April 30, 2007
~ Three Bears and Life Stuff ~
On Sunday, I took advantage of the nice, but overcast, weather and rode Three Bears. I wasn't feeling 100%, so I went at a somewhat casual pace. I started out by going up Buck's Trail and Shane's, and then traversed over and dropped down onto Rocky Canyon Road, where I went up and up to connect with Three Bears. There are two extra steep sections of Three Bears which always take an extra effort - - sometimes I make it up them and sometimes I don't. On this day, I failed to peddle to the top of one, but succeeded on the other. I paused at the top of Three Bears to take in the stunning view. This is the time of year when the foothills are particularly beautiful - - with some patches of greenery and desert flowers. I rode down Three Bears, connected to Shane's, and down Central Ridge. I wasn't in my normal wicked downhill mountain biking mood, so I took the downhill rather easy...Indeed, I only did one jump on Central Ridge, where I normally jump off every protrusion in the trail. Yet, it was a fantastic ride. This photo is a view of Rocky Canyon Road as I was dropping down off of Shane's. I always find this view particularly stunning and it always amazes me that this is what I've got in (what I consider to be) my backyard. You may view more photos here. As evinced by this photo, Rocky Canyon Road is spectacular. While I was riding up the three or four miles to the Three Bears trailhead, I found myself lost in thought, thinking about life stuff in the lush and rocky canyon.
For my work, I have been living and breathing these workshops which are designed to give teaching skills to a specific group of non-professional-teachers. It has been very interesting, but kinda overwhelming in scope. One of the topics is teaching to different generations. Within that topic has been discussion regarding the work habits of these generations. Baby Boomers generally feel loyal to their employers, for example, while Generation Xers are loyal to their work but not necessarily their employer. Me, I am on the cusp of the Gen x and Millenial, and while I tend to identify as a Gen Xer, on the issue of work, I generally feel a lack of loyalty towards the whole gammut. My loyalty, rather, is focused on my lifestyle. One part of my lifestyle is being able to live right downtown and work within a five minute walk of where I live. This also goes for my schooling - - as I declined applying to a program which would require me to commute several miles away, and instead opted for the five minute away bicycle ride university program. Additionally, living within a five minute bike ride of mountain biking trails and at a hub of quality road biking is very important to me. So, while I want to have a good employer with coworkers that I like and work that is somewhat mentally stimulating, I don't have any further stipulations on my work and employer beyond their support of my lifestyle. This is evidenced by how I have recently contemplated pulling a 180 turn on my work and doing something completely different just for kicks. I have determined that I could be happy doing pretty much almost anything, as long as it falls within the broad spectrum of "doing good towards others" and satisfying my lifestyle needs.
Several years ago, I took an honors philosophy class on Albert Camus, and during one of the lectures the professor commented that it makes no difference where one lives because life is the same everywhere. At the time, I thought that was the dumbest thing he could have said, because of course location makes all of the difference. This was a few months before I decided to move to Monteral, when I thought that location was important. Now that I've been around a bit, I have determined that it actually does not matter WHERE I am living as long as my lifestyle needs are met. Sure, I've determined that it's handy to speak the language of the other residers of the location - - not being able to effectively communicate with everyone around me has been a barrier to my total living satisfaction. At any rate, I have a greater appreciation for that which the professor communicated about location not mattering as much as one might think, because one is still the same person irregardless of their location. This means that one retains the same level of proactivity regarding their own personal happiness, at least, if you're me. Of course, this assumes that things like individual liberty and freedom remain constant....as, clearly, one would be less happy if one's liberty and freedoms were resitricted in one place over another. So, that turns it upside down, and it DOES matter where you live because of variables enabling a specific individual's happiness. ANYWAY, I've been giving thought to doing random things, like randomly switching career paths to mix things up a bit, and moving to other locations for a higher quality of life. And this was what I was thinking about on my bike ride up Rocky Canyon Road yesterday.
In other news, I have finished knitting the Nantucket Jacket and it is awesome. I have not yet taken a photo of it to share, but Josh has, so you may monitor his flickr postings...if you care. The jacket was a true joy to work on, these past months. I sized it for the small pattern, and even knat it on smaller needles because I have a particularly small torso, and still, it is too big. A bit ago, I realized that it has a crocheted edge, so it was a good chance to learn some new skillz. I must say, I don't see myself becoming a real crocheter any time soon. Sure, it was fun and okay, but I wasn't super into the experience. But maybe I shouldn't judge too quickly. Anyway, maybe I'll post a photo sometime soon, if I get around to it.
April 25, 2007
~ the fake flower that people stop to smell ~
The other day, I made a big mistake. heavy sigh... On Sunday after I removed my person from the comfort of the bed and forced it to begin the day, I discovered that I was playing host to a large number of house guests. I was standing at my kitchen counter, waiting for my toast to pop from the toaster, and pondering what I was going to do with myself on that day, when I looked down and noticed that my counter was moving. I have no idea why it took so long for me to notice while standing right before them, but there was an insanely gigantasaurus quantity of ants swarming my kitchen. Even now, after all that I have been through, I fail to understand why this happened to me. Sure, I sometimes leave dollops of raspberry jam on my kitchen counter for a few days before I get around to wiping it off, but I pride myself in not being a total and complete slob. Sure, there is room that I could improve, but as a live-alone kind of person, I think I do pretty well.
At any rate, I swept all of the ants into the sink and drowned them. It was kind of sad, if you care about living creatures. For the rest of the day and for Monday, any time that I went to my kitchen, I found congregations of ants ready to meet their demise down my kitchen faucet. By the end of the day on Monday, I was feeling frustrated. My efforts seemed to yeild no results. I had cleaned every bit of the kitchen and couldn't figure out what would continue to bring out the ants. I was thankful, I should mention, that they were ants and not something truly revolting like spiders or cockroaches. I can crunch an ant with my bare finger and not feel grossed out. But spiders...shudder. Anyhoo... It was near to my bedtime when I began to recall a joke that an old friend, Lorie, used to tell me that I never thought was very funny but somehow enjoyed myself when she told it. Her joke went like this: "How can you tell when you need insecticide?" "When you have an insect inside." Just recalling the joke brings a smile to my face. More importantly, the joke brought to mind the need for something more effective at eliminating pests.
I rummaged around in the cubbord underneath the kitchen sink, looking through the random bottles of chemicles that have been there since before I moved into the apartment. I was thinking if I could find some bleach or really powerful cleaner, that might do the job. In the back, I was excited to find a bottle of Raid bug spray. Now, I'll go ahead and provide the ending to the story before actually finishing the ending to the story.... As I see it, the fault was the label designer for the bug spray, not mine. If they had listed the warnings and precautions at the beginning instead of at the end, after the directions, it could have all been avoided. But alas, the first thing I read were the directions on how to utilize the bug spray and did not even see the warnings and precautions (in fact, the warnings and precautions were listed way down at the bottom, past all of the different language translations of the directions). So, without giving it much thought, I proceeded to spray down my entire kitchen. Like, really well.
When I was finished, I went into my other room to relax before going to bed. After a time, I felt myself growing sleepy and engaged in my pre-bedtime ritual. Now, you may or may not recall that I sleep in my kitchen. Usually, I find this arrangement rather handy - - good for things like midnight snacking, thirst cravings, and the gentle hum of the refridgerator is a nice bedtime noise that cradles me in slumber. That is, unless you've exhausted the aerosol can of bug spray in your rampage against the ants and toxic fumes overwhelm the air which you breathe. Then, sleeping in the kitchen...not so nice. It was at this point that I decided to read the section on warnings and precautions and discovered that it is illadvisable to spray in poorly-ventilated areas (like my kitchen!). I opened my small window and turned on some fans, but the damage was done. My wee and tiny apartment was filled with toxic fumes. And I breathed it in for eight hours before I had to go to work. Now, a few days later, it is pretty much cleared out, but my throat is so ridiculously sore and my glands are so ridiculously swollen. Not the dumbest thing I've ever done, but close.
~ Roadways to Bikeways ~
Check out ACHD's Roadways to Bikeways Bicycle Master Plan for Ada County and fill out the survey to give your input about improvements to bicycle commuting in the area. It's a project that I am hopeful will make Boise a much better place to be a bike commuter. There are also quite a few other developments that should be of interest to local cyclists. For example, the expansion of mountain biking trails at Bogus Basin as well as the Velodrome. Such awesomeness.
April 23, 2007
~ Poison Creek, Owyhees ~
This past Saturday, Josh and I drove out to the Owyhees for a mountain biking adventure. He had been obsessing over the Poison Creek area on Google Earth for several weeks, certain that he was seeing what could be some excellent mountain biking opportunities. One aspect of the Owyhees is that they are relatively unmarked...which is to say, there are random roads and trails branching out everywhere, but there are very few signs, and it's best to wander the area with a detailed map and a good sense of direction. A few weeks ago, when we had a mini-vacation in Marsing and went on an ill-fated bike ride in the Owyhees, we were trying to ride a certain direction which Josh felt would take us on an excellent adventure. Unfortunately, on that ride, we had no map, we routinely encountered dead-ended roads, routinely found ourselves on roads which were not easily ridable, and became caught in a severe wind and rain storm. Since then, Josh has gone over the area on Google Earth numerous times and has procured a detailed map of the area, so we were much better prepared on Saturday for a second try.
We parked the car at the same location as we had the last time, off a dirt road that branched several times over, with the only identifying feature (as far as I can tell) being an abandoned and collapsed stone house. After mounting our trusty hardtail steeds, we proceeded to peddle up a random road to our left which was not one of the random roads on which we had peddled before. This took us up and up and up, a climb that I felt was more difficult than it should have been, only because of the immediacy of the climb (usually, I have a few minutes of riding before such a climb). Throughout the climb upwards, the sky remained cloudy and foreboding, the wind was cold, but the weather never warned of impending doom. Instead, there was a strange optimism in the air...as though things might clear up.
At some point, we encountered a flock of sheep and their respective sheep dogs and shepards. As I was threading my way through the gaggle of sheep on the road, I made a mental note that sheep are not the most intelligent of all creatures. We rode slowly through, an effort to avoid inadvertently herding them (re: not the most intelligent of creatures), and tried to act calm while riding by the sheep dogs. Sheep dogs...a far cry sharper than the school of sheep they monitored. I was a tad perturbed by the presence of the sheep, as they existed along the stretch of road which was the first downhill portion. At the time, I was wanting a good fun adrenaline downhill zoom, which was thwarted by the big balls of would-be yarn.
At some other point, we came to a lookout area where we stopped to ingest some granola bars and rest. The view was particularly stunning. I should mention, right about here, that the batteries in my camera were dangerously low...and what was I doing? I was taking photos of cute flowers and not saving my batteries for possible amazingness. After resting and reenergizing, we continued on our way with an increase in both downhill opportunities and amazing view opportunities. The road became less "maintained" at certain points - - the downhills were severely rutted (by which I mean that there were ruts several inches wide and several inches deep) and the ground became loose and rocky. We had to stop several times just to take in the beauty of the Owyhees. We stopped at a certain particularly stunning point which overlooked Jump Creek Canyon. I took a single photo of the canyon and then became preoccupied trying to photograph a certain flower, and then my camera turned itself off. From this point, the sun came out, the day became glorious (by which I underscore several times), and the views of Jump Creek canyon became ever more stunning. I will refer all of my readers to Josh's flickr account, which I linked a few posts ago, for some incredible photos of our journey. You may access my meager photos by clicking on the cow at the beginning of this post.
As we continued peddling along, Josh routinely consulting his map to ensure that we would not get lost, we found ourselves on some singletrack that was to take us to the beginning of Jump Creek. The trail took us along the ridge and, I'm beginning to be a broke record, it was an awesome experience. Just before the bottom, the trail became unridable and we had to walk our bikes down a rather steep, loose ground, and rocky trail. Yea, hiking in cycling cleats is not the most comfortable or ideal way to travel. At the bottom, we proceeded to wander into Jump Creek canyon all the way to the waterfall. During that trip, we had to hike our bikes most of the way, carefully crossed the creek by navigatign the wobbly stepping stones in our cleats (yikes!) and then had a lovely experience at the waterfall. However, we agreed that Jump Creek Canyon is more spectacular from above than from within.
After making our way out of the canyon, we had just a few miles of washboard gravelly road to return to the car. At this point, I was wishing that I had some rear suspension, as the washboard gravelly road was rather unpleasant to ride on after having ridden for three hours. By the end of the ride, we were both hungry, so we drove into Marsing for some food. We stopped at the White House drive in (next to the trailer park that we had stayed in a few weeks before) and had some affordable yummy food.
April 19, 2007
~ my dislike of french vanilla creamer ~
It has been cold and rainly for several days. On Tuesday, by the time that I had arrived at my statistics class, my clothing was soaked and I had to sit in the three hour class feeling wet and miserable. I loathe percipitation. I did not loathe percipitation to this degree, however, until I lived in places with lots of percipitation. There, I developed my absolute hatred of wettness falling from the sky. This explains why, when forced to leave our friendly neighbor to the north because of outdated immigration policies, I considered moving to locales such as Santa Fe, which are not well known for the moisture that falls from their skies. Interestingly, while I was riding by bike home from work, before the rain hit, a dude in an SUV pulled up alongside me, rolled his window down to inform me that the radio had announced severe hail warnings across the Treasure Valley. ick...hail, just another form of moisture from above. As I have been able to discern, the problem with hail is that it is unpleasant to be caught in. What is more, I've never understood why all of these people want to live in coastal cities. Oh sure, it's pretty to have folliage growing along highway overpasses and handy to not have to manually irrigate one's yard to have some greenery. Some people may even prefer the lushness in places like Seattle (shudder!) as opposed to the parched earth of the high desert. But give me high desert parched earth any day over rain falling on my head and soaking the bottoms of my pants. ick.
In other news, yesterday I was forced to attend this conference which I found rather boring. The final lecture was on simulation technology, which was the only topic that I had an interest in. Unfortunately, the speaker was unable to attend and they had her on a conference call. As a kinesthetic learner, the most unmeaningful and useless way to teach me something is to project a voice at me for two hours. To learn, I must have something to engage me in the presentation. Even the other speakers, who stood behind the podium, were more engaged with the audience by the mere act of making eye contact and jesticulating. Interestingly, I have thought that either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with the conventional methods of teaching kinesthetic learners. Somehow, conventional teaching and learning theory seems to correlate kinesthetic learning with group work. I loathe group work. I remember, for example, a French class in which the professor thought that practicing verb conjugations while tossing a ball to our classmates around the room was an effective educational method. Kinesthetic learning doesn't mean that I learn simply by doing something, anything random with my hands - - it means that I need to be doing that which I am learning. Perhaps there are the introverted kinesthetic learners, like me, who prefer to learn whatever by sitting alone and learning it themselves, and extroverted ones who enjoy tossing balls with a group while praciticing verb conjugations. Anyway, during the audio presentation, I thought that I was going to roll over and die of boredom. While I could hear her words and interpret them accordingly, there was nothing binding me or engaging me to the subject and it resulted in wasted time. I apparently sat through a two hour presentation on simulation technology yesterday, but I retained none of the information and I would have spent the time in a more worthwhile fashion if I had been picking my nose and scratching my butt.
April 17, 2007
~ quick snippet ~
In case you haven't heard or seen, Josh purchased for himself a digital camera this past weekend and has acquired for himself a flickr account which you should all admire.
April 14, 2007
~ the edge of civilization ~
On Friday, there was a random moment of gloriousness which Josh and I seized after I got off of work to go on a mountain bike ride. We rode some of the trails around and behind Table Rock, which I have scarcely ridden before. To summarize the ride, it was rad! I was feeling particularly energetic after a day of sitting in front of the computer, and utilizing my muscles in the fresh air felt so good. The trails had a good mixture of hard climbs and technical areas to make it interesting, but it was a very doable and fun ride. One of the great things about living in Boise is the immediate access to amazing outdoor recreational opportunities. Now, I'm not sure if my non-Boise readers truly understand my use of the term "immediate." To clarify, by "immediate," I mean that I can exit the front door of my downtownly located apartment and be mountain biking within three minutes. If you take a moment to examine this photo to the left, you'll notice me relaxing on a pile of rocks above the city, after having riden my mountain bike around some very awesome trails. One of the spectacular aspects of mountain biking outside of Boise is the view of the city that may be experienced from a variety of altitudinal perspectives. It consistently provides me with a renewed appreciation of where I live.
After our ride, Josh and I consumed several glasses of cheap vino at a local drinking well which has recently come under new ownership and has turned non-smoking in the process. I cannot quite find the words to express my impressedness with the fact that we now have a few drinking establishments that are non-smoking. This means that I can go out and spend the evening at a bar, but I don't have to worry about reeking of cigarette smoke or having a sore throat the next day because of inhaling second hand smoke. It is wonderful! What is more, Penguilly's (the non-smoking), is known for being a venue for good live music. Last night, Josh and I enjoyed the tunes of this rockin' "bluegrass" band and it was so awesome! The bar has this fantastic "Western" (as in, the Old West) feel to it, with the dark wood paneling, huge photos from old Boise days, and mounted Jackalopes!, but now I don't have to experience it being engulfed in a plume of cigarette smoke.
After drinking much more than I've drank recently, I hopped onto my bicycle cruiser and headed home (a nice four minute bike ride - - another great thing about my current living arrangement). On my way, I had to navigate the numerous drunk pedestrians congregating around the downtown bars and I was the receiver of numerous intoxicated comments about my amazing bike handling skillz in a crowd of drunk pedestrians. Call me anti-social, but I don't understand why so many people feel the need to comment out loud to strangers about stuff that isn't their business. Like, for example, my ability to safely and skillfully navigate a bicycle through a crowd. There was a group of drunk dudes sitting on a bench shouting out "Easy!.. Easy!.." as though they didn't think that I could slow down to almost a full stop while navigating the crowd. pfft! Piece of cake. ...even if I was slightly intoxicated.
Anyroad, I've finally gotten around to uploading my photos from the Zoo which we visted a few weeks ago.
April 12, 2007
~ disappointment on my knitted brow ~
At the moment, I am super excited about all of these items which I lack the time to pursue. For a time, I have been working on the Nantucket Jacket which I started working on strong, but have had to place aside for days (and weeks) at a time for work and school. I've recently had an opportunity to take up the needles again, and I must say!, this is a very fun pattern to work on. The pattern has enough going on with it that it is plenty interesting and fun, what with the alternating cables and lacework, but is simple enough that I do not have to constantly be reading the pattern. Which is another way of saying that I have had the opportunity to watch numerous quality episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Nevertheless, I still have to finish my two sleeves and then must learn some basic crochet skillz for the edging.
I have also been excited about being able to do some bicycling. Unfortunately, the weather has not been consistently glorious and I've gone to the gym a few more times than I would prefer. Also, I have been a bit disappointed in this female-only mountain biking group with whom I am aligned. There has been nary a group-ride scheduled and I continue to desire more estrogen on my mountain bike rides. I have exchanged several emails with the female who shares my given name, who I went road biking with several times last year, and we are trying to schedule a tough girls mountain bike ride, but scheduling has proven to be an issue. Also, I have received some good news and some not-wonderful news regarding my acquisition of a full suspension mountain bike. The good news is that the bicycle shop owners were feeling particularly generous and have offered to let me buy the bike at an incredible deal. The not-wonderful news is that somehow the bicycle is not currently available and it might be a whole entire MONTH until I can get it. I know, I know! A month! I, too, have no idea how I'm going to survive what I have determined to be approximately thirty days! I mean, what am I supposed to do? Ride the perfectly servicible bike that I've been riding for two years??? I AM NOT A BARBARIAN!
On the other hand, I don't really have time (or, I shouldn't have the time) to do these and other things that I would like to...what with the whole school thing. Boy, am I looking forward to summer break! The best part about school is not being in it! I know that I'm only taking two classes, but trying to have a quality life balance and working full time plus is a challenge. Additionally, I'm simply not all that excited about being a student. I mean, it's neat in some ways, and my program is much more interesting than I was expecting, but I feel very OVER being a student. I hypothesize that my undergraduate experience totally burned me out from academia and I feel very DONE with the whole thing. Of course, part of the problem is that I've got something of a Type A personality and I simply have to do my best in everything that I do. Oh sure, I'm pleased that on all three of the research papers so far this semester that I received the highest grade in the class and the professors were just RAVING about how good they were, but the process that it took to do so well on those papers involved a drastic reduction in the quality of my personal life. Not that I don't think it's great fun to get up at 4:00 a.m. to work on my paper for four hours before going to work and then working on my paper again when I arrive home from work until midnight for a week and a half...but lately I've been reconsidering the important things in life and at the end of the day I don't think that getting the highest grade in the class is meaningful or indicative of a quality existence. Rather, a measure of quality existence would probably involve the successful achievement of qualitative happiness along a moment-to-moment continuum. The happiness that I felt at finding out my paper grade was significantly less happiness than if I had had some fun and enjoyable experiences during the week and a half that I spent writing the infernal thing. And the same thing goes for how I've been handling my work load at the job. In essence, I should abandon my Type A need for perfection and get a life.
April 9, 2007
~ Marsing ~
This weekend, Josh and I went on a mini-vacation to Marsing, the Gateway to the Owyhees. We have been through Marsing numerous times, having thrown some money down at their eating establishments after a hike or bike ride in the Owyhees. While Marsing might not seem like the most amazing place to go on a mini-vacation, it holds a warm place in our hearts and is much more quality than a superficial view conveys. We left Boise on Saturday morning, after procuring some good coffees for the road. Josh had made reservations at the only hotel in Marsing, the Whitehouse Inn. I suppose that from the name, I had expected something slightly more grand than what was the reality. Somehow, the name "Whitehouse Inn" compelled me to assume that we would be staying in a beautifully renovated historic building with a view of the stunning Owyhee mountains. Yet, as I pulled up to the front door, I was a tad surprised to find that the so-called Whitehouse Inn was nothing more than a trailer park, with trailers that had been sectioned off into multiple "hotel rooms." After seeing our portion of the single-wide trailer, I was greatly relieved that we would at least have our own restroom. While I may be harshly judgemental, I'm not much of a snob and I don't insist on existing always with a silver spoon crammed into yee olde netherparts. At the same time, I found that staying in a converted single-wide trailer was to be one of several white trash experiences.
After settling into our accommodations, Josh and I hit the town. We walked "downtown" where we got some very affordable soft tacos from Freddy's Taco stand (a joint that we've eaten at a few times before). Freddy's Tacos is wonderful. It appears to be a family-run establishment that offers affordable food at incredible quality. Ah, just the thought of my tastey tacos makes my mouth salivate. Josh, who is WAY more social and outgoing than I, chatted with some local Marsingians, found out how to pronounce some Spanish words, and through the interaction I was able to get my hands on some homemade salsa for my tacos. I probably applied too much of this homemade salsa, but it was amazing! Zing! Then, we located a park and had all kinds of fun. We swang on swings, teeter-tottered, slided, and I managed to persuade Josh to let me into his fort which he was protecting by throwing rocks and twigs at all of the enemies.
Then, we went down by the lovely and radioactive Snake River. Marsing is also a check point for motorcycle enthusiasts. At the river, there was some kind of motorcycle congregation which we took pains to avoid. The ground was littered with goatheads and I spent several moments plucking them from the soles of my shoes. The most notable landmark in Marsing is Lizard Butte which is basically a hill with some volcanic rock that looks like a giant lizard. It's pretty cool. As you recall, Easter was on Sunday, and while neither Josh nor myself are big followers of Easter, we had planned on joining the locals at the top of Lizard Butte at sunrise for their Easter Sunrise Service. While we were walking along by the river, we took the opportunity to people watch some of the locals as they were fishing in the lovely and radioactive Snake River. Now, it's not as though I am this neat-nick clean-freak, but the polluted waters of the Snake River is not the source from which I would like to get my fish.
On our way back to the "hotel", we stopped by the grocery store, where I was a little surprised at the numbers of dead animals hung about. The entire Marsing adventure had undertones of white trashedness, but this grocery store which displayed dead animals alongside food and beverage for sale was the second clear demarcation of a white trash experience for me. You know how when people hunt and kill animals, they display the dead animal carcass as though it was a trophy...I've never much understood that. Above the greeting cards, in this grocery store, were moose and elk heads, above the candy and pre-packaged baked items, stuffed turkeys. Along the cereal aisle, there was even a dead mountain lion. I know that it's hard to judge taste sometimes, but I prefer to not live around dead animal carcasses, so I've never quite understood the many people who choose to swathe their walls with dead animals. I mean, why not display a family photo or a replica of some famous painting? What is the appeal of dead animal carcasses as décor? …Yet another mystery of life.
That afternoon, we utilized Marsing's Gateway to the Owhyees, to enter into the Owyhees for some mountain bike riding. We went to someplace a bit west of Jump Creek and explored some motorcycle roads. It was a lot of fun. At some point, we rode up to this plateau to take in the view. Josh noticed, in the distance, that the wind was causing a mighty dust storm. And by the look of the clouds, and the smell in the air, it was apparent that we were about to be caught in a sudden torrential downpour. We immediately started to ride back to the car, but the wind was so strong that it proved to be a harbinger of the difficulty that lay ahead. Twice, the wind coming at me to the side was so strong that it literally blew me off the trail and the rain came very quickly. Rain plus strong wind made every exposed part of my person freeze, and then the wind would whip up the sand against my leg, which stung my frozen flesh. What is more, our lack of structured exploring made me feel slightly concerned that we would lose our way. Nevertheless, we made it back safely and returned to our trailer section for a shower before going out to eat.
For dinner, we chose Marsing's finest restaurant, the Sandbar, which is beachside of the lovely Snake River. The meal truly was lovely…it just took forever to arrive. I was concerned about gorging myself on the appetizers. The vegetable soup that came first was divine, and my salad that came twenty minutes later was incredible. An hour later, when my entrée arrived, I was quite uninterested in continuing to sit at the table. Yet, the food was good (though, Josh's was better than mine). Throughout our dining experience, there was a group of real and old school cowboys next to our table. They were having some conversation about the good old days of being a real cowboy, when you could herd your cows in the open range...or whatever. At some point, it was the most obvious thing I've ever seen, one of the cowfolk turned around, looked up Josh and I, turned back around and started saying something about "ferners." Again, I'm not a snob with a silver spoon, but sometimes it takes a bit to understand some of the regional dialects. It was very apparent that he had said the word "ferners" in response to seeing Josh and I, and I was able to deduce that he was poorly enunciating the word "foreigners." I thought it was rather rude. Anyhoo. After we were finished eating, we thought about going to one of the local dive bars, but didn't. We went to bed feeling fully satisfied. Ah…but I probably should mention that the freak torrential downpour which had disrupted the bike ride had not abated by bedtime. In fact, all throughout the night when I would wake up with insomnia every ten minutes, the torrential downpour continued. This put a damper on our plans of attending Easter Sunrise Service at sunrise on Lizard Butte. In fact, it put a damper on the rest of our Sunday plans, which had included a hope of returning to the Owyhees for more mountain bike exploration. Instead, we returned to the big city where I remained exhausted and lethargic all day from my lack of sleep.
You will be pleased to learn that I managed to post a variety of photographs of the adventure.
April 2, 2007
~ barns without doors ~
Over the weekend, this site received a good deal of traffic from Saudi Arabia from someone searching for porn. It's true, this site is a closet of tantalizing stimulation, perhaps you didn't realize, but it's difficult for me to keep people away. I try to write about the most boring things ever, but people keep coming back for more. In a way, it proves that all of my readers are sadists, subjecting themselves to me over and over and over. I'm certain that my drivel becomes tiresome and tedious, but it's hard to stay away. I know, you all love me. And you're all sick and wrong.
In other news, Josh and I went to the Zoo over the weekend. I've got all kinds of awesome photos which I will upload when I have an opportunity. Which is not right at this moment. Indeed, I would advise against holding your breath to see them. Nevertheless, the Zoo was having an easter egg hunt and a big 4H animal display. It, the Zoo, was packed with children. As I was walking through the Zoo, I became aware of the prevalence of procreation. I suppose that once in a while, I can feel a twinge in my womb, especially if I see a particularly cute baby, but then I go to the Zoo and witness a large quantity of children in their normal behavior, and my womb dries up into cold deadness. Yes, yes, children are wonderful and beautiful, but I think that I prefer to observe them from afar, like at a Zoo along with other forms of wild animals. I mean, why have children of one's own and have to take care of them day in and day out, when you can just pay five bucks to go to the Zoo?
At some point, Josh and I were observing the children having fun and playing around in one of those inflatable jumping gyms, when the motor keeping the jumping gym inflated broke and the gym quickly collapsed into a flaccid mound of rubber. Josh and I later remarked at the quick response from the mothers, who dove into the flaccid mound of rubber to retrieve their children. Their ninja skillz were impressive.
But children are funny aren't they? After the collapse of the jumping gym, Josh and I wandered into the penguin zone with a large soda. We left almost immediately, after a female child tapped her fingers on Josh's back and whispered into his ear that food and beverages are not allowed in the penguin area. Apparently, she had better reading comprehension skils than both Josh and I.
Anyroad, I continue to work way too much. My overtime, however, is resulting in some nice paychecks which will go towards the purchase of my full suspension mountain bike. Which I might purchase much sooner than I originally planned. I can't recall if I've mentioned this, and I don't care to investigate, but the other week ago when I went on the mountain bike ride (the one where I crashed) I couldn't believe how unpleasant it was to be back on my old hardtail. After tasting such sweetness, it's proving difficult to have enthusiasm for my old barbaric caveman ways.
