...I go, T-Rex

On Sunday Julie’s friends were butchering a pig, roasting it, and then having a party in Nederland and I definitely wanted to be there. Considering all the time I spend in the woods without a map I thought I should learn this survival skill.
Sunday morning I woke Julie and we set off to retrieve the car and try to get up to Nederland asap.
The first order of business was Julie’s coffee. We swung by the Vic’s Coffee across from Boulder Community Hospital for her early morning fix where I found that Boulder recently adopted a bike rental program. You can sign out a bike with a credit card swipe and then just return it to any bike stand around the city. I thought there were two bikes available at the station around the corner from the coffee shop but when I tried to sign them out one wouldn’t unlock.
We decided on the only logical option – she sat on the seat while I stood up and pedaled. This option seemed slightly less logical when I realized that neither tire was really inflated but by then it was too late to turn back. We returned the bike to its stand near the library, retraced the traumatic trail of the ice cream fight, got her car and raced up to Nederland.
I won’t go into much detail about the butchering of the pig but I will say in the morning it was walking around and that night it was on a plate. It was truly an amazing and educational process and I’m really glad I was part of it.
Sunday afternoon I moved all my stuff into my new place in downtown Boulder – with a hot tub – and then headed back up to Nederland for the party. It got off to a slow start but soon the house was packed, food was overflowing on the table, and eventually a dance party was started which literally left my feet sore for days. I usually don’t even eat meat but I figured it would probably be the freshest meat I’d ever eat so I had a little piece of our pig. My hero of the night was whoever brought a casserole dish of bacon…to a pig roast.
Monday morning I woke up and rode down to Boulder to start putting my life in order. Two weeks later and I haven’t quite completed that task but I’m making good headway. Later Monday evening I traded Julie my custom hand painted pink helmet for a free Boyz II Men concert in downtown Denver. I apparently missed the entire B2M fad because I barely knew any of their songs but I did rock out to Motown Philly and that made it all worth it.

Digging the pit.


There's a pit w/ a pig in it.

I go big on the weekends...

I was recently trying to think about something fun to write about. Yes, I had recently moved across the country from San Diego to Boulder, Colorado, but there wasn’t much to say about that. I had rented a minivan, put everything I owned into it, and then sat behind the wheel for 18 hours by myself. I started my new job the next morning and since I was living 20 miles outside of Boulder I had long commutes and spent a lot of time looking for a place in town.
But last weekend things started to pick up. Since I was living in Nederland I decided it would be a good idea to go for a Ned Ride. For the uninitiated, Nederland has such a vast network of trails that one could literally ride for days without touching pavement. Half way down to Boulder to the east and across the continental divide towards Winter Park ski area west, the trails just go on forever. Area names like “Ewok Village” and the “Hobbit Trails” are indicative of just how remote and confusing some of the twists and turns can be.
I decided to see how well I had been acclimating and set off Saturday morning by myself. I knew I wasn’t going to stray too far since I hadn’t found my mountain bike pedals or my hand pump since moving, and a flat tire would have meant walking several miles through the woods in road bike shoes, and road shoes aren’t even comfortable for the walk to the podium.
The first few climbs went well and soon I was back in the rhythm of things. I met a group of middle aged cyclists on the trail asking for directions. I gave directions to a lost group of cyclists on the trail and felt good that I still knew where things were after having been gone for a year and a half. Then I realized I had forgotten about one key intersection. Oops. I pedaled around trying to find old trails and remember how to ride a bike since my year and a half hiatus had rendered some skills rusty.
I found my way to the Magic School Bus - a rusted out, half buried in vegetation bus that somehow found its way deep into the woods miles from any road – and turned around. Crossing West Mag road I dove into a fun and swoopy trail and had the crowning moment of the whole morning as I drifted both wheels loosely around a left hand corner. With that checked off I headed for home.
Around 6:00 it was time to get to Boulder. I had been sequestered in the mountains of Crest (California) and Nederland (Colorado) for too long, I needed some social interaction. One of my temporary roommates Julie decided to come down with me and we headed straight to a beer pong tournament at K’s China, a local bar. I didn’t intend to play, just heckle, but there weren’t even enough people to heckle when we walked in. We eventually got roped into a couple games between helpings of cream cheese wontons, crushed a couple team’s dreams, and then lost to some guy who was taking the event way too seriously.
We headed out on our way to the West End Tavern but had to stop first so Julie could get some ice cream at Alfalfa’s. I can’t remember how it started, and I really wish I could, but somehow the ice cream turned into the main weapon in a food fight as we walked through the park by Boulder Creek. As I wrestled it from her hands and tore off running she found a security guard in a golf cart sympathetic to her cause.
Easily out sprinting the cart I stopped to wait few blocks later. The ice cream met its unfortunate end as she tried to forcibly reclaim possession and I destroyed it rather then have it fall into enemy hands.
At the West End we met up with my old roommate and his fiancée and tested out whether my water-proof camera was also stout- and porter-proof (it is), took some under-porter pictures, and continued to our ridiculousness. After a walk back to their house and some doughnuts and Emergen-C we all decided to call it a night.


Bike ride in Nederland


"Hey, I wonder if it's a porter-proof camera too"

Part II

I stood outside the gas station door in Green River, Utah. My phone said it was 11pm but I wasn’t tired yet and I didn’t see a good place to camp. The cigarette trashcan next to me had something burning in it giving off noxious fumes, but the wind was blowing the smoke towards the only other spot to stand so I had to just deal with it. I decided that I’d take an hour and try to talk someone into picking up a stranger, if I came up empty handed I’d retire and try again in the morning.
I got a lot of filled cars, a lot of people going the wrong way, and a couple no’s. One guy was about to give me a ride but his girlfriend shot it down. He tried to give me money and when I turned it down he took my phone number and said they were getting a hotel for the night, but he’d call me in the morning and see if I was still stranded. I had about 20 minutes before my self-induced deadline when a man came out of the store and talked to me for a bit. He said he needed to ask his travel partner – as it were his mother in law – but that he could probably give me a ride. At just about midnight I scored a ride all the way to Vegas.
Big cities are not good places to hitch from. Most people aren’t going far, there’s no place to pull off, and there’s the “someone else will get him” mentality that never actually works out. It was 5am, I had barely slept, and I was dropped off in front of a casino. I walked to the nearest highway entrance but people were passing me too fast and there was nowhere to stand. I figured it was only going to get hotter as it got later so I set out walking towards a gas station on Tropicana Ave, about 2.5 miles down the highway.
Now walking down the highway is legal in parts of Colorado and Utah but it is not legal, as a Nevada State Trooper informed me, to do so in Las Vegas. I was pulled over (sort of, I was already on the shoulder) and greeted by an officer telling me how dangerous my actions were. He asked me where I was going and then why, starting to laugh when I told him I needed to make it to an interview in two days. When I gave him my passport as identification he wanted to know why I didn’t just show him my driver’s license. The real reason was I had left it in a pair of shorts at a friend’s house, but I elected not to share that. He looked at all the stamps, ran all my information, searched me, and then said he would give me a ride to the gas station. Chuckling to himself he told me that of all the cop work he’s done my stories were in the top two. A Vegas Cop thought I had some of the most interesting stories?!? Maybe it was his first day, but I took that as a huge compliment.
I sweet talked him into taking me all the way to the truck stop on the edge of town which I thought would be great, but instead it was deserted. A couple trucks and 3 cars in an hour as well as being on the wrong side of the highway made me nervous. Once again I walked out to the highway, but this time I stayed on the ramp.
Its difficult to describe how the road wears on people. The whole point of hitch hiking for me was to have an adventure – meet new people, hear new stories, get new perspectives on life. I find these things to be rejuvenating and exhilarating and the up-sides of adventure. However - lack of sleep, standing out on the street, not being able to ask for bathroom breaks or music choice or any creature comforts can be very draining. I hit my breaking point in the morning sun of Las Vegas as car after car passed me and I began to wonder if I would ever make it out of the concrete jungle. One girl tried to stop but almost got rear ended because there was nowhere to pull off. And then, finally, I got picked up.
I can’t explain the emotional leap between wondering if I’d wither away in the Las Vegas sun, and climbing into a car with air conditioning. My ride was provided by a guy we’ll call Victor and he was awesome. We chatted for a bit and then he put the air conditioning on for me and told me to adjust it however I wanted. Then he told me to go to sleep if I had a long night. He was so nice I almost got sketched out by it. I fell asleep for about a half hour, woke up refreshed, and talked with Victor for the remainder of the ride about cruises and the travel industry.
My subsequent rides came so quickly I couldn’t even get a layer of sunscreen on. Every time I would post up on an on-ramp and pull out the bottle, someone would stop. I got a ride from a dude in a huge lifted truck, a musician going to play at a church, and a Russian family who first tried to buy me a train ticket and then wanted to give me money but I turned down both.
My last ride was from a woman with her son. Their car was falling apart and they were loaded down with stuff, but of all the cars that passed me on a major highway ramp, they were the ones to stop. The woman told me she was dumpster diving for things to resell on Craigslist and picking bottles and cans out of the trash for the refunds, all to pay for rent and cloths etc for her son. Here was a woman who had almost nothing, but still went out of her way to help out a total stranger.
Meeting people and sharing stories is the reason why I hitch hike. It opens my eyes and re-grounds me in reality. Is selling bikes hard? It can be, unless it’s compared to coal mining. I start to think about my life choices when a police officer that probably sees drunks and gamblers and prostitutes all day tells me I have crazy stories. And no matter how down and out I’m feeling, I’m only supporting one person, not trying to raise a family. I am vulnerable and alone on a highway on-ramp, but every time someone picks me up it reinforces my faith in humanity.

Rebirth of the 60's

After my interview in Colorado I needed to get back to San Diego. I was tired of being on the road, living out of a backpack, and sleeping at friend’s houses. I had really wanted to hop a freight train but an interview in California early the next week deterred me. Plane tickets had jumped substantially in price and there weren’t any Craigslist Rideshares headed to San Diego anytime soon. I figured I could rent a car and drive it out, probably pick up some ridesharers on the way, but I’m so tired of that drive and I wanted an adventure if I was going to be travelling. So I stuck out my thumb.
I didn’t know what to expect – I have hitch hiked to go skiing a bunch in Colorado, and made it all the way to Moab Utah for a bike race once. I had hitch hiked 1400 miles in Patagonia and just recently used my thumb to get around Colombia. But Denver to San Diego was intimidating.
I got dropped off in Golden, Colorado by a friend heading for a bike ride. People rarely know what to think when they drop me off on a highway ramp, so she wished me luck and said she’d pick me up again if I wasn’t gone by the end of her ride. It was less than 5 minutes before two kids in their late teens picked me up and I was on my way!
They dropped me in Evergreen where I grabbed a ride to Idaho Springs, then on to Dillon, and a good ride to Grand Junction. Walking to the on ramp in Grand Junction I saw something I had never seen before which hitch hiking – another hitch hiker. It was a little awkward but we introduced ourselves, his name was Emilio, and found that we were both guys in our mid twenties, fairly normal, and out for an adventure. He was headed home to Tahoe after hitching around the mountains of Utah and Colorado, meeting up with friends, and having an adventurous summer. We talked for a bit about getting and giving rides, the adventure and dying art of hitching, and the people we met along the way while trading off thumb duties. Eventually I got tired of the infrequent traffic and walked up to the highway. One car stopped to give us a bottle of water but no ride, and finally I saw a truck stop for him at the bottom of the ramp. While he was getting in that I got picked up by the very next pickup that came by. He caught up and since my ride was going further Emilio hopped in with me and our driver, an older Latino man stoked on his vintage Chevy. Our new friend told us about driving long distance trucks in Mexico, avoiding English classes as a kid, and some fling he was on his way to see. Somehow jobs came up in conversation and I told him I did international sales for a bicycle company before being laid off. “Oh, an easy job,” was his non-judgmental response. I explained that in the economy it was difficult to move some inventory, and different languages and time zones and customs and all that before thinking to ask what he did. He’s a coal miner, underground, at the age of at least 50. Oh. By comparison then, yes, an easy job.
We got to Salina around sunset and started asking at the gas stations for a ride. Emilio found one going directly to Tahoe but I wasn’t having as much luck. I’ve never been terribly lucky at gas stations so I walked to the highway again and put my thumb out. No one was picking me up. Finally as it started to get really dark I went back to the gas station.
I found a ride from an old hippie with a Bible on the dashboard of his new Saturn Vue. He bought the car for his sister and was going to give it to her in a year as long as she made it through her parole. We creeped along hitting a low point at 55mph for no reason other than he wasn’t paying attention. Ironically he wasn’t paying attention to how fast he was going because he was too busy telling me how much of a hurry he was in to get to Jerry Garcia Day in San Francisco the next day. I thought about mentioning that driving 20mph below the speed limit probably wasn’t a good strategy for making up time but I let it pass. He drove me to literally the next gas station, but in that part of Utah the next gas station is 110 miles away.

On the road again

Friday night started out with some track racing. I’ve logged a lot of time on a “fixie” since I was 16 - riding a century (100 miles) in Colorado, negotiating snow and ice packed bike paths, the delivering on the streets of Manhattan with the purest of bicycles beneath me – but riding on the banked surfaces of a velodrome still made me feel like a beginner. My “fixie” is currently set up with a left-side drive system, bull-horn handlebars, around-town gearing, and an old Campy front wheel I literally found in a dumpster. All these parts make it very cool in my mind, but also completely and totally illegal to ride on the track. So I called my friend Steve to see if I could borrow a bike.
Steve may have just had a kid, but that doesn’t make him old or uncool just yet. His text informed me that not only had he left his bike out for me to use, he also left a bigger chainring in case I wanted to put the hurt on people, tools to change it, and a couple beers in a cooler because that’s also mandatory equipment for track night. Armed with all of this I went over to the track and prepared to get flogged. I won a preem (a midrace sprint) and finished midpack the rest of the time so I’ll definitely be back to get flogged some more.
When I was in Canoa I met a gringo walking around cleaning up the beach in exchange for free drinks at one of the hostels. He introduced me to his step-son Tino who came to California a few weeks ago. After his trip to Vegas and Palm Springs we finally got to hang out Friday night. Tino took me to a bar in Quito that serves beer for $5 an hour (yes, by the hour), so of course I needed to show him a good night.
We headed straight to Pacific Beach with Aimee and met up with Ninja, Austin, and Moto Matt who had all just finished the Critical Mass ride. It took some effort but I was able to rally nearly everyone for a night on the town. We enjoyed some microbrews on the deck of the Ale House over looking the ocean, got some late night Mexican food, and walked home along the boardwalk to round out a good SD Friday night. The night ended sometime around 4am when I dropped Tino off, and four hours later I was on my way to Boulder.
A friend’s birthday, an interview, a business venture, and an opportunity to talk to another company all coincided in one week, and I, always happy to hang out in Colorado, seized the occasion to go back. Sean and I knew each other for all of about 6 minutes and 3 phone calls before we decided to take on the 1300 miles to Boulder in a packed sedan but luckily our first impressions were good. He picked me up Saturday morning and we started rolling towards Salt Lake where we planned to meet up with one of his friends for a bike ride on Sunday morning.
Genie, Sean’s friend, had run 31 miles on Saturday, and then waited for us to arrive before having dinner. Then, as if it was nothing, got up on Sunday morning to take us for a mountain bike ride. I immediately diagnosed her as crazy, but the good kind.
We rolled though the hills near Salt Lake enjoying the fresh air and open space, happy not to be sitting in a car but rather on our bikes. The only thing that detracted from the ride was the rear brakes on my borrowed bike which I believe were just there for show as they provided no stopping power. High speed switchbacks and techy rock-strewn stretches of trail lost some of their fun when I had to lock up my front wheel to scrub speed. Eeek.
We got into Boulder around midnight and I’ve spent the day enjoying the thin mountain air and dry heat, but sorely missing the ocean already.

20 minute radius

One of the most amazing things about San Diego its diversity of activities. The city is right on the waterfront and famous for surfing, swimming, snorkeling, and sailing. Inland just a few miles the topography jumps up to a mountain playground for hiking, cycling, cliff jumping, and rock climbing while pressing further still gives way to the desert, a mecca for dirt bikers and other off road enthusiasts. Two hours to the north puts one in LA with high society in Hollywood or hip hop’s roots in Compton, and a passport is needed to get an hour south.
The past three days I had the opportunity to really embrace the local activities hitting up a night of velodrome racing, horse racing, and Comic Con – all within 20 minutes of Pacific Beach.
Tuesday night racing, or TNR as the cool kids call it, is the weekly fast race at the San Diego Velodrome. A concrete track, 333 meters in length with a dead grass infield it isn’t the prettiest thing in the world but at least San Diego has a velodrome, unlike most cities in America. I grew up in an area with rich track racing roots at the Trexler town track where legends like Marty Nolstien frequented, and Dave Wood attempted Gymkana 3 driving stunts in a pickup truck. The scene there was great with top end racing, heckling, noise makers, drunk fans, and the occasional racer pulling up to the wall to chug a beer. The San Diego scene needs a little work – there’s a lot of hipsters and a lot of people not being ridiculous – so I did my best to amp people up by going wild with the biggest cowbell I could find. I don’t know if they got amped up, or if I just drove the lamest ones so crazy the left, but by the end of the night people were starting to cheer and get into the spirit a little more. A little 6 year old was walking around under the bleachers yelling “ding ding ding” as loud as he could, so on the last preem and bell lap of the last race I gave him the cowbell and he went crazy. But in a good way, he only rang it when I told him to so as not to confuse the racers.
Wednesday was opening day at the Del Mar race track so I went and watched more things go fast and turn left. Athena did 104mph (literally) on the way there until we ran into a traffic jam miles away from the exit. We took back roads to find a parking spot, climbed over train tracks and were threatened with arrest, and followed the stream of ridiculous hats and girls with lots of makeup until we finally found our way to the track. I don’t understand horse betting at all but by the end of the day I decided the best idea is three-packs since one of my friends won $250 on a $6 bet. I can’t even describe the ridiculous attire that was pervasive in the crowd but hats that looked like a shot glass balanced on a girl’s head, white leisure suits, and parasols start to set the scene. The girl in front of me had two massive feathers sticking off the back of her hat perfectly spaced to take out two eyes in one shot, and she almost got me at least thrice.
Despite the “go fast turn left” trend, I did not go to a Nascar race on Thursday. Thankfully. Thursday was ComicCon in downtown San Diego and most stereotypes held true, set to the background of massive advertising campaigns. Every Cartoon Network, sci-fi, or animated show had hot girls in costumes to hand out tee shirts, stickers, and buttons. Show goers got backpacks 3 feet by 3 feet with their admission, and filled them up with all the shwag available. One girl filled her’s so much the bottom ripped out as she attempted to run across the street. Watching all the crowds and cars and advertising machines circulate gave me a better appreciation for urban planning, or the lack-there-of. When cars back up the traffic cops stop all the pedestrians to allow a block full of vehicles to pass. Seems to make sense at first until I realized that a block of cars contains about 8 people, and those 8 people back up 50-60 on the sidewalks. Pedicabs are regulated against, but 3 huge tractor-trailers wrapped in advertising drive around the most congested streets pumping out diesel fumes with no regulation.
I did all of this within a 20 minute drive of Pacific Beach which itself is famous for surfing and nightlife. So many things to do, so little time. Good thing I’m retired.


Awesome pedicab at Comic Con


Placid crowd at San Diego Velodrome

Back into the States!

Getting back to the States did little to calm my travel schedule. I flew from Quito to Atlanta, bailed on my Atlanta to San Diego flight and instead hopped on one bound for Washington DC. My brother Mike picked me up and we went straight to the Georgetown convocation where I found out he had a fan club of girls screaming his name from across the parking lot. I guess one of the benefits of being 6’4” is you don’t need a mohawk to stand out. I met a bunch of Mike’s friends, ate some good Mexican which I had been craving for months, and drank some bad college beer to round out the night.
Rebecca, my sister, came down from my parents’ house in the Philly suburbs the next day. We were all pretty excited to get together since all three siblings hadn’t been in the same place at once in 5 years. We’ve been able to hang out one on one a few times, but we haven’t all been in the same location since 2006 when we were all at very different points in our lives. We decided to mark the occasion by going to every T-mobile and Radio Shack store in the greater Georgetown area looking for a phone battery. It was a glorious celebration.
Later that evening was Georgetown’s Senior Ball. I put on a formal outfit comprised entirely of borrowed cloths, while Mike and Rebecca, having not lived out of a backpack the preceding 3 months, put on their own dress attire.
Now I didn’t go to any of CU’s graduation functions, but then again CU doesn’t rent out the single busiest transportation hub of the single most influential city in the world for a night and set up 32 open bars. Georgetown does. We rolled up to Union Station and were greeted by the most massive line of people dressed like they were going into a state dinner. Hair and makeup done, fully tailored suits, “sir”s and “doctor”s and “captian”s everywhere. I was surrounded by the Hollywood image of academia, but somehow this was more polished and picturesque than the movies could have ever conveyed and this was actually real. Once we convinced the doorman to let us jump half the line we entered a sea of people filling the entire Union Station hall and several of the adjoining restaurants. Some were dancing to the live band playing Beatles covers, some were picking from tables of beautifully presented hors d’hoeuvres, and at least two were trying to tick off a drink at every single open bar. We spent the night hanging out with Mike’s friends and ordering drinks by the armload, dancing to the DJ downstairs, and watching a 50 year old woman, presumably the mother of some terribly embarrassed student, sling her sultry leg over the railing of an escalator as she exited the dance floor.
Saturday and Sunday were family time and watching Mike graduate with a fist bump to the President of Georgetown, and Monday I slung a backpack o’er my shoulder again. I hit the Philadelphia suburbs, then up to Albany to see my grandmother, NYC, Philadelphia proper, and back out to the suburbs in under a week.
The East Coast has buses that run between Chinatown in all the major cities, and they are incredibly cheap. I was told my cousin doesn’t like them because, although they’re really cheap, no one speaks English and you can’t be completely sure you’re going to get where you want to go. After a couple months in South America that seemed normal.
I watched my friend’s daughter dominate on the BMX track, visited with some more family, did some east coast mountain biking (there are alternate trails TO fallen logs, not around them), and then spent a week in DC with my brother and sister to round out my time on the East Coast. Finally I climbed into a spraypainted hippie “artcar” and took a Craigslist rideshare to Boulder.