North Carolina Rocks

So...I figured out what that little chain-ring they put on cranks is for. Funny, I thought it was just there to catch the chain if it falls off the big chain-ring. I realize the Blue Ridge Mountains don't compare to the Rockies but still, when you are from a flat State, the mountains here are really something. Some climbs were so steep that I wouldn't have attempted them if not for signs, put up by the National Parks, stating they were, in fact, mountain bike trails. The Department of National Parks and Recreation wouldn't lie, I guess. The mountains are majestic but I expected that, what surprised me is all the other amazing scenery. In some sections the vegetation was so thick that the trails seem like they are going through tunnels of trees and bushes. Rapids constantly crossed under the trail. The rocks in the Pisgah National Forest actually sparkle; I tried to capture this on my BlackBerry but I'm not exactly Amzel Adams. This trip has turned out to be one of my better ideas. My only significant accident was at the drive through at Mc Donalds: first time in 15 years I forgot my bike was up there. Titanium bars are stronger than the sign that says "Warning 6 feet", go figure.

After a few days sleeping on a pile of rocks, teetering on the verge of hypothermia, and trying to brush my teeth with frozen tooth paste, I caved in and went to a Holiday Inn. I feel bad that I am getting soft in my old age but really, a comfortable bed, hot shower, continental breakfast, catching a first run of South Park...how do you put a price on that? Well, it is $99 a night but I meant that in a more introspective way.

Hills Like White Elephants

I am typing this on my BlackBerry, from inside my tent someplace in the Pisagh National Forest, with my gloves on. How can I drive halfway to Florida and it be so cold? And I don't have the advantage of spell-check so hopefully you can read foneticly. Denny just called and said I could borrow his wife's cross bike for a race at Maybury on Sunday; I miss my friends and family.

North Carolina is amazing. I did a 5 hour ride today but it is so pretty I rode easy and just took in the sights. Everyone I met down here is nice. Since I don't talk with an accent, they know I'm not from around here. When I tell them I'm just here to ride, they often make a map on a napkin of places I should go. I was expecting to be in some little hick town but it is a nice college town with good music stations and Thai food and a Starbucks. I will probably die of exposure, and I'm not crazy about all my alone time, but other than that, I am pretty damn happy. I wish I was clever enough with my BlackBerry to attach pictures to this post.

Pisgah National Forest

I spent the better part of the first day of my week long vacation in Urgent Care. Emilie has a sore throat. Strep is going around so I thought I better have her checked out. The good news is it isn't strep throat, the bad news is I spent four hours in a waiting room with sick people coughing and sneezing on me; I probably caught the Ebola Hemorrhagic Virus.

This vacation was unplanned. Back in the Spring I had all these grand plans for my vacation days. They turned out to be poorly conceived, half bake schemes. Then work got a little crazy and taking vacation days just didn't cross my mind. Thursday it occurred to me I have four weeks of vacation I need to take before December. I asked my manager if I could take next week off, he didn't seem to care. My original plan was to choose 12 trails here in Michigan to ride; I would ride two or three every day next week. But if I drove 500 miles south, I could ride new trails, in the Appalachian Mountains, in slightly warmer weather than here in Michigan.

The problem with my second plan is, since I did no planning at all, I would have to go on vacation alone. That is a tough one. I can't even force myself to go out and eat alone when I am on a business trip and have an expense account.

Another problem is I took a motorcycle trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway through North Carolina before...I think they filmed Deliverance there.

I figure the only thing more pathetic than taking a vacation alone in an area where I don't belong is looking back when I am older and regretting not taking this opportunity to ride over a mountain range and on trails someplace other than my back yard. I am leaving for the Pisgah National Forest Monday morning. Nothing is more pathetic than regret.

Rut

My life is very predictable; it is based on the kids' dance schedule. Likewise, my riding revolves around dance. I normally ride at the Brighton Req Area since it is only a mile from my house.

I knew this week was going to be cold and rainy so I rode a lot over the weekend. Sunday I tried something different, I combined a road and a mountain bike ride; I put semi slicks on my mountain bike and rode to the Poto, did that trail, then rode home. I completely miscalculated how long the ride was going to take and how early the sun sets. I stopped at a party store in Hell to get something to eat. I sill had a good 20 miles to go to get home, I was cold and spent and it was getting dark. All in all a great ride.

I noticed a deer scrape during my ride. Apparently the deer are starting to rut, which is way early. I assume the cooler weather this year, and specifically the cold dark weather this Fall, tricked the deer’s biological clock into rutting now. Silly deer, don’t they realize we are experiencing what book smart academics are calling “global warming”? Global warming sounds like a real bite in the ass…if you live south of the 45th parallel, or on an iceberg. I try to carefully choose what I worry about.

American Girl...And Her Nurotic Daddy

Cin just sent me this picture of Allie getting ready to model in an American Girl Doll fashion show later this morning. It looks like she will be in an upcoming issue of the American Girl Doll catalog. I am not sure how I feel about this. I was very luke-warm towards the whole idea, something seems wrong about letting young girls model and the kids are in so many activities already that I have turned my truck into a mobile home away from home, complete with school supplies, snacks, PJs, and tooth brushes. Allie really wanted to do the fashion show, she had her heart set on going up and down the catwalk.

Allie does have an impressive collection of American Girl Dolls but mainly she plays "business woman" with all my old lap tops and her toy cell phones. When Allie's friends come over to play, she makes them work for her in a make believe business. It was cute at first but I am the poster child of overly protective neurotic fathers and I try to read way too much into things. I really just want to be a good dad and send my kids off more well adjusted than me. Allie is very aware of material things. She doesn't ask for much; Allie is happy just going to the Dollar Store with a buck to spend. I'm not a huge fan of that store but I did find a copy of Chris Carmichael's book Food for Fitness for $1 there last night. Where Allie's focus on material things is noticeable is with food and houses and salaries.

The only thing she will eat at McDonalds is the yogurt parfait. She likes to go to Amer's (a nice delicatessen) or Thai Express (the best restaurant in the world). She enjoys driving through this very nice neighborhood near her school just to look at the houses and pick out the one she wants to live in; I mean a few times a week we do this. And she asks me what everyone we come in contact with makes (the cashier at Borders, doctors, etc.). It has gotten to a point where she guesses people's yearly salary with alarming accuracy. This was a cute game at first but I am getting a little concerned. I have really tired to down play material things in front of the kids and have gone out of my way to disassociate money with self-worth.

Supreme court justices make about $200,000 a year. I heard earlier this week that Judge Judy makes $25 million a year for her silly daytime TV program. I used this as an example with Allie so she never ever ties self-worth to money, that just wouldn't make sense. I try very hard to make my kids see their self-worth is so much higher than something as silly as a house, or money, or their career.

I didn't go watch Allie model today because I wanted to get in a long road ride. Iceman is just a few weeks away. My self-worth is very closely tied to how quickly I can go between Kalkaska and Travers City.

Hurt

(Trouble maker in 1980)

I mentioned before that I very rarely get hurt mountain biking. I seldom crash and when I do I seem to jettison from the bike and manage a gentle landing. I never really got hurt as a kid. This is absolutely amazing considering the dumb things I did. These things could be a blog onto itself but let me just grab a good example…BB gun fights.

Friends and I would have these BB gun fights in the woods. BB guns just didn’t have enough oomph so Mike and I decided to use .22 caliber rifles. It would be irresponsible to shoot each other with normal rounds, we realized this even as adolescents, so we removed some gunpowder from the shells and replaced the lead bullets with wax. What could go wrong with this plan? Mike took a shot at me in his parent’s basement. He missed. The wax bullet went through the wall behind me and dented the refrigerator in the other room. Mike and I, stunned by the damage we just witnessed, looked at each other and thought the same thing: let’s add as much gunpowder as we can cram in a standard .22 shell and see what happens. It blew the bolt apart in my Stephenson bolt action .22 and was so loud that my brother in law heard the noise from his doctor’s office across the street and thought we were shooting his 7MM magnum. So it went during my tumultuous youth, suffering nothing more than minor powder burns on my forearms and singeing my eyebrows (that’s another story).

My department just issued a new requirement where we must ware side shields on our safety glasses at all times. I do not work in an industrial setting, and no one has ever suffered an eye injury in my building, but I imagine management is trying to protect us, maybe against a paper cut to the eyeball which sounds painful, if not highly unlikely. The side shields prevent the safety glasses’ arms from opening all the way. I was putting on my safety glasses yesterday and the partially closed arm poked my eye. It really hurt. This morning my eye lid was so swollen and crusty that I had to run it under warm water before I could open it. I should probably have it checked out but I refuse to allow poking myself in the eye with my safety glasses send me to the hospital. The techs I work with would have lots of amusing things to say about that.

Going Nowhere Fast

It has been a quiet week. I normally don't transition to a stationary trainer until after the daylight saving time ends (apparently on November 1st this year); however, between getting the kids back and forth to dance, their school activities, and lots of rain, I have been riding indoors this week.

With a pang of guilt, I made Em and Allie do their home work in the car on our way home from dance last night so I could get them down and ride as soon as I got home. It was late and I was tired and not in the mood to ride but I have this nagging voice in my head that says when I plan to ride 60 minutes and don't, there is some other racerwanabe out there who planned on riding 90 minutes but rode 2 hours instead. That other racerwanabe is only in my head but he got me on the stationary yesterday. I thanked him afterwards.