Burning Dinosaur Bones

Last weekend was one for the record books. Never before have I packed car racing, dancing to awesome live music, and hovercrafting (is that a verb?) into one 48 hour period.

It all started by watching a clip of Top Gear in which the hosts postulated that one could get into car racing for less than most people spend getting into golf. I myself find golf to be incredibly boring, let alone a waste of land and an irresponsible use of water resources, so I’m a fan of most things that make fun of it. The style of racing the hosts decided to pursue was Rally Cross, and after a few minutes I really wanted to try it. A quick Google search on the sport revealed that Rally Cross is typically a test of precision driving with time additions added every time a car hits a cone or misses a gate. There is a Colorado race series that doesn’t require any car modifications (no roll cages or race harnesses) and entry fees are less than a bicycle race. Sign me up!

With the last race of the season was on Saturday, November 3^rd, 40 minutes east of Denver. I decided it would be nice hang out in the city the night before so I didn’t have to get up as early. I took the opportunity to explore the Denver nightlife with my friend Alex, and it turned into a night of epic proportions. Herb’s Bar was just supposed to be our first stop, but each consecutive song by the Moses Jones band made it harder and harder to leave. My friend Bombay Beats, who has been teaching in Spain and the Dominican Republic for the past 4 years, came by and before we knew it the bar was closing. As we were walking home Alex started talking to a girl on the sidewalk and next thing we know all of us are in her and her boyfriend’s baller apartment rocking out and continuing the festivities. Alex’s roommate and I left around 3am, leaving the others to rock out as they saw fit.

After getting to bed around 4am, I woke up late and rushed to the last Colorado Rally Cross race of the season where I met up with my friend Maggie. The course was set up with a series of cones in a dirt field with turns tight enough that most of my time was spent in first and second gears. I was in the first wave of the morning, and after passing tech it was time to race. I didn’t even know how to properly get to the start line, but with a bit of friendly coaching I started to get a feel for it. I felt so cool and had a huge smile pasted on my face between each of the 4 runs. During downtimes between waves, drivers are asked to work the course. I was posted next to Jason, one of the fastest drivers in my category who was absolutely crushing my times. He agreed to let me sit shotgun in his next race laps so I could try to emulate his lines and driving style. I have never seen a stock car do the things he was demanding of his, but once I realized what was possible my lap times started dropping. They didn’t drop enough and I finished somewhere near the middle.

Saturday night was spent laying on the couch, talking with Maggie and my roommate’s friend AJ who just got back from a few years abroad. Sunday was looking to be pretty lazy too until my roommate Adam walked in and announced he was the temporary custodian of a hovercraft. We walked out to the street and for the first time in my life I saw a hovercraft up close. In a bit of irony it’s painted camouflage, for duck hunting, though I’m not sure how a vehicle could be more obvious with a huge propeller and a deafening 250cc two-stroke motor. I rarely have a hovercraft delivered to my house, so naturally we took it to some backroads and tried it out. It wasn’t functioning perfectly, but it worked and it was a blast. We’re planning on taking it over water sometime soon.

Thus concluded my amazing weekend. Live music. Dancing. Racing cars. And hovercrafts. Boom.

 Getting ready to take a hot lap!

 Vroom!

  Getting the engine to fire up at altitude was a bit tricky, but eventually Adam figured it out.

 Success!

Rental cars and hotel rooms

I spent a lot of my time in Boulder living on the corner of two dead end streets in a neighborhood affectionately known as the Hapgood Hood. There was an even mix of families and students, and in the duplex across the street lived a young man named Dubz. He lives in San Diego now and decided to get married, so my old roommate Alex and I made the trek west to congratulate him on this momentous day.

Most of my “vacations” have involved worrying about weather patterns at high altitude, hoping my thumb is attractive enough to slow a passing motorist, or bumbling around a foreign country. I rarely cross paths with hotels and rental cars, but there’s a first time for everything and over Memorial Day weekend I took a pretty standard vacation.

We got started in San Diego swapping our underpowered Focus rental for a bright red Mustang. Now, I don’t have any illusions about a Mustang being a sports car, and I’m pretty sure they de-tune the rental cars anyway, but while it handles like a boat it does go really fast in a straight line. Trust me, I know because I left every stop light by putting the pedal to the floor. It wasn’t long before we learned that the car gets more fun with traction control turned off, and that was the beginning of the end for that set of rear tires.

The first day we ventured down to the water and found an ocean choppy with wind and storm swell, pummeling anyone who dared enter. Alex gave it a solid attempt but eventually tired and surrendered, joining me on the beach. Not to be deterred we borrowed suits and boards from my old neighbor and partner in crime - code named “Ninja” because he knows karate, drives a Kawasaki Ninja, and two Canadians couldn’t remember his real name. The three of us went down and found much nicer, better formed waves on our second and third attempts. Paddling around on a long board was perfect for me because it was fun and active but didn’t engage my hip at all. Alex caught a few waves while Ninja and my old neighbor Collin showed us how real San Diegans do it.

And then of course there was the wedding. I’m not much of a pomp and circumstance kind of guy, but I will say it was beautiful and picturesque.  They were married under two palm trees in a beautiful resort on an absolutely perfect day. The food was good, the bars were open, and I’m pretty sure we woke up half the guests walking back from the reception to our rooms.

Monday I had a beautiful picnic lunch with my friend Kendall before Alex joined and we headed to the Scripps dive locker for a BBQ on the beach. We cooked and drank some beverages just outside my friend’s office window which is located 20 feet from the sand and 40 from the water. I don’t know how he gets any work done. We took our leave there and headed to PB where we had a second BBQ at Ninja’s - complete with guns, horseshoes, adult beverages, smashed tables, and a microscope trained on plant cell nuclei. It was every bit as weird as it sounds. I wanted to capitalize on every last bit of time in San Diego so I ended the night with a friend at a bar in Hillcrest that had a rainbow flag permanently curled around the Bud Light tap.

And thus concluded one of my only standard vacations. I thoroughly enjoyed having a relaxing weekend - looking for lightening not because I thought it would kill me above tree line, but because it was pretty. Most of my trips will still have adventure and danger, but now I know that a trip with rental cars and hotels doesn’t have to be boring.

Tom

I spent the year and a half after my accident with an accepting view, figuring car accidents are part of life and even more common when riding motorcycles and bicycles as frequently as I do. However as the reality of not being able to walk for six weeks, not being able to drive my manual car, and not being able to ride a bike for three months started to sink in I became a little more resentful. The other driver was trying to shave two minutes from his commute and as a result my life was radically altered.

These thoughts were in my mind as I left the hospital Saturday afternoon and saw a hitchhiker standing on the shoulder. Having hitched plenty myself, I always pick up people if I have room so I pulled over and the man ran up. He hopped in the back seat which I thought was odd, but it soon became apparent he didn’t smell great so I was fine with a few extra feet of separation. He had tanned, worn skin, and the teeth he still possessed were crooked and misshapen. I thought he might be a long time vagabond, the kind that talk nonsense the whole trip and ask for money and want door-to-door rides, and I was a little disappointed I had picked him up.

Within the first few minutes he proved very courteous - shy almost. We went through the initial where are you going/what takes you there questions but he didn’t seem interested in pontificating about his life and usually went back to staring out the window after answering a question. He even declined when I offered him part of the sandwich Steph and Malin had brought me earlier in the day.

After asking a few more questions I found out that he was headed to the VA (Veterans Affairs) hospital in Denver to evaluate his cancer treatment options. He had been diagnosed at the hospital in Grand Junction, which was closer to his home, where they told him that he could fight it and live a painful five years, or ignore it and live a relatively normal three.

I couldn’t imagine being confronted with a set of options like that and suddenly realized my youth, relatively good health, and general luck were invaluable.

He seemed at peace with this choice, in almost a zen-like calm. I asked about family and he said he had a few children, one lived near his house and another lived in Denver whom he was going to stay with while visiting the hospital. He had been with his wife since they were teens – they had been married shortly after meeting while working in his family’s ice cream shop. The more I learned the more I wanted to know but I also tried to be deferential to the thoughts that must have been flying through his head.

I know the isolation that can hit when hitching – wondering who’s going to help with a ride while looking at the weather and setting sun and judgmental glances. I have no idea what it must feel like to face one’s own mortality, and I hope I never know those feelings on top of each other.

Talking with Tom put my problems in perspective. I had just been cared for and visited by awesome friends, I was scheduled to make a full recovery, and no one’s told me I’ll be dead in three years. I still wish people would look a little harder for motorcycles and bicycles, but all things considered I’m doing pretty well.

The saga continues

Without family in the area I was concerned about the logistics of having surgery, but luckily I have some amazing friends that helped me immensely. My friend Chris from Full Cycle now lives in Vail, wooing restaurant patrons with his extensive knowledge of fine wines as the house sommelier. I asked if he knew of any cheap places to stay or off-season deals and instead he offered his couch or airbed. I was stoked, but when I told the doctor’s assistant I was staying on an airbed she literally laughed at me. Chris then offered his room, which was amazingly gracious.

My friend Tara is one of those people who doesn’t seem to be acquainted with the word “no.” She’s always down to go camping, skiing, clubbing, road tripping – if there’s room in the schedule she’ll probably say yes. If I had known how tight her schedule was, or how much help I was going to need, I probably would have asked at least one other person but as it was she flew back from Arkansas Tuesday afternoon and drove to Vail. She took care of me until Friday night, packed Saturday, and flew to Nicaragua early Sunday morning. I didn’t appreciate how worthless I’d be after the surgery and without her I wouldn’t have been able to get into bed, much less out of it. She kept track of my meds, drove me around, and was helpful in every way imaginable.

By Saturday I was starting to feel a bit down. It’s hard to go from being fairly athletic and independent to not being able to walk, and I was getting frustrated. I went in for my last full day of physical therapy and got a call from my friend Steph. She and her crazy Swedish friend Malin were driving to Aspen and wanted to stop by to say hi. They showed up with brownies and breakfast sandwiches, demanding tours of the hospital, stealing my crutches, and generally causing a ruckus. It was awesome – energy and comic relief is just what I needed and they delivered perfectly.

Towards the end of my second PT session of the day Zac stopped by on his way up to the mountains too. He’s a bit of a celebrity around the clinic after having hip and shoulder surgery within a couple months this winter and referring me, so he said hi to people while I iced my hip. It was so awesome to kick it with friends just when I was starting to feel frustrated and they really brightened my day.

  Taking over Chris' room

I've never paid so much to feel so destroyed

A year and a half ago I was driving home from work when a guy decided to make an illegal left turn in an effort to bypass a red light. Unfortunately a red motorcycle, with myself aboard, was cruising towards him - a fact he didn’t realized until he had completely blocked my lane. I tried to get around but we inevitably collided sending me sliding across the pavement and nearly totaling my bike. I was wearing nearly every piece of protective gear available and managed to escape without many superficial damages, but I could tell something was wrong with my left hip. Several medical professionals and over a year later I finally had an MRI where I was diagnosed with a torn labrum. From what I understand that means the cartilage was ripped off my pelvic bone and all my surrounding muscles were compensating, trying to keep my hip stable in every day activities. There is a lucky part of this story – one of the best surgeons in the world to do this surgery practices in Vail. The hallway walking towards his office is lined with professional sports jerseys, as is nearly every available wall space within his clinic. He’s worked on the likes of Tebow and Kobe, and I was lucky enough to have him cut into me. On Tuesday, April 3 I showed up in Vail at 6:00am to have the first surgery of my life. I was pretty nervous - my blood pressure was about 40mmHg higher than usual – and all the rooms were cold. I’d tell you more about the procedure but once the first wave of anesthesia hit I was out. It was only supposed to be local, I didn’t get a countdown or anything, and the next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room. I was told I had an epidural – the painkiller for women giving birth - and though I tried, the most I could move below my hips was the big toe on my right foot. As the nurses tapered the medication I slowly started to move my right leg, then left foot. It was a few hours before I realized the thing moving up and down under the covers was actually my own leg mobilized by a machine. About an hour after I could feel my leg they had me up on a stationary bike, and when I was done with that I ravenously destroyed a tray full of food. Salmon, soup, salad with bread, 2 cookies, sorbet, a PB&J sandwich, and juice started to satisfy my appetite after fasting for about 18 hours. Surgery was the easy part though. All I had to do was show up and get stuck by a couple needles, and pass out. The road to recovery was just beginning.

I was so cold when I woke up that the nurses buried me in warm towels.

Finally waking up, trying to smile.

Back on the bike, with some help.

Reflections on a weekend in NYC

A couple weeks ago I hopped a flight to NYC to hang out with some friends and, more generally, to just go somewhere.
I left work early Friday and bolted for DIA. Last time I drove to the airport, on my way to a failed Australia trip, there was traffic and construction so I allowed myself plenty of time and made my flight without breaking a sweat – the first time that’s happened in a while.
Arriving in the city the first thing I remembered is that New York has some of the most amazing food I’ve ever encountered. I’m not talking about going to some fancy restaurant with fancy garnishes and small portions. I’m talking about the smells the immediately and continuously invade the nose from corner pizza places, or Jewish deli’s that have been in business for 70 years, or even falafel from a street cart (one of my favorites as a vegetarian messenger in Manhattan). I love that ethnic food from literally all over the world is consolidated to within a few subway stops.
Sunday I met up with some cousins I haven’t seen in a few years. First of all I’d like to say that I have an amazing extended family. I have cousins from New England to Hawaii, and even a couple abroad, and they’re all awesome. I haven’t been great about visiting family though so I was stoked by the realization that bonds haven’t diminished. We talked about family and growing up and all kinds of interesting and fun but kind of deep topics and it was great.
My flight home at 7am required a pretty early departure from my cousin’s couch. Buses, trains, subway legs, it was all very complicated and at 4am the schedules are unpredictable. I decided instead to huff it and started walking through the early morning city streets enjoying a quiet afforded by the light layer of snow on the ground. There’s something so peaceful about such a massive city asleep – it made me think of how many people are living in such a confined place, all living individual lives but coexisting with similar activities and experiences.
I fell asleep on the plane and next thing I knew I was back in the small town wild west of Colorado.

The new whip

Last weekend I bought a car. Actually, I bought it a week before that but I had to fly to Pennsylvania to pick it up which I just did last weekend. (Paying for a car but not getting to drive it for another 10 days is torturous.) The plan was to fly in Saturday, pick up the car, hang out with some people, and then Sunday morning pick up my little sister whom I had encouraged to skip class in favor of driving back to Colorado with me.
My parent’s had parked the car at their place for the preceding week so I took the train from the airport out to their place. After hanging out for about 40 minutes they had to go to a wedding so I was left on my own. I was really tired – Thursday I had gone out with my boss to trade travel stories, Friday night I had gone to see my friend in the pit orchestra of the opera, and then woke up at 4:15 Saturday morning to get my flight – but I had a new toy and I was determined to have some fun.

Playing with my new toy
I went out and slipped the key in the ignition. Twisting it forward I watched the needles rise and then fall back to idle. I hit the accelerator a couple times just to hear it, and then pushed it into first. I was on my way.
I logged a lot of miles riding my bike on the small twisty back roads around my parent’s house so I have most of them memorized, and they are absolutely perfect for an all wheel drive turbo charged car with low air pressure in the tires. I drifted it though a couple corners in Evansburg State Park, staying on the accelerator until the last second when I’d come off the gas and the car would straighten itself out with a little wiggle and shimmy. After deciding I had a pretty fun car I headed back.

Road trip starts
My sister decided she’d rather start the trip Saturday night after she got out of a concert so I met up with a couple old friends that evening, tried to get some sleep, and then picked her up at the train station. I got a little lost leaving town but soon we were on the PA Turnpike headed west.
I bought the car without an electronic key so after topping off the tires and filling up on gas I locked the car from the inside and walked to the rest area for a bite to eat. What I didn’t realize was that the button on the inside of the car sets the alarm, and the regular metal key doesn’t unarm it. At about 3:00am, in the middle of a truck stop with a lot of people trying to sleep, I set off my alarm about 8 times in a row. After a desperate Google search and borrowing some tools from the gas station attendant I was able to start the car with out it freaking out and we were on our way again.

Chicago
Not much happened between Philly and Chicago. The radio worked, cruise control worked, turbo worked, it was beautiful. We hit some bad fog in State College but that was about it. We got into Chicago around 5 where we were meeting two of my friends for dinner – Scott and Sarah. Scott I knew since elementary school and Sarah I met in Ecuador so it was awesome to see both of them completely removed from the context of our introduction. Sarah had to work at a restaurant so Scott, his girlfriend, my sister, and I all just sat in her section and caught up as she walked back and forth.
After dinner it was back to the road. I really wanted to run the cruise control at 125mph all the way through Iowa and Nebraska but since my license plate had expired in 2004 I thought it’d be best to avoid getting pulled over. Rebecca drove for a while so I was freed up to do important things like make faces when we passed the Google Streetview car. She stepped it up though by stalling the car in front of him at a tollbooth.

Colorado
We cruised into Boulder around 3:00 on Monday afternoon but I wanted to show Rebecca the mountains. It always amuses me how flatlanders see the first row of the foothills and marvel at “the mountains.” I had to tell her we weren’t there yet. We started up the canyon before turning off and flogging the car up Magnolia towards Nederland. Mmm, dirt roads.
By the time I dropped my sister off at the airport around midnight I was seriously worried about falling asleep and crashing my brand new car.

Weather
Last year I was commuting about 45 minutes in each direction by motorcycle when I bought my GTI. Literally the day after I bought it rain started falling and didn’t stop for a full week making me very happy I had 4 wheels and a roof over my head. This time I got to Colorado Monday afternoon and less than 24 hours later it was sleeting and soon we had just under a foot of snow on the ground. I don’t want to get soft so I rode my bike to work anyway - well I don't want to get soft and I haven't bought an ice scraper for the windows yet. By the second day I was able to use a plastic ruler to clear the car. I can’t wait to drive it though a blizzard on the way to go skiing.


Fall foliage and fog near State College, Pennsylvania


Early morning in the midwest. I think its pretty as long as I'm leaving at 80mph.


Google Streetview car cruising down the highway


The sun sets over the mountains looking at Nederland, Colorado.


My car under a couple inches of snow.