The highlight of my stay in Moab and perhaps this whole experiment has got to be shuttling The Whole Enchilada. It is one of the biggest descents in the whole country. From the parking lot, you climb up to Burro Pass, just over 11,000 feet in elevation. From there it's about 26 miles and 2,000 feet to the bottom.
I caught shuttle in this monster on a chilly Halloween morning. While I was shivering in the parking lot, I struck up a conversation with our driver and found out that he was an HSU percussion grad. It turns out we have a lot of mutual friends back in Humboldt. I wish I could remember his name.
I ended up staying with most of these guys throughout the day. Most of them were in from Colorado for the weekend to celebrate a birthday.
The view from the top! There are many shuttle services in Moab that have similar schedules. It seems like all the riders from all the shuttles stop at the top of Burro Pass to catch some much needed breath and to reset their gear before the long and very steep descent ahead.
A break to take in our first view, looking out over Moab. The day had just begun and both my bike and I were already feeling the toll of the descent. About half way down this first section I already had a spoke that was completely slack. Luckily one of the Colorado guys had a spoke wrench.
I have been in Moab, UT for over a week now and I must say, I have not had so many ups and downs in such a short amount of time. The week started off great. I had three days of riding on world famous single-track, hung out with some new friends in town and saw some truly amazing scenery. But then came the suck.
One evening, I found myself out at Dead Horse Point State Park after photographing the sunset. I climb in my rig to drive it back to town only there is one problem. The thing won't start. After a little trouble-shooting I decided it wasn't a dead battery, so a jump wouldn't help. Luckily, I had one option left, a push start. With the help of a couple friendly bystanders and a bit of sweat, I got the thing running and was on my way back to town with the hope that it was just some temporary gremlin in the electrical system. I was wrong. The problem persisted the next morning, so off to the auto parts store I went.
With a new starter in hand I showed up at my friend's house. He was kind enough to lend me some curb space while I got to work on my project for the day. It was a fairly simple job. Just disconnect two wires, unscrew two bolts, then out with the old starter and in with the new. The only difficulty was the tight spaces where the starter was located. With space enough for only two fingers and a socket wrench, it was a little tough to break those old bolts free. They eventually came out though, and with them the whole starter motor. From there it was relatively easy to get the new one in place. With that done I hoped that my suck quota for the month had been reached. Again, I was wrong.
A Petroglyph panel near Moab, UT
The next day started out pleasant. I spent the morning touring a bunch of local petroglyph panels with my friend, Matt. I was still hurting from a tough ride I had done two days prior, so it was a nice change of pace. After that I spent the rest of the day doing chores around town. I made a nice dinner and settled in for a relaxing evening with a beer and a movie when the next round of suck began.
Slowly throughout the evening, a pressure began building in my gut. I tried to ignore it, thinking it was just from some lactose that sneaked in to my system when I forgot to ask for almond milk in a coffee earlier in the day. I was disillusioned though, when my dinner made a surprise reappearance. I will spare you the gruesome details, but for the next 24 hours, everything I put in came right back out. I was mostly over it after two nights but it still lingers even now, three nights later.
As much as this week sucked, it was also incredible. But, I think I'll wait to tell you about it next time.
I must apologize for the lack of updates lately. I had to send my computer off to the manufacturer for a warranty repair and writing on a mobile device is just not the same. I have left Lander and am now on my way to Moab, UT. Those of you who mountain bike will probably know the significance of this, but if you don't please be assured that Moab is a mountain bike paradise. I can't wait to sink my teeth into some of the most iconic mountain bike trails in North America. But more on that in a few days.
Right now I'd like to catch you up on my stay in Lander. I made an extended stop there because that is where my brother, Matt, and his wife, Florie live. I offered to watch their house and all their animals for a week while they went to visit Florie's family back east. The house comes complete with a dog, three cats (not including Ron Swanson), twenty-four chickens and a veritable textbook on the day to day chores to keep up on. The first day was a bit daunting but I got the hang of it pretty quick. I won't bore you with the day to day play by play.
Some climbers in Sinks Canyon.
I spent the exploring the area and riding the local trails. There were three main areas that mountain bikers frequent near Lander and all of them were quite fun and most of them provided a few challenging sections that would be great skill builders for most riders. I'd say my favorite would be the Catalyst Trail in Sinks Canyon on the middle fork of the Popo Agie (pronounced puh-poh-juh) River. Most people run it as a shuttle ride since the main way to get to the top of the hill is to ride up a rather long section of road. However, a new trail was made recently that allows you to climb on dirt to the top of the proper downhill part of the Catalyst Trail.
Matt's preflight
I stayed in lander for a few more days after Matt and Florie returned to get some family time in. I took advantage of my brother's free days to take the family airplane up for a spin. This was a real treat for me. Before I was born, my dad restored a 1945 Aeronca Champion, a very basic, very small, single engine, fabric skinned tail-dragger. When I say "basic," I mean it. The thing literally has the bare minimum to make it a flying machine. No electrical system, which means that in order to start it, you have to get out and turn the prop by hand. It's the aeronautical version of roll starting a car. This also usually means no radio, though my brother added a small handheld radio and inter-comm which was a luxury. I grew up flying the Champ with my dad or my brother in the back seat, yelling at me over the engine noise.
It was a trip down memory lane to be in the Champ again. I hadn't flown in it since before I graduated high school. But, it performed just like I remember (maybe a little better since my brother upgraded the engine a bit). We took an areal tour of the town and Matt's house before heading out over the plains to do a few fun maneuvers. After a bit, we went out to a lake bed where some of the local pilots practice off-airport landings. Unfortunately, the lake bed was no longer dry but there was another one near by that we decided to check out. We made one pass and it looked pretty decent so we came around for another so we could touch for a moment to gauge how rough the ground really is. It is amazing how hard it is to gauge the ground from the air. Even when you're looking at it from just a few feet up it'll look pretty smooth but as soon as the landing gear get a taste of dirt at 50 miles per hour, you get a much different idea about that silky smooth lake bed. After a quick touch, we decided not to push our luck and turned back towards Lander.
I left a couple days after that. While I was there, my brother and I managed to get my heater and oven working in my little Toyota home which I'm sure will prove useful in the coming months
I think I had better leave it at that. Hopefully now that I have my computer back, I'll be able to make smaller, more detailed updates more often instead of trying to condense almost two weeks into one post. See you in a few days!
Since I left Bandon, my focus has been on putting miles behind me, squeezing in a few little stops when I could. So far I have found time to visit a few friends, spin the wheels on my mountain bike and snap a few pictures of Grand Teton to break up the monotony of driving. After visiting a couple of my friends in Eugene and Salem I set my sights on Bend. It had been two days since I left Arcata and I still hadn't had a chance to get any saddle time in on the mountain bike. I decided It was high time I remedy that, so I went straight to Phil's Trailhead upon arriving in bend and got the bike ready for one of my favorite trails, called Whoops. If you are ever passing through bend to do a little riding, make sure you don't leave before you hit this trail. It's almost two miles of nothing but perfect berms and beautiful tabletop jumps with a few little gaps thrown into the mix. Any skill level rider will have a blast on this trail. If, you get to the bottom and you don't have a dust filled grin on your face, either you are having an exceptionally bad day (in which case you should go for another lap) or you might want to check your pulse because you're probably dead.
After a couple hours of mountain biking I wanted to get back on the road towards Wyoming but I wanted beer more. And to be truthful, no trip to bend is complete without a stop in at Deschutes Brewery. I limited myself to just one beer to celebrate a ride well done before picking up a few groceries and heading out into the high desert to the east.
Bend's city limits were the threshold to the longest and most boring stretch of driving I have encountered so far on my journey. But even so, there were times of tremendous beauty. The nights in the high desert rarely disappoint. Each night I was treated to a wonderfully clear view of the heavens. You can watch the Milky Way stretch from one horizon to the other. Once the moon rises, the landscape takes on a whole new quality . An eerie stillness falls over the scenery producing an inner calm that you never seem to notice is gone until it is found once again.
After much too much time in the driver’s seat on the long grind through eastern Oregon and southern Idaho, I was rewarded with a quick stop at Grand Teton National Park where I was lucky to arrive on a very photogenic day. The Grand Teton and it’s surrounding peaks and crags seemed to be the only things in the sky. Adorned by clouds, the shy mountains made their glory known for just an instant at a time, wearing their misty boas and snowy pearls like early twentieth century aristocracy looking out from a balcony in the sky.
Unfortunately, I could not stay in their gaze long. I was losing daylight and still had a few miles and a couple very steep passes to travel before the day was done. I had a date with a flock of chickens that night. I hate to stand chicks up.
I must apologize for the lack of entries as of late. My computer seems to be having a little bit of an issue. I will hopefully have something to post soon!
It has come time again for Ron Swanson and me to leave the foggy seaside hamlet of Arcata once again. I was back for a while to attend my brother’s wedding and was ran into a very long string of issues that prolonged my stay a bit longer than I intended. As of yesterday, the last issue tieing me to my home town has happily been resolved. So today, I set out north.
The plan for the next little bit of future is to travel north to Salem to retrieve a pair of hiking boots that I left at my friend’s house on the last leg of my journey. From there I will turn east and make way towards my brother’s house in Lander Wyoming. I agreed to watch his homestead and all of his animals while he and his now wife travel east to hold a wedding reception with her family. After that it’s anyone’s guess where I’ll go. Perhaps someone could make a suggestion?
But enough with this talk of the future, there is the matter of the recent past to discuss. Today, I made my way north after hanging out at my old house in Arcata; which is where Ron Swanson and I made friends with the newest roommate that replaced me. Her name is Trogdora and she is a boa constrictor that measures maybe a yard in length. I have seen Ron stand his ground when confronted by much larger cats and dogs than he over the past few months. But it appears his bravery has finally met it’s match because I witnessed him quake in fear upon realizing that there was a reptilian foe in our midst.
When compared to last night’s antics, the drive today seemed much more subdued. Ron and I wound our way in and out of the mists on the fog-clad coast of Northern California and Southern Oregon to Bandon. The point for today was to just put some miles behind us, but I was able to make a couple little stops along the way. I made time for pizza and beer at Wild River Pizza (a diamond in the rough if you’re looking for craft beer on the Oregon Coast) and then again to stretch my legs and take in a few vistas at Cape Blanco State Park.
The Pizza was good but the beer is the real reason to visit Wild River Pizza.
A light house sits atop a bluff at Cape Blanco State Park
Tonight I will be breathing the sweet sea spray coming in off the breakwall here in Bandon. I have found a nice little bit of level street just outside the marina offices that is conveniently close to downtown. Or is that a fog horn?
For years I have fantasized about what it would be like to lead a life that isn't measured by the size of your house, the color of your grass or how big that number on your W2 is at the end of the year. What would it be like to have a life that is instead measured by one's thriftiness, resourcefulness, creativity and experiences. It has never made sense to me to sell so much of your time, and ultimately your life, in order to have two weeks a year that are truly your own to do with what you like. It seems like so much of our lives gets donated to our possessions. There is too much overhead and upkeep associated with our houses, cars and all the other things that we fill our lives with. What would happen if we focused, not on the things that we fill our house with, but on what we fill our time with?
I decided that the best way to answer this question was to combine my vehicle and my domicile into one possession. This would allow me to live rent free while keeping a roof over my head. It would also force me to downsize my whole life to a much more efficient size. My life was coming to a threshold and so I felt that it might be time to put this idea into practice. I wanted go on an extended journey to do as much mountain biking as I could.
I eventually settled on a 30-year-old Toyota Dolphin with a stuck odometer and an odor of cigarettes and cat pee. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fast but it would get me from place to place in relative comfort. It had all I would require to live in it full time. A small bathroom complete with sink and shower, a three way refrigerator a table that I could convert into a bed/couch and a master bed that was somewhere in between a twin and a full. Now all that was left was to make sure it was ready for the journey.
Over the next few months I checked off a seemingly endless list of projects. After obtaining a stack of estimates from a mechanic that I paid to do a safety inspection, I set to work researching how to do all the mechanical necessities myself. I was amazed how much work I got done with some instruction from YouTube and a few basic tools that any self respecting twenty-something would own. Within a couple of weeks I had replaced all four shocks, the upper and lower radiator hoses, the valve cover gasket and the front wheel bearings. Those projects were easy though when compared with what had to come next.
It turns out that downsizing is really hard. The task of going through all of my possessions and deciding which would stay and which would go and then figuring out how to make the latter disappear was exhausting. I was able to sell some of the more valuable possessions but much of what I had to get rid of wasn't worth the time and effort it would have taken to find buyers, so into the free pile it went. Though I will say that the agony that I experienced at the outset of that project was rewarded by a profound sense of relief when it was all said and done. It was as if there had been a monkey on my back that I hadn't even noticed and it was finally gone.
Eventually the day came when it was time to cast off the last moorings to my foggy little community next to the sea, and take to the road. My house lease and my two weeks notice were up. I had reached a point in my education where I had to move on to a four year school to continue. I felt like I had to go right then, before something came up that would compel me to stay behind once and for all. So off I went in search of mountain bike trails and perhaps a new perspective.
At the time of this writing I have completed one leg of my journey. That story will come soon.
