like "Um can I help you?" and I was all I'M TALKING TO THIS RIGID SELFISH SQUIRREL DO YOU MIND and the guy looked concerned and mildly frightened as he pealed away. The squirrel snickered and I threw my tire lever at him and he sniffed, affronted, and finally scampered on.

Jaralei 1, Selfish Squirrel 0. Boo ya.

Then I realized I'd have to buy another tire lever and also maybe I'm not getting enough sleep and how long has it been since I've had a day off, again? Too long. Also evidenced when earlier in the day a customer had said "Have a great weekend!" and I was like "HEY F*CK YOU, BUDDY!"

OK none of that happened but I was stranded alongside the road with the starburst sun setting and an evening breeze cooling the sweat on my skin when a couple stopped and rolled down the windows of their beat up SUV and asked if I needed assistance. "As it turns out, I do. I have the wrong air" I said, which wasn't really what I meant to say and the guy was like "Really? What kind of air d'you need?"

They had a big dirty dog in the back but said if I'd wait they lived just up the road they'd unload the dog and the groceries and come back for me. "I'll be here", I said. "We'll come back," they said, "we will."

They were plain, scruffy, homely, simple backwoods true blue South Dakotans.
You know the type.

I put on my jacket and sat aside the bike and occasionally cars went by and most of them stopped to ask if I were OK because it is, after all, South Dakota. For a moment I thought I could hop in with anyone but then the first two might worry. Because I knew they'd come back, like they said.

For a moment I thought about being upset, about my trying hard to get into shape and being thwarted on my run that morning and thwarted now on my ride this evening but then discarded that as a useless line of thinking and besides the evening was lovely.

When they did come back we loaded up my bike and I climbed into the back and we chatted about the nice fall weather for a minute or two and this or that and how much we all loved the Black Hills, in any season. And then the man said he'd lived in Hill City all his life and how he'd hiked everywhere. Dennis his name was, Dennis and Kiki, was her name.

When Dennis talked he sometimes turned all the way around to look full at me, for much longer than I was comfortable with him taking his eyes off the road. But I suppose when you've driven that road for your entire life you just know the way, taking the turns by feel.

In his enthusiasm, which was a great thing to behold, Dennis didn't just nod his head, he nodded with his head and his shoulders and his entire torso, up and down up and down he bobbed "Absolutely! Absolutely!" he'd say.

We got to talking about the mines when I said I enjoyed hiking and finding the old mines and he bobbed up and down and up and down and said "Absolutely!" and Kiki agreed and for every mine I mentioned that I knew, they knew two or three I'd never even heard of, or called by name ones I'd come across that I'd always wondered about. And when I said I liked Ingersol, that it was one of my favorites, Dennis bobbed and said "Oh yeah, I used to visit my Dad when he worked at that mine."

(this one, the Ingersol:)

"What?!" I exclaimed. "What?! You were at the Ingersol when it was operational?!" I couldn't believe mine ears. "What...what was it like?" "Big," Dennis said, "big and loud."

And when I asked about Lou, the last gold panner in the Hills, they said yes they knew him and that all that stuff Lou had had, the old mining stuff he'd "acquired", they had now. "You mean...Lou's dead?" I asked. "Yes," they said. "He died a month ago. Very sad."

(This one - Lou, the last gold panning miner in the Hills):

RIP, Lou, I regret not going back to gold pan with you, as invited

And they talked about the local calenders and coins they had from 1923, and the mining equipment and rocks all around their property, and how much the Hills have changed over the years.

By the end of the twelve mile drive back to Keystone we were fast friends and exchanging phone numbers and promises that as soon as I get a day off I can call them up and they'll show me all their old treasures and take me exploring.

All in all it was a great break down. I texted Tim while I was sitting there by the road and later told him it had all worked out for the best because I'd met some great people and he said "You always seem to do that" and at first I wondered what he meant and then I remembered Lusk and smiled to think how my "disappointing" break downs do seem to have such refreshing endings.

I can't help but think how fortunate I was to break down on Old Hill City Road today, and that of all people at all times these two happened by. I can't wait to hang out with Dennis and Kiki and hear more of their stories of these Hills I love and the way things used to be.

Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be further posts in the Dennis and Kiki adventure series.
I hope.

Maybe I should break down even more often.

36 Hours Later

Dirt Baggery in the Desert, Pt. 3

Chronologically, this post comes after 37 miles from nowhere.

See also Dirt Baggery in the Desert, Pt. 1, and Dirt Baggery in the Desert, Pt. 2.

After this there will be one more post, the one of Moab. And then I'll be all caught up and... ready to go back!

36 hours later I woke up in the back of my car - the back of a stranger's car, the one I borrowed for 2,000 miles. It was cold, and out the windshield the sky was lightening in shades of pink that told me east was over there. There was a strange tree silhouetted against the pink - pinyon? I think so. I can't believe I'm beholding a pinyon tree. Edward Abbey described them so many times. It's how I imagined it.

I'd wanted to camp for free in the wilderness - why pay for camping when there's free solitary camping to be had? - but when I mentioned this to Pete in passing while telling him about the sun shower I meant to buy, he said nonchalantly "Oh sure, a woman alone showering naked in the wilderness. What could possibly go wrong?"

So, I decided to forgo that plan out of consideration of my friend's concern and my mother's mental health.

After leaving Lusk the morning before, in the Camry which a wonderful woman - the friend of a friend of a friend - loaned us out of the goodness of her heart in a gesture that single handedly restored my faith in humanity, my Mom and I met my cousin in Denver. Mom and I said goodbye  as she drove off with my cousin and I continued on this adventure on my own.

I was suddenly more nervous than excited.
I had butterflies in my stomach.

For a mile or so I followed my cousin's car down I25, then they continued south as I headed west.

The mountains were there, to the west, with solitary snow storms hanging low over some peaks, and as I drove toward them they grew closer and larger quickly until suddenly I was amongst them and they were sucking me in and I was quickly gaining altitude. The trees were covered in freshly fallen snow, the sky was low and heavy, the mountains were overwhelming, intimidating and so big, with a pristine, aloof beauty that left me feeling breathless and somehow frightened and so very small and alone.

Forgive the quality, these next few shots were shot through car windows while driving

But soon I settled in and my spirits rose to the occasion and soared again on the wings of adventure, listening to my audio book and completely enchanted with the passing landscape: frozen blue waterfalls cascading unmoving down rock ledges, picturesque little towns nestled into ravines and gullies, towering peaks, quaint ski chalets.

And then I was over the mountain's summit and heading down, and as the sun started sinking to its home in the west the landscape changed swiftly and I left the snow behind and the mountains became foothills and the trees thinned and became red rocks and sage. I soaked it all in to my very soul, as the road took me ever westward, to the desert. The terrain flattened, sunset came and went, dusk settled in and I ran a losing race against darkness.

I pulled into Fruita sometime after 9PM and made my way to the campground up outside of town, parked the car, climbed into the backseat and fell asleep.

Now, this pink and chilly morning, I layer up and go outside to survey my surroundings. I'm on top of a plateau, surrounded by a deep canyon with red rocks and sage, and with a view of the Fruita valley and the surrounding Book Cliffs. I'm in a campground, up and up a sinuous road, in Monument park. No showers, but bathrooms with - very cold - running water.

I ready my bike, my riding gear, my water - hard sought, as it had been too cold for the campground to turn their spickets on yet - and food for the whole day, then head back down that road into town, out of town, a few miles down the interstate to the Kokopelli trails, where I'm meeting my companions for the next three days.

All day the wind blows and the clouds skitter grey above this landscape I can barely tear my eyes from in order to focus on the instructor and our drills.

Where we hung out the first day

For three days we listen and question and discuss and do drills, up and down that gravel road and the next two days in a parking lot in town.

It was... crazy, amazing to be focusing on mountain biking all. day. long. Talking and learning and showing and trying and ... just mountain biking, it was the thing, it's what we did, three days straight. It was a dream.

And in the afternoons... then, we'd ride.

For three days, me and these four guys shared laughs and stories and donuts and water, cheered each other on, offered encouragement and advice, chuckled together at riders wearing skinny jeans - no lie - and watched and judged other riders ride poorly over sections we'd just learned to clear.

Andy, the instructor, was an exquisite, beautiful rider, so much finesse and ingenuity.

Such beautiful landscape. Such good companions. Such a time, those days.

At night I fell into my sleeping bag, dusty and cold, exhausted, my head full of information and my lungs and soul full of fresh desert air. I slept as the raging wind from the canyon rattled the tent and lulled me to sleep. I didn't think or dream.

I was happy, content to be there, content to breath, to sleep, to exist, knowing that somewhere up ahead was another tomorrow filled with more ...being.

Dirt Baggery in the desert pt. 2 ...Ruminations

Home and unpacked – never my favorite part of a camping trip. 

I promise I'll go back still and give a little more detail about the trip. There's so much and yet so little to tell. I loved it, I loved it so much. I didn't do a lot, really, didn't meet that many people, didn't ride that much. It was one of those things that is very undramatic in the telling, because...you really had to be there. 

But there were a few people, and there was some riding, and there was a lot of ... being present, in the very moment. That's what it really boiled down to. The primitive things: Where do I sleep? What do I eat? Where can I get water? How do I stay warm? How do I get to where I want to go? I didn't do much reading, or writing, or think deep thoughts or make elaborate meals or go out of my way to make new friends. 

The beauty was in the existing, in the quiet, in that moment, whatever it was. 

 

 

And there was beauty.

From here it seems so far removed, flashes of memories and sensations from that week – this week? - those days sleeping in a car, waking in the cold dark and eating outside, wrapping cold hands around a warm tin camp mug – you know the kind, speckled blue - filled with maple oatmeal. Filling up every water container every opportunity I got, never sure when I'd get my next chance. 

The dramatic stormy skies of the Fruita valley, windy days and windy nights and cliffs of indescribable and shifting colors - greys and greens and browns and sand - and everywhere sage and tumble weeds. 

Alone but not lonely.

And then later, in Moab, a different desert, warmth and color. The desert colors - red red rocks and red red sand, soft like suede, and improbably blue skies and that desert sun, something about that bold morning desert sun touching a land still grasping night’s chill. 

Flashes and sensations, did it all really happen? 

Pete says it’s lucky I came back when there’s only two days left in my work week, so I can ease back into real life because coming down off vacation is traumatic. I’d be more sad and desperate for it all if I weren’t going back in two weeks – twelve days! 

But I’ll be back so soon, albeit in entirely different circumstances. Friends and laughter and hot showers in motels after long hot days of riding on dusty trails. 

And then I’ll be gone from there without knowing when I might return, and I think then I’ll feel a little desperate with the ache for that desert, that unlikely landscape, those adventurous unbridled solitary days in that strange yet known place.

 

Dirt Baggery in the desertPt. 1

(Sitting on the patio of a charming and eclectic cafe. The bathroom has running water with soap and lotion, of all things! Oh the luxury! I'm on day four of sleeping either in a tent or my car - well no not my car, but a car, from Lusk - day four with no shower, but I like to put a positive spin on it: Day four of sponge baths, Day four of dirt baggery...I've taken to wearing a kerchief tied around my hair when I'm around other people. My face is perpetually reddened either from cold or from sun and wind burn from four straight days spent outside.

The next few posts will be a most likely disorganized, not comprehensive account of the days following the previous post, 37 miles from Nowhere)

An excerpt from my journal from 04/06/14:

Trying to write while wearing snowboarding gloves doesn't work so I took them off.

I'm sitting on the ledge by my camp, watching the storm move across the Book Cliffs and reviewing notes from the previous couple of days.

It's still chilly this morning, and no sun, but at least the wind finally let up so it's bearable. A tumbler of Puerto Rico coffee quickly cools beside me on the rock before I can drink it. Hard to keep anything warm against these chill mornings.

Upon crawling from my sleeping bag - oh warm and cozy cocoon - or rather as each part of my body emerges I incrementally layer up: Stocking cap, puffy down jacket - which is like going from one sleeping bag to another - pants over long johns, shoes over wool socks. Glasses fog up. Next I exit the semi-warmth of the tent to check the weather: cold, but last night's wind has relented. And then I look to my right to check the status of the storm over the mountains across the valley: Isolated storm appears to still rage on over there, but moving east.

There sure are dramatic skies here.

I make coffee, boiling water in the Jetboil - the starter doesn't work, so I use a lighter flick flick PWOOF - and then pour the readied water over coffee grounds in a french press.

(The storm continues to move east, then there's a break with scattered bits of sun flickering through onto the cliffs, then another storm coming in from the north).

My hand is getting too stiff and cold to write. About time to make oatmeal, clean and ready Blue for the day and head down into town.

(edited out: boring notes from yesterday's lesson)

Bits of rain are spitting down. My bottom and legs are cold from sitting on this rock. I wish I could tell about the trees and shrubs all around but I don't know what they are, except there is sage, although a different kind than I'm used to. I can smell it - pungent and spicy.

The storm from the north has not followed the mountains but has headed my way and reached me wait that's not rain that's snow.

And that's the way it was this morning.

37 miles from Nowhere

Yes, I had my mountain bike towed today.

My beautiful Blue, tossed onto the back of a tow truck - derailleur side down, oh how I cringed - towed on a big ol' tow truck in Lusk, Wyoming.

Here's how that came to be.


If you've never broken down in the middle of nowhere - NOWHERE - on a cold windy day, you should sometime.

Just once.

And to really get the full experience of being absolutely stranded, make sure you're in a spot with no cell service.

The best place for this ever popular character building scenario is about 37 miles outside of Lusk, Wyoming.

Say, at the tail end of a six month strong winter that refuses to end, on the start of a vacation you've had your heart and hopes set on for what seems like forever now, when you're only 150 miles from a really bad day that you thought could only get better.

So there I was.

Hands stuffed deep inside puffy pockets, hunched against the biting wind, on the side of highway 18, trying to look helpless and miserable and doing a fine job at it as it's what I absolutely was. No one stopped. I looked as helpless and sad as I could, which usually works, but no one stopped.

"Alright," I said, "I'm going to have to walk and see if I can get cell service at the top of the next hill."

I take my phone and the buck knife Pete loaned me - hey you never know; you might come across a deer that needs skinning - and start walking along the highway.

Soon a man pulls up in a pickup, with Paul Newman blue eyes and premature wrinkles from living in Wyoming winds all his life creasing his interesting face, and packs of cigarettes cluttering the console. "You've got a long walk ahead of you," he says. "I'm just trying to get far enough for cell service," I say. "You've got about a 37 mile walk ahead of you for that," he says in that calm and straight Wyoming way. "The best you'll get is wind burn until then. But I could give you a ride."

So I gather my knife and my Mom and my bike - the important things - into the truck and we drive a very long 37 miles through very bleak country to Lusk, a place I thought was only here for passing through.

Paul Newman apologizes for having to drive us so far from our car in order to get cell service - please, Paul, don't apologize to me for giving us a lift and helping us out - and tells us about his cabinet building business which is the best in a 100 mile radius. I refrained from saying I didn't think there could be much competition in these 100 miles because he seemed so proud of himself. I think he is a really good carpenter, too, because he had a pencil behind his ear as I think all good carpenters do.

He drops us at the Triangle 4 Cafe, the only one in town, and when he overhears my worrying to Mom about leaving my bike outside he said "Don't worry about someone stealing your bike. No one here would for fear they would have to ride it." Regardless, I set it against a window and chose a table with a view.

Mom starts calling AAA and I sit dazed and dejected, clutching a mug of bad coffee. I wasn't a very good adventure buddy, I'll admit. Not very good in the least. I hadn't wanted adventure, not this sort, not this time. I wanted to get away from work and the gym and the weather, to get in the car wearing Chacos on my feet and finally just LET GO, to chat with my Mom and listen to audio books and get a bad lopsided sunburn through the window. Instead there were snowstorms and ending up in the ditch and choking anger and tears of rage and disappointment and delays and UPS packages that didn't arrive on time and water spilling all over in the car and that was before we'd even hit pavement and breaking down and finding out AAA  expired the day before.

I know, I know: First World White Girls Problems.

I know. I know that, I do.

But I'd had my heart set on this concept of how this trip would go, and it was going nothing of the sort and I threw a bit of a tantrum. I wasn't exactly the best adventurous version of myself.

Meanwhile, back at the Triangle 4 Cafe (what does that mean, anyway?), there are three grizzled old small time gents having coffee, banging their mugs on the table and bellowing for refills ("Hey, they didn't ask for more, and they didn't say please" "Yes," the ever patient waiter, "but they also didn't pound their cups on the table so they get more."), whom we ask about local mechanics, which prompts a fiery discussion amongst them about the virtues of the only two in town.

Later, after they'd left, the server comes by and says one of them had paid for our lunch ticket.

Time goes by and I have a delicious omelette - if you're ever in Lusk, do stop at the Triangle 4 Cafe. Charming and delicious - and many cups of bad coffee and phone calls are made and blah blah blah forever later a tow truck shows up.

Jim, the grizzled, bearded old tow truck guy loads Blue, my bike, onto the back of the truck and we clamber in and drop Blue and my Mom at a motel before making the - you got it - longest 37 mile drive ever back to the car.

Oh there's nothing out there.

Nothing except prong horns and mule deer and longhorn cattle and - startling and delighting - a large herd of elk. Abandoned house with windmill spinning heartily - no one informed the windmill of its abandoned status - and a forgotten road slowly disappearing into the prairie grass with crumbling bridges a quarter mile to the west.

I hear many things from Jim. All about his daughter who he used to race motocross with and who wanted to continue his towing business who died in a car accident. And about his other daughter now estranged who had an affair with the sheriff who weighs 400 pounds. About the body that was found in the river a while back ditched there after a Colorado drug deal gone bad.

Lusk. Who knew.

After we collect the wayward car (Me: "How far do we have to go now before we can turn around?" Jim: "Ah...we're there" as he whips a u-ey in the middle of the highway with that gigantic truck) we start the 37 miles back.

If I never drive that stretch of road again in my lifetime it will be too soon.

As the miles crawled by the sky gave up a pale wintry sunset and the horizon closed in around us, cold and bleak, and the edges got fuzzy like a charcoal drawing smudged for effect as the clouds sank ever lower and closer, something between clouds and fog and a threat of snow. The elk were still there, which I was surprised to see. "I don't know but that the weather didn't drive them down from the hills," Jim drawled. "Animals sense things."

I'm beyond tears and anger at this point, hazy numbness has crept in and I watch those 37 miles go by through the high up windows of "Baby Beast", Jim's tow truck, having no idea or imagination for what could possibly come next.

"Oh hey", I said to Jim as we pulled back into town. "A coffee shop!" cheering somewhat at the prospect of a familiar morning routine, at least. "Well it was," he intones, "Before it burned up last year."

Right. Of course it did.
"You must," Jim speculated at one point, "meet some nice people because of mountain biking."

"Yeah," I say, smiling to myself. "You know, I really do."

I'm thinking of my friend whom I texted about being stranded in Lusk who immediately took to the internet and called all the motels to find the best prices for us. And of him and some other buddies who volunteered their camping gear - and their weapons and their concern and advice - for my trip. And of all the people I've met so far - today? Has it all only been today? - on this misadventure in this passing-through-town of Lusk who have shown kindness to perfect strangers.

Because, you see, the car might not get fixed but I can't turn back now and we're stuck, we're really stuck in the middle of nowhere but I've only got until 9:45AM Friday.

There are no rental cars here.
There are no buses.
No planes.
There's nothing to do and nowhere to go except there are people, smalltown people who hear of your predicament and are like "Oh honey, you can take my car." I'm like, "I'm sorry, what?" And Joyce, the owner of this fine motel, replies "Oh sure we've done it before for people stranded here." And I say it would be great to just get to the next town where there's a rental agency but how would I get her her car back? And she says "Oh don't rent a car, take mine all the way" even after I tell her how far I'm going she shrugs it off and says to call her in the morning after we find out the status of our car.

And Kris, a friend of a friend of a friend, who drove us to the grocery store and then let us borrow her car (to get around town "You know, to get to the mechanic or breakfast or whatever") also said she'd make sure we got to where we're going.

Why?
"Pay it forward," she said. "Some stranger did me a kindness once, so you see this is easy!"

All because of mountain biking.

And that's it, that's today.

Now we're in a little motel with one bed - I'll be crashing on the floor with my sleeping bag, cheaper that way - me and Mom and Blue.

My sense of adventure is returning, incrementally, despite being emotionally drained and exhausted.

I've got 36 hours for this to all come together.

I don't care how or even if I get home at this point, I'll worry about that later.

I just have to get THERE.

In 36 hours.

Stay tuned...

Playing with the big boys

Friday afternoon after work, Tim and Dennis picked me up from Bully's to ride Vanocker Canyon.

I know them from their being of the lunch guys at Bully's who sit at the bar. Tim's a 50 year old who owns his own welding business, and Dennis is a 40 year old electrical engineer. And I'm a 30 year old girl who works at a coffee shop. The common ground that bridges any social gaps is that we all love to pedal.

Let me give you some advice: if you want to meet people who make some of the most amazing friends, take up a new hobby, like cycling or rock climbing or running or...snow boarding or kayaking or camping. Try anything, try something. It will expand your horizons. You don't have to be good at it before joining up with a group of others with similar passions, it's OK if it scares your socks off at first, or intimidates you - they're happy to show you the ropes.

So there we are, driving to Sturgis, Tim regaling us with tales of his recent cycling adventures/misadventures in Italy, and me doling out energy bars I'd made - earning my passage - and pestering Dennis to finally tell me exactly what it is he does for a living because all he'll ever say is "I'm a guy at a place" and I'm pretty sure he creates nuclear weapons or something.

So there I am, with my steel framed touring bike with 28mm tires which I only purchased this year - my first road bike.

And there they are, with their carbon fiber frames and 23mm tires, completely bald and slick, which they've both been riding for 15+ years.

There they are with their 0% body fat and bikes which weigh exactly half as much as mine.

And there I am with my iPod, prepared to not keep up.

Maybe not prepared to not keep up as much as I did. Didn't.

With my usual group of riding buddies I'm not one of the top technical riders, but boy I can out climb the lot of 'em. "Billy goat", Jamie calls me.

With these guys, riding up these 10% grade hills with wind gusting against me, with them dashing and me chugging, I felt like Rosie O'Donnell next to Gabby Douglas.

Seriously, I'd look up the steep, steep hill ahead and they weren't even there anymore, they were long gone. Pretty soon down they'd come, riding back to me. And then speed back up that hill, leaving me in the dust a second time. And there I am, in my granny gear, chugging along. Not exhausted, not needing to stop, but not having the strength to keep their speed. Pedal pedal pedal. But they didn't once make me feel like they were anything but glad that I'd come along. "It's all good," they'd say when I'd finally reach the top of a peak where they circled, waiting, "It's not a race today. Today we're tourist riding. Do you speak English?"

We only did twelve miles - not much for road riding - but we climbed 2,000 feet in 6 miles. I'm glad I didn't know that would be the case ahead of time, because I probably would've been too intimidated to go.

But oh the scenery was pure magic.
And the weather, besides the gusty wind, was perfect.
And the sky was blue and the sun was golden and we were pedaling and I was having the best time.

And every time a car would pass me I felt pretty bad ass, despite my slowness, not gonna lie. Because, slowly or not, I was still riding my bike up those hills they drove and I could feel them staring and marveling and being glad it was me and not them. But secretly I bet they wished they could.

I didn't get many pictures, just three and by the time I'd snapped them off and put Junior away the guys had already taken off again and were halfway up the next hill. I could've stopped at every turn to gape at those breathtaking vistas, with the late afternoon sun pouring liquid gold on those autumn colors, but stopping for pictures wasn't exactly on the schedule. At least I was moving slowly enough to take it all in as I went.

And then, then, we turned around and descended those 10% grade hills with the wind pushing against our backs and oh the exhilaration. No longer did we need to keep an eye out for traffic because we left them far behind in the 35mph speed limit.

Have you ever gone 45mph on a bike? I hadn't. It was like - flying. And here my steel framed 30lb bike came in handy, here I could keep up with their light little bikes. And good thing, too. I've never ridden at those speeds, so I just watched and did what they did - swing wide on this curve, outside foot down, pedal pedal, lay back and low across the bike, elbows in, knees loose.Watch out for those deer, those turkeys crossing the road. Seriously - hitting a deer going 45 mph on a bike? (haha, that's am ambiguous statement - makes it sound like the deer is going 45 mph on a bike). Death by deer.

That ride - flight - down made any climb against the wind completely worth it.

And then we went for burgers and beers - traditional after-riding fare - and fried pickles, and the conversation was easy and the companionship comfortable.

Ride bikes, everyone.
Your life will be better.

Oh, and remember to go out today and get a load of autumn.

What a way to kick off the weekend.
My life is a fairy tale.

Helter skelter in the summer swelter

Happy September 1st!

In my world, fall begins September 1st and lasts until Thanksgiving.

But it ain't been feelin' like fall.
Feels like 100 degrees.

Which it was today in Spearfish when Sassy and I rode bikes up the canyon and met up with Tess and Cody to do some climbing.

This was only my second time climbing, but I'm quickly falling in love.

I've got this thing where I can try and try and try to make it past a spot, and fall and swing and try and fall again and again, and just as my muscles are exhausted and shaking and my fingertips feel shredded and I'm about to call it quits for now because I've about got nothing left, I say OK, just one more try and it always seems to be on that last ditch all-or-nothing effort that I finally make it.

And oh that feeling of exhilaration and success.

It's a cool combination of daring, strength, problem solving and grit (and finesse, but I haven't figured that part out yet).

We had a great afternoon.

It's been quite a month, August.
After the Rally, which ended on the 12th-ish, it's been one thing after another. I was afraid camp, as fun as it was, would make me miss out on summer with my town friends and all that that entails, but August saved plenty of summer for me.

 
The other day, I looked back at my calendar and realized for the past ten days straight I'd done something fun and social every day.

I'm not typically so social, but it's sure been a great month and I've loved every minute.

Like, really.

Not so sweltering for these couple of days around the 15th - see? Jackets! It felt like fall!

The "Mean Girls"

There have been many bike rides with various people - big groups, core groups, just me, just me and another. There have been dinner and beers and laughs after, as is tradition.

This one night, I went alone to movie under the stars in the square. Just me and my lawn chair and my little dinner of steak and...all these people.

They played MIB I. "'Cause I thought it was odd that he asked me for sugar water, and not lemonade or ice water or regular water or tap water."

And then towards the end of the movie Matt, Alaina and Sean showed up looking for me.

I tried to take a group photo.

It took a few tries.

Oops, I cut me out.

Oops, cut Matt out.

Ooh, fuzzy Matt.

Close enough.
I think it's funny how Sean's smile fades a little more with each picture.

And then they said "Hey, we're right downtown by the theater, want to see a movie?" and though I'd just seen one and it was ten o'clock at night, we did.

 

Well, that was my photo dump of the pictures I've acquired since being back home.

And now...I'm in Spearfish watching a movie with Sassy, going to crash on their couch for the night.

And in the morning - the Five-O! (Good luck, Cory and Timmy and all the others!).
(As for me and a few others, we plan to take a short-cut ride to the "Bacon Station" at around mile 30, and then hang out eating bacon and waiting for our friends to ride by.

Sounds OK by me.

Happy last few days of summer, everyone!
Pack in every last magic moment of summer adventures.