A Grand Failure

Each day I wake up, unable to sleep, yet hesitant to leave the warmth, I lay and recall my dreams until I cannot see any more.  Shuffling down the hallway, cracks of light escape from beneath a few doors, the rest lie dark and silent.  Outside, I step along the balcony to the small room with the large mirror.  On my mat I stand, and bend, and lie in awkward positions as my muscles slowly lengthen.  Beads of sweat break out on my forehead despite my lack of movement, my breath courses slow and deep through my nose.  I am alone, my mind is never silent unless I find it that way, when again it is surprised into thought.  Each day is lived as it comes, not necessarily in the moment but without thinking much of the before or after.  My forecast is a look out the window, feeling the air on my face.  My schedule is always the same; work, ski, at once.  When I come here, or to the pages in my journal, my mind wanders, looking at pictures of my own I am taken back, memories and emotions tingle at the base of my spine.  Talking with friends, scheming, planning, I look forward and see the future, not as it is or as it will be, but how it exists now in my mind.  Ideas are coming to life once more as the sun returns and the reality of melting snow, warm stone, and open roads grows closer.  The words are on the tip of my tongue, the spark of creativity once more slowly catching hold of the connections that have been made over the last few months.

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Quietly Crushing

I met Amos during the summer of 2009 while I was working at a small farm outside Palmer Alaska.  I’d caught a ride up to Anchorage with my friend Rich, who had work lined up as a sea kayak guide out of Whittier.  Rich was gracious enough to let me throw my bike on his roof and stuff my bicycle trailer and gear in his trunk.  My original plan was to spend a few weeks seeing the state before riding back down to the states later that summer, but after our road trip through southern Utah and up to Alaska, I found that the meager savings of a ski bum really didn’t go that far.  So faced with a little new found perspective I spent some hours surfing the web and the WWOOF directory trying to line up some work-trade jobs and possibly something with some pay or stipend that could see me through the fall.  After cycling about 1000 miles back and forth from Anchorage to Fairbanks, catching a ride down to Homer, I managed to find some paying work with this small farm located in the Matanuska Susitna Valley.  When I wasn’t pulling weeds or washing vegetables, I hiked the nearby mountains, went for some bike rides, and sampled some of the traditional local harvest, Matanuska Thunderfuck.  That is, until I met Amos.

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Zion

Although we’d been counting on going to Zion for a while, our plans seemed to be constantly revising, when, how, time, money, these variables were in constant flux as we tried to move our lives from Washington to Utah and maintain some sense of organization.  Although we planned on bicycling from SLC to Zion for a week of climbing, we ended up renting a car due to the constraints of time and weather, but more to the point, due to our overriding passion to spend all of our available time climbing.  This isn’t a journal about our stalwart decision to boycott oil, it is about the creativity and flexibility to pursue your passions and goals while making an effort to curb your consumption of carbon.  That said, if you don’t own a car, some time’s you’ll end up renting one.  The Corolla that got us to Zion did over 35 miles a gallon, pretty sweet compared to some of the inefficient cars I’ve been forced to own over the years.  Although I was a little bummed we didn’t get to go on a longer bike tour, the week was awesome and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  Click below if you want to see some great pictures and a bit of a write up about our week. Continue reading “Zion”