Wednesday, June 16, 2010
maybe?
work at the nature center and be in austin till the end of august. bike till the end of september. go back to austin until thanksgiving... go home from thanksgiving to christmas and visit everyone in new england... go to the dominican over dana's winter break... then see what happens? woofing? austin? missoula? grad school?
Thursday, June 3, 2010
takin in the sights in good ol MA
back home in westborough for a couple of days, still awake at 3am for the first time in probably years because im a partying maniac like that.
traveling to a different place always gives you a different perspective on things. even if you're just traveling back and forth between what feels like your two homes. and memory is so fickle. every time you revisit an old memory your brain reconsolidates and warps the information. so where does that leave you?
lord my body
has been a good friend
but i won't need it
when i reach the end
even though i don't really have anything to say in this post, it feels good to at least be recording something.
i want to learn how to tune and fix up Genie's piano. i want to talk to erik and maybe even somehow play something with him sometime. i want to start writing down more of the music in my head.
in terms of the further ahead future, id like to go back to the outdoor school. go on bike tours in the us and in other countries. teach at the taktse school in the himalayas. go to grad school to study music therapy for people with autism. add some music therapy to the wrfi curriculum?
in terms of the nearer to now future, long bike rides every weekend. a long fast to prove to myself i can do it.
what id like most of all is to keep focusing on listening more!!! if the best listening effort you give is to your own thoughts, you're just missing out. keepin the tunnel vision operating in full force. there are way more interesting thoughts floating around amongst your friends and acquaintances, than merely your own.
in westborough i love how funny everything is, how goofy everyone is.
in texas i love how unique everyone is, how many things i still want to do there, how i feel like things are maybe only just beginning, despite the fact that it's been about 4 months.
i like to think about the ways i relate to a person im close to that are completely unique to that one relationship. i like to rely on intuition as much as possible, and seem to relate best to other people who do the same.
i miss playing music for the refugees at school. these are some thoughts from a month ago...
traveling to a different place always gives you a different perspective on things. even if you're just traveling back and forth between what feels like your two homes. and memory is so fickle. every time you revisit an old memory your brain reconsolidates and warps the information. so where does that leave you?
lord my body
has been a good friend
but i won't need it
when i reach the end
even though i don't really have anything to say in this post, it feels good to at least be recording something.
i want to learn how to tune and fix up Genie's piano. i want to talk to erik and maybe even somehow play something with him sometime. i want to start writing down more of the music in my head.
in terms of the further ahead future, id like to go back to the outdoor school. go on bike tours in the us and in other countries. teach at the taktse school in the himalayas. go to grad school to study music therapy for people with autism. add some music therapy to the wrfi curriculum?
in terms of the nearer to now future, long bike rides every weekend. a long fast to prove to myself i can do it.
what id like most of all is to keep focusing on listening more!!! if the best listening effort you give is to your own thoughts, you're just missing out. keepin the tunnel vision operating in full force. there are way more interesting thoughts floating around amongst your friends and acquaintances, than merely your own.
in westborough i love how funny everything is, how goofy everyone is.
in texas i love how unique everyone is, how many things i still want to do there, how i feel like things are maybe only just beginning, despite the fact that it's been about 4 months.
i like to think about the ways i relate to a person im close to that are completely unique to that one relationship. i like to rely on intuition as much as possible, and seem to relate best to other people who do the same.
i miss playing music for the refugees at school. these are some thoughts from a month ago...
Song for the Refugees
Where are they, which I am seeking most of all
The pair of eyes that will hold my gaze
Warmly, slowly, breaking into a smile
I would not feel like such a stranger here
If I could only find this.
I can feel the flame within my own pair of eyes
Growing dimmer, growing quiet
I want to fight the waning light
But I don't know for how much longer.
Look at me, we are the same
We need each other
More than you or I understand.
So stay with me a minute
Hold my gaze
Learn my face
When we meet on the street again
Do not judge me by my race.
Look past your watch, your answering machine
Understand what I have seen
Do not hide behind that facade
I need you now, I need you now.
And Response
Look into my eyes
I will hold your gaze and share
Your fear, your pain
Let me help you with your load
Mine is none so great to bear
I marvel at the fire you have left
Hold fast to it, let's make it grow again
All things heal with time
Your fire will not die
Though with words we cannot share
There is something much deeper here
Today we understand each other
I do not see your race, I see You, my brother
Thursday, April 1, 2010
wear your helmet!
says the person who cared the least about helmet wearing two weeks ago! a $3 child's helmet with flames on it from the thrift store is the reason i'm not a vegetable, along with the solid advice of our friend Maya! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! umm... more on this later!
Monday, March 8, 2010
austin
Watching the movie Memento last night was the final thing to convince me to start recording my thoughts again. Memory surely does get distorted and fragmented over time, and it's nice to have some living proof of the past instead of just some vague ideas. Since my typing speed is more on par with my thinking speed than my handwriting speed is, I'm going to use this blog as my warehouse of ideas. Although I plan to live in Austin for at least several more months, through the end of the summer, I do still kind of feel like I'm out on the open road, takin in the sights in the US of A.
Coming to Austin has been a new breath of fresh air. Everything seems full of life and warmth. The wildflowers are already starting to bloom and our seeds are already starting to sprout. We are learning new things every day, like how to make your own yogurt or ginger brew, sprout sprouts, eat beautiful vegetables for free, and think outside the box as often as possible. I have been talking with my coworker, Sherri, about how we feel like we are living in a dream state a lot of the time. If you stay calm and centered and look at everything as an adventure waiting to happen, life can easily slip into a sort of fantasy world that feels like a waking dream. So while I have been having a lot of trouble remembering my sleeping dreams, I still feel like a lucid dreamer a lot of the time, in my everyday life. Although I am awake I can ask myself the same question that a lucid dreamer might: "I am in control of my own dream right now; what is it that I want to do?" Although my possible answers are definitely more limited, it is such a cool way to approach every day.
What I want to do with my life is simply to keep it as adventurous and free spirited as I possibly can. To completely eliminate the ideas of stress and anxiety and fear. To act upon motives that are as pure and good intentioned as possible. I'm going to farm in South America, bike to Moab with Maya, instruct a WRFI course, release an album with Andrea, work at the hospital in Haiti, write a Requiem, write a soundtrack, become a Reiki practitioner and a massage therapist, study hypnotism and Daoism, research music and the mind in graduate school, run Leadville and Western States, bike across the country from farm to farm with Anna, go on a 10 day Vipassanna retreat. Or maybe I won't. The point is that I could do any of those things if I choose to. Your mind in the present, your memories of the past, your conception of what the future will be, that is all that reality is. Life is a waking dream. Reality is your illusions. So make them good ones knowing the power is all yours.
It is only too easy to stay inspired when you are constantly seeing the good in everything around you.
Coming to Austin has been a new breath of fresh air. Everything seems full of life and warmth. The wildflowers are already starting to bloom and our seeds are already starting to sprout. We are learning new things every day, like how to make your own yogurt or ginger brew, sprout sprouts, eat beautiful vegetables for free, and think outside the box as often as possible. I have been talking with my coworker, Sherri, about how we feel like we are living in a dream state a lot of the time. If you stay calm and centered and look at everything as an adventure waiting to happen, life can easily slip into a sort of fantasy world that feels like a waking dream. So while I have been having a lot of trouble remembering my sleeping dreams, I still feel like a lucid dreamer a lot of the time, in my everyday life. Although I am awake I can ask myself the same question that a lucid dreamer might: "I am in control of my own dream right now; what is it that I want to do?" Although my possible answers are definitely more limited, it is such a cool way to approach every day.
What I want to do with my life is simply to keep it as adventurous and free spirited as I possibly can. To completely eliminate the ideas of stress and anxiety and fear. To act upon motives that are as pure and good intentioned as possible. I'm going to farm in South America, bike to Moab with Maya, instruct a WRFI course, release an album with Andrea, work at the hospital in Haiti, write a Requiem, write a soundtrack, become a Reiki practitioner and a massage therapist, study hypnotism and Daoism, research music and the mind in graduate school, run Leadville and Western States, bike across the country from farm to farm with Anna, go on a 10 day Vipassanna retreat. Or maybe I won't. The point is that I could do any of those things if I choose to. Your mind in the present, your memories of the past, your conception of what the future will be, that is all that reality is. Life is a waking dream. Reality is your illusions. So make them good ones knowing the power is all yours.
It is only too easy to stay inspired when you are constantly seeing the good in everything around you.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Finale
Oh lordie, the longest stretch of non-blogging to reminisce about yet. luckily my grandpa already asked me to cover the final week and a half so my memory has already been jogged.. thanks Gramps.
first off let me tell you, EVERYONE should go on a long bike tour at some point in your life... at least if you enjoy biking. i still can't believe how amazing this summer has been. i would love to just keep biking and biking and biking. i can't even explain how happy i am that i was able to spend the past 80 days like this.
so i believe the day after we left missoula we made it to a campsite called Colgate Licks. En route we crossed into Idaho and stopped at the visitors center which has free hot chocolate =0) I also realized near the end of the day that I left my raincoat at Brandt's house. Luckily my mom convinced me to bring a "deluxe" rain poncho that ended up coming in very handy only one day after the raincoat was lost.
idaho is not completely covered in potatoes. if you're on route 12 you will see lots of old growth cedars, which mature at 400-500 years old but then live up to 3,000 years. i felt like we were about 12 inches tall when we were walking amongst them. there are also wild blackberries growing all along the side of the highway, and some other fruits too! good times for a biker!
at Colgate Licks we met a man named Chris who was headed back to Portland after a rock climbing trip in montana. we sat around a fire together and had some good conversation. the next morning we went over to chris's campsite for coffee, and he also gave us some cinnamon rolls and a chocolate bar. before he drove away he left us with some fine words of wisdom: "do not open the chocolate bar in the wind".
huh? why not? phil's hypothesis was that smell is very important for taste, so we wouldn't enjoy the chocolate bar fully with the wind ruining our sense of smell. i thought that sounded pretty reasonable. but in fact, when we opened the chocolate bar that night, we discovered that Chris had slipped a $20 bill inside the wrapper for us. that was one of the nicest things anyone has done for us on this trip... if you're reading this Chris, thank you so much, that was amazing.
From Colgate Licks we continued among the cedars and reached a trail to Weir hot springs, where we soaked in the 106 degree water on a fairly cool morning. we met up with Mo from The Lab in Missoula, taking her family who were visiting her from texas to the hot springs. as we left the hot springs the weather went downhill and before long it was raining raining raining. my poncho came in handy, and so did a historic ranger station that we stopped at and warmed up by their wood stove. we stopped at a picnic site off the road outside kooskia to camp for the night.
from kooskia we got to the twin cities of the west, on the idaho/washington border, Lewiston and Clarkston, but not without a little help. we hitched a ride for about 35 of the 75 miles due to a late start and the first of many headwinds, which can gust up to 25mph. the ride actually felt amazing! we got to skip a lot of highway riding, too. we got dropped off at the lewiston city park along the snake river. lots of people asked us about our trip there, and no one seemed to mind that we had picked a not-quite-real camping spot for the night.
from lewiston/clarkston we stayed in washington, and rode about 60 or 70 miles to dayton. the winds and the hills abounded and we realized that the last few days of our ride were going to be a little more difficult than ya might think.
in dayton we were inspired to leave by sprinklers turning on at our campsite, which you might recall would not be the first time we were awakened in this manner. but it was good that we got an early start because phil was able to make a connection with a couple in Hermiston, OR, so we had to make 80 miles to get there that night. we followed the columbia river for several very warm hours, and our warmshowers hosts Ken and Nancy met us on their bikes a few miles from their home to make sure we wouldn't get lost. while we were showering nancy finished cooking up one of the best meals we had on the whole trip... fajitas with the most amazing ingredients. Nancy is all about good food: http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=Articles&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=9CBC5AFD93494603A3695421A2E0CC7F or if that doesn't work you can just google Nancy Gummer. she and her husband do a lot of bike touring and they use a Burley trailer like Phil, only they use it for their dog Toby, who has his own sleeping bag to relax in for the ride.
Nancy took us to a bike shop on her way to work and Phil got some new tires and 8 more patches because we had pretty much used up our supply. we went to a bakery and ate/purchased way too many pastries on our way out of hermiston, and another windy hilly day got us into roosevelt. roosevelt is the site of a landfill where seattle's trash gets sent, and luckily we decided to pitch our tent right at an intersection where all the trucks drive between the trains that deliver the trash and the landfill that receives it. 100s of semis later we were happy to leave that campsite behind. phil, of course, slept thru them all passing, much to the surprise of the truckers themselves. roosevelt has hundreds of wind towers and it and its surrounding areas are getting a lot more installed as well! we got to talk to a man who delivers the wind turbine parts to their sites.. it is a job and a half cuz those things are MASSIVE! the most wind power we had seen throughout the whole country was right here in the roosevelt area.
from roosevelt we made it to the Dalles via the freeway, which is towered over by mt. hood. the freeway is getting a bike lane painted in and we were possibly the first two riders to use it! the sunset stopped us in our tracks on this night, but eventually we made it to a good camping spot near a comfort inn, and possibly went swimming and hot tubbing to clean up a bit.
waking up after the Dalles we realized we had only one night of camping together left. we ended up at Ainsworth State park where we cooked pasta with onions and peppers and also had salad, bread, and a bottle of wine. we over-pressurized the stove to a fairly dangerous degree but it was still a completely successful dinner, the perfect one for the last night of camping.
the last day was a rough one for me. it was hard to be happy to be heading into portland because i definitely did not want this trip to be over. but we had a pretty sweet day following the old highway past several waterfalls, including Multnomah Falls, which is over 600 feet high! we decided to risk taking a road that was closed to thru traffic, but after a 6 mile climb we discovered that it was closed due to a landslide and that we would not be allowed thru. so we had a little 12 mile detour on the day of my flight, making the day 47 miles instead of 35. we still got into portland with plenty of time though, and phil helped me box up my bike to ship to my friend Maya so she can go on a bikeride. we got chinese food for dinner and bought 16 postcards at the marriott hotel to send to all our warmshowers hosts. after taking the light rail a pretty good distance to the airport, we spent our last couple of hours writing the postcards to everyone and just sitting there reminiscing and saying goodbye. eventually my flight was scheduled to leave in only 25 minutes and i could not put off leaving any longer. let me tell you, it was not an easy time. i had been thinking about it for awhile but it was still really hard for me to climb up those stairs to security and admit to myself that this adventure had definitely come to its conclusion. it took me about 15 minutes to check my saddle bags and go thru security, so i got to the gate with 10 minutes left before departure. i was definitely the last person to board.
so that's that! the best summer i could have dreamed of. thanks for readin' y'all =0)
my family wants their input:
Uncle Andy: "The last day was great because I knew I was seeing my family again."
Dana: "I really like your head." "You didn't smell that bad when we picked you up, until you picked up your arm."
Ryan: "Ryan did some special interpretive dances and talked in the third person."
David and Gloria: "I think it's amazing that you spent $0 on lodging. It must say something about the humanity and friendliness of the United States."
first off let me tell you, EVERYONE should go on a long bike tour at some point in your life... at least if you enjoy biking. i still can't believe how amazing this summer has been. i would love to just keep biking and biking and biking. i can't even explain how happy i am that i was able to spend the past 80 days like this.
so i believe the day after we left missoula we made it to a campsite called Colgate Licks. En route we crossed into Idaho and stopped at the visitors center which has free hot chocolate =0) I also realized near the end of the day that I left my raincoat at Brandt's house. Luckily my mom convinced me to bring a "deluxe" rain poncho that ended up coming in very handy only one day after the raincoat was lost.
idaho is not completely covered in potatoes. if you're on route 12 you will see lots of old growth cedars, which mature at 400-500 years old but then live up to 3,000 years. i felt like we were about 12 inches tall when we were walking amongst them. there are also wild blackberries growing all along the side of the highway, and some other fruits too! good times for a biker!
at Colgate Licks we met a man named Chris who was headed back to Portland after a rock climbing trip in montana. we sat around a fire together and had some good conversation. the next morning we went over to chris's campsite for coffee, and he also gave us some cinnamon rolls and a chocolate bar. before he drove away he left us with some fine words of wisdom: "do not open the chocolate bar in the wind".
huh? why not? phil's hypothesis was that smell is very important for taste, so we wouldn't enjoy the chocolate bar fully with the wind ruining our sense of smell. i thought that sounded pretty reasonable. but in fact, when we opened the chocolate bar that night, we discovered that Chris had slipped a $20 bill inside the wrapper for us. that was one of the nicest things anyone has done for us on this trip... if you're reading this Chris, thank you so much, that was amazing.
From Colgate Licks we continued among the cedars and reached a trail to Weir hot springs, where we soaked in the 106 degree water on a fairly cool morning. we met up with Mo from The Lab in Missoula, taking her family who were visiting her from texas to the hot springs. as we left the hot springs the weather went downhill and before long it was raining raining raining. my poncho came in handy, and so did a historic ranger station that we stopped at and warmed up by their wood stove. we stopped at a picnic site off the road outside kooskia to camp for the night.
from kooskia we got to the twin cities of the west, on the idaho/washington border, Lewiston and Clarkston, but not without a little help. we hitched a ride for about 35 of the 75 miles due to a late start and the first of many headwinds, which can gust up to 25mph. the ride actually felt amazing! we got to skip a lot of highway riding, too. we got dropped off at the lewiston city park along the snake river. lots of people asked us about our trip there, and no one seemed to mind that we had picked a not-quite-real camping spot for the night.
from lewiston/clarkston we stayed in washington, and rode about 60 or 70 miles to dayton. the winds and the hills abounded and we realized that the last few days of our ride were going to be a little more difficult than ya might think.
in dayton we were inspired to leave by sprinklers turning on at our campsite, which you might recall would not be the first time we were awakened in this manner. but it was good that we got an early start because phil was able to make a connection with a couple in Hermiston, OR, so we had to make 80 miles to get there that night. we followed the columbia river for several very warm hours, and our warmshowers hosts Ken and Nancy met us on their bikes a few miles from their home to make sure we wouldn't get lost. while we were showering nancy finished cooking up one of the best meals we had on the whole trip... fajitas with the most amazing ingredients. Nancy is all about good food: http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=Articles&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=9CBC5AFD93494603A3695421A2E0CC7F or if that doesn't work you can just google Nancy Gummer. she and her husband do a lot of bike touring and they use a Burley trailer like Phil, only they use it for their dog Toby, who has his own sleeping bag to relax in for the ride.
Nancy took us to a bike shop on her way to work and Phil got some new tires and 8 more patches because we had pretty much used up our supply. we went to a bakery and ate/purchased way too many pastries on our way out of hermiston, and another windy hilly day got us into roosevelt. roosevelt is the site of a landfill where seattle's trash gets sent, and luckily we decided to pitch our tent right at an intersection where all the trucks drive between the trains that deliver the trash and the landfill that receives it. 100s of semis later we were happy to leave that campsite behind. phil, of course, slept thru them all passing, much to the surprise of the truckers themselves. roosevelt has hundreds of wind towers and it and its surrounding areas are getting a lot more installed as well! we got to talk to a man who delivers the wind turbine parts to their sites.. it is a job and a half cuz those things are MASSIVE! the most wind power we had seen throughout the whole country was right here in the roosevelt area.
from roosevelt we made it to the Dalles via the freeway, which is towered over by mt. hood. the freeway is getting a bike lane painted in and we were possibly the first two riders to use it! the sunset stopped us in our tracks on this night, but eventually we made it to a good camping spot near a comfort inn, and possibly went swimming and hot tubbing to clean up a bit.
waking up after the Dalles we realized we had only one night of camping together left. we ended up at Ainsworth State park where we cooked pasta with onions and peppers and also had salad, bread, and a bottle of wine. we over-pressurized the stove to a fairly dangerous degree but it was still a completely successful dinner, the perfect one for the last night of camping.
the last day was a rough one for me. it was hard to be happy to be heading into portland because i definitely did not want this trip to be over. but we had a pretty sweet day following the old highway past several waterfalls, including Multnomah Falls, which is over 600 feet high! we decided to risk taking a road that was closed to thru traffic, but after a 6 mile climb we discovered that it was closed due to a landslide and that we would not be allowed thru. so we had a little 12 mile detour on the day of my flight, making the day 47 miles instead of 35. we still got into portland with plenty of time though, and phil helped me box up my bike to ship to my friend Maya so she can go on a bikeride. we got chinese food for dinner and bought 16 postcards at the marriott hotel to send to all our warmshowers hosts. after taking the light rail a pretty good distance to the airport, we spent our last couple of hours writing the postcards to everyone and just sitting there reminiscing and saying goodbye. eventually my flight was scheduled to leave in only 25 minutes and i could not put off leaving any longer. let me tell you, it was not an easy time. i had been thinking about it for awhile but it was still really hard for me to climb up those stairs to security and admit to myself that this adventure had definitely come to its conclusion. it took me about 15 minutes to check my saddle bags and go thru security, so i got to the gate with 10 minutes left before departure. i was definitely the last person to board.
so that's that! the best summer i could have dreamed of. thanks for readin' y'all =0)
my family wants their input:
Uncle Andy: "The last day was great because I knew I was seeing my family again."
Dana: "I really like your head." "You didn't smell that bad when we picked you up, until you picked up your arm."
Ryan: "Ryan did some special interpretive dances and talked in the third person."
David and Gloria: "I think it's amazing that you spent $0 on lodging. It must say something about the humanity and friendliness of the United States."
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Back in Missoula!!!!
Phil and I have spent the past few days back in Missoula, which is where we met on our "montana afoot and afloat" course last september. missoula definitely seems like the place to be around in montana, especially if you are of our generation. you can meet almost every type of person you can imagine here. it almost feels like a mini-utopia i would even venture to say. for example, if you forget to lock up your bike for a few hours while you go swimming and hiking, and it even has saddle bags full of stuff on it, you may just be lucky enough to come back and find your bike completely unharmed. if you are a traveler passing thru town and you need a place to stay, you may just run across The Lab, which is one of the coolest houses I've ever stayed at. There are 7 or 8 residents but several more people have been passing thru in the past 3 nights that we've camped in their yard. They have an absolutely beautiful and bountiful garden that reminded me of K.K. and Ira's biodynamic farm back in Long Island (PS if you want to learn more about KK you can type KK Haspel into youtube's search engine and there's a 6 minute video segment about her and her garden). They also keep chickens for eggs. There's a treehouse bed you can stay in if you're passing through, and there's also a cargo net and some hammocks hanging from the porch ceiling. These along with several couches are occupied all the time by people just hangin' out, talking or making food or watching movies outside on the projector or whatever. Their fridge is covered in thank you notes of the people who have passed thru just in the past few days; Phil and I will add one soon as well.
While in Missoula we got to meet up with 2 of our past WRFI instructors as well as a major WRFI coordinator. First we went to their office, where we traded news and got some long overdue WRFI mugs that were supposed to be given out on course. Then we met another on the University's campus and looked around at an exhibit of Pulitzer-prize winning photos... they were all very depressing and kind of a slap-in-the-face reality check for ya. The instructor we met at the exhibit, whom we call Fancy because of his fancy snowpants, offered to take us floating on the Clark Fork River and then end up back at his house for dinner and drinks. So we ended up spending most of the day with Fancy! Phil got to test out his class II whitewater skills in a single person kayak, while Fancy and I shared a big blow-up "ducky" kayak, where I did practically no paddling whatsoever. When we pulled out I took my bike (which we'd dropped off) back up the river to where we'd left the car, and then brought both back down to the pull-out site. It was a really, really good time =0)
I think we're leaving today, but maybe tomorrow. We've got a week's worth of riding left! I think I am off to get a dollar slice of pizza at Pizza Pipeline. praise richard.
While in Missoula we got to meet up with 2 of our past WRFI instructors as well as a major WRFI coordinator. First we went to their office, where we traded news and got some long overdue WRFI mugs that were supposed to be given out on course. Then we met another on the University's campus and looked around at an exhibit of Pulitzer-prize winning photos... they were all very depressing and kind of a slap-in-the-face reality check for ya. The instructor we met at the exhibit, whom we call Fancy because of his fancy snowpants, offered to take us floating on the Clark Fork River and then end up back at his house for dinner and drinks. So we ended up spending most of the day with Fancy! Phil got to test out his class II whitewater skills in a single person kayak, while Fancy and I shared a big blow-up "ducky" kayak, where I did practically no paddling whatsoever. When we pulled out I took my bike (which we'd dropped off) back up the river to where we'd left the car, and then brought both back down to the pull-out site. It was a really, really good time =0)
I think we're leaving today, but maybe tomorrow. We've got a week's worth of riding left! I think I am off to get a dollar slice of pizza at Pizza Pipeline. praise richard.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
bighorns to helena, mt
hello from helena ladies and gentlemen
so we left john's house having to bike up up up through powder river pass in the bighorn mountains, which reaches an elevation of 9,666 feet over about 40 miles of ups and downs that includes a lot more ups. luckily, for the first 25 of those 40 miles, john offered to carry all our gear in his truck and then meet us for lunch! so that is exactly what we did. it was a great ending to a great stay with one of the coolest people i've ever met. john helped us out more than i think we still realize.
the climb actually did not feel too terribly bad; the weather was perfect, we were well rested, we had help with our gear, and we even had a tailwind! the wildflowers were beautiful and the trees and the hills and the everything. and at the top of the pass we were rewarded with a sign warning of a steep downhill grade for the next 18 miles. beautiful! we stopped on the way down to look at the huge canyon before us, eat some pop tarts, and talk with a family traveling from missouri who we would actually meet up with again in a couple of days.
we rode about 70 miles on this trek thru the bighorns and camped on nowood road, which was beautifully empty and almost too beautiful to behold. our goal for the following day was to make it to cody, wyoming but we were feelin' the climb a little too much for that to happen. the headwinds caused our progress to slow even further and we ended up having to call it a day about 15 miles outside of cody. close enough i say.
into cody we went the next morning, where some food shopping resulted in a lot of gorging ourselves and where the holiday inn pool called my name a little too loudly so i took a dip while phil caught up on the old blog. it started to rain a bit as we started the gradual climb from cody to the entrance to yellowstone, but the ride still felt really good. the landscape kept getting more and more beautiful as we neared the park. we got to go thru the only real tunnel of the trip so far as well, which was pretty exciting. thought about swimming but the water was cold enough so that i only went in to my waist. i also found a large bag of unopened lays potato chips on the shoulder and ate its entire contents within minutes.
we camped at a developed campground about 20 miles from the park entrance, which you have to do because of grizzly bears (camp in develop campgrounds that is). we were right on a creek in front of a bluff and we got a fire going that allowed us to cook up some rice pilaf that id been carrying from westborough, as well as some mac and cheese. we did our first bear hang and promptly fell asleep.
right as we got to the east entrance into yellowstone, hail came down upon us! this was actually great timing because we could hide under the entrance into the park until the hail passed. it was still quite cold and rainy as we climbed into the park, but all the uphill allowed us to create enough body heat not to mind.
the wildflowers in yellowstone are AMAZINGGGGG. there is also a lot of wildlife everywhere. prairie dogs, bison, pelicans, bald eagles, elk, black bears, and grizzly bears were some of the crazier ones. the bison walk in the road all the time and so we would be biking just a couple of feet away which was pretty nerve wracking!
all the campgrounds were full in yellowstone except for one that was in the wrong direction, but phil figured out a solution to this problem. he helped a french family retrieve a ball that they had lodged in a tree, and with that earned us a place to stay at their campsite as well as a pasta dinner with beer and homemade vodka, and then eggs and bacon in the morning, and plenty of good conversation in between. amazing.
biking out of the park was crazy because you lose about 5000 feet in elevation going from canyon out to the north entrance on the montana border. we had a 100+ mile day ahead of us so the downhill helped a lot! we still didn't make it to our destination, livingston montana, until 11pm. there we met katie kelly, a fellow WRFI-alum and a fellow biker for the next portion of the trip! she is traveling with us from her family's house in livingston, mt to the house she's moving into in missoula, mt, which is a 4 day ride. it is awesome to have another person along and she is totally kicking ass; we biked the 130 miles from livingston to helena in 2 days and though she hadn't done any biking recently she kept up with no problems and no complaints. now we're at her friend's house in helena kickin' back for a bit before we head on for two more days to missoula. good times everywhere. i can't believe there are only a couple weeks left to this trip.
so we left john's house having to bike up up up through powder river pass in the bighorn mountains, which reaches an elevation of 9,666 feet over about 40 miles of ups and downs that includes a lot more ups. luckily, for the first 25 of those 40 miles, john offered to carry all our gear in his truck and then meet us for lunch! so that is exactly what we did. it was a great ending to a great stay with one of the coolest people i've ever met. john helped us out more than i think we still realize.
the climb actually did not feel too terribly bad; the weather was perfect, we were well rested, we had help with our gear, and we even had a tailwind! the wildflowers were beautiful and the trees and the hills and the everything. and at the top of the pass we were rewarded with a sign warning of a steep downhill grade for the next 18 miles. beautiful! we stopped on the way down to look at the huge canyon before us, eat some pop tarts, and talk with a family traveling from missouri who we would actually meet up with again in a couple of days.
we rode about 70 miles on this trek thru the bighorns and camped on nowood road, which was beautifully empty and almost too beautiful to behold. our goal for the following day was to make it to cody, wyoming but we were feelin' the climb a little too much for that to happen. the headwinds caused our progress to slow even further and we ended up having to call it a day about 15 miles outside of cody. close enough i say.
into cody we went the next morning, where some food shopping resulted in a lot of gorging ourselves and where the holiday inn pool called my name a little too loudly so i took a dip while phil caught up on the old blog. it started to rain a bit as we started the gradual climb from cody to the entrance to yellowstone, but the ride still felt really good. the landscape kept getting more and more beautiful as we neared the park. we got to go thru the only real tunnel of the trip so far as well, which was pretty exciting. thought about swimming but the water was cold enough so that i only went in to my waist. i also found a large bag of unopened lays potato chips on the shoulder and ate its entire contents within minutes.
we camped at a developed campground about 20 miles from the park entrance, which you have to do because of grizzly bears (camp in develop campgrounds that is). we were right on a creek in front of a bluff and we got a fire going that allowed us to cook up some rice pilaf that id been carrying from westborough, as well as some mac and cheese. we did our first bear hang and promptly fell asleep.
right as we got to the east entrance into yellowstone, hail came down upon us! this was actually great timing because we could hide under the entrance into the park until the hail passed. it was still quite cold and rainy as we climbed into the park, but all the uphill allowed us to create enough body heat not to mind.
the wildflowers in yellowstone are AMAZINGGGGG. there is also a lot of wildlife everywhere. prairie dogs, bison, pelicans, bald eagles, elk, black bears, and grizzly bears were some of the crazier ones. the bison walk in the road all the time and so we would be biking just a couple of feet away which was pretty nerve wracking!
all the campgrounds were full in yellowstone except for one that was in the wrong direction, but phil figured out a solution to this problem. he helped a french family retrieve a ball that they had lodged in a tree, and with that earned us a place to stay at their campsite as well as a pasta dinner with beer and homemade vodka, and then eggs and bacon in the morning, and plenty of good conversation in between. amazing.
biking out of the park was crazy because you lose about 5000 feet in elevation going from canyon out to the north entrance on the montana border. we had a 100+ mile day ahead of us so the downhill helped a lot! we still didn't make it to our destination, livingston montana, until 11pm. there we met katie kelly, a fellow WRFI-alum and a fellow biker for the next portion of the trip! she is traveling with us from her family's house in livingston, mt to the house she's moving into in missoula, mt, which is a 4 day ride. it is awesome to have another person along and she is totally kicking ass; we biked the 130 miles from livingston to helena in 2 days and though she hadn't done any biking recently she kept up with no problems and no complaints. now we're at her friend's house in helena kickin' back for a bit before we head on for two more days to missoula. good times everywhere. i can't believe there are only a couple weeks left to this trip.
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