Bedrock & Paradox

I’m back on my feet, in a manner of speaking. Among many other things, I perfomed shoe surgery yesterday, cutting out the offensive seam overlap that ground up my feet in the Bob last week. I put duct tape over them, a bit of glue, stuffed the toes with newspaper, and let stand overnight. M…

It’s been tough getting back into a “normal” life.First, there are the energy levels and food intake, which I presume are for the most part directly related to each other. I’m still eating 2/3 more per day than usual, am unable to get enough sleep at night, have a quite limited attention span, and generally…

Dan Ransom (auteur of the day) was just getting into canyoneering in Utah as I was getting out (in a serious way). Steve Ramras (or RAM, the bearded guy in the red shirt) has first hand knowledge of technical canyons on the Colorado Plateau that is only equaled by a very few. Ram sent me…

It’s been an interesting day back in the routine. Because it hasn’t been routine. I slept poorly last night. Toxins, rebuilding, and all the psychic baggage, I suppose. I gave myself the morning to work on the video (below), it’s a good thing to get out of system and let me come to terms with…

That’s how many blogger lets me load at a time, a convenient device to summarize a trip. But today, I fail the five picture test. I need six. We had a cold start. -5 that night.The next day it got warm, eventually, and set the theme for quiet, lonely beauty. We didn’t see a single…

Looking at the forecast (below zero above 5000′ the next few nights) and at the Snotel data, my pack as it sits in the truck is significantly different than what I thought it would be a week ago. Most important thing to notice in the yardsale above is more calories: 16 oz of salami, 8…

Tonight was the “annual” Thursday Night Ride brewery tour. Caveat: I reserve the right, in theory if not in practice, to edit this if it makes no or little damn sense. Amazing how typing goes towards the end. We did a short, casual ride east of town. It would have been casual if I hadn’t…

This was waiting for me in a fortune cookie last night. You can’t make this shit up. School has hit the fan in a major way lately, and not just the workload. Let us leave it that certain person(s) don’t approve on my impending self-appointed fall break. And I say: fuck ’em. I made a…

In the end it was our timing belt, which we ought to’ve replaced quite a while ago. Getting that and a new water pump in took until around 5 yesterday afternoon, and we went on to Yellowstone anyway. And I’m glad we did, because this morning was sublime. Quintessential mountain fall, much like Thanksgiving Day…

How do we know this? Because we’re (stuck) in Butte. It was a little after noon, we had just finished listening to an episode of Car Talk on the iPod, and were just topping a hill on the interstate passing through Butte when the accelerator missed, the engine quit, and we coasted to a spot.…