Getting ouf of the heat

Prescott!

This weekend, I had been planning to go for a nice, long, and painful ride, but I woke up late on Saturday, and realized it was +102 outside.

It is only a couple hours from my house to Prescott, Flagstaff, or Sedona, so I figured I could make the driver up there to get some miles in. Sometimes you have to just say "fk it" and go and do things that are out of your normal routine. I could have sucked it up and went to PMP Trial 100, or to F.I.N.S. But I wanted something else for today!

I hit up some of my friends who ride, but with such short notice, no one could go.

I felt guilty leaving Jessica at home, while I drove up north for a few hours, to ride a few more hours and then drive back a few more hours, but she hit up one of her friends and went and hung out - which is a good thing, Jessica never spends time with friends without me - At least, that is how I justify the guilt.

I headed out at 11:40 am, temp outside showed 102. I also missed the exit to prescott, not once, but twice, going north AND going south... I was pretty frustrated about the potential lost riding time.

You must understand, riding is Serious Business. It is not something to take lighthearted, and when you take pictures of yourself, you must maintain the absolute most serious face you can muster. Can you see my sexy stumpy in the back? Hrm, that sounds like the start to a dirty joke...

Well, I arrived at Lynx Lake, was $5.00 for parking, and it was well worth it, this is somewhere I will definitely come again, and there is a variety of things to do here. Fishing, boating, camping, sightseeing, plus it was 15 degrees cooler than phx, and it was about a 2 hour drive.

Oh look, my face again... jeez. Look behind me tho! Its awesome

After checking out the trails on the sweet free trail map, I decided to head out on the 305. The problem is, that I decided to head north to the top of 305 before coming back down... At some point there, I got lost and ended up on some god awful Hiking only trail. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but mostly unrideable. I ran into a lady, who albeit was super kind and helpful, was a little scary with her no bra, perhaps she was dowsing for water? She had a fluffy golden retriever with her, who apparantly, thought I was too hot, so he ran into the water then back to me and dried himself off... all over me. He was a cute dog.

Unfortunately I didn't get very many pictures, and not a whole lot of trail pictures. Between nursing my still sore ribs, and enjoying the thrill of these trails, I couldn't stop long enough to get many shots.

Another self indulging picture of myself. Believe me, I don't like my face any more than you do, and when more people ride with me, I'll have pics of them... I promise!

Back at the car, packing up - I will definitely be back here at some point, this place is awesome! The fact you can refill your water, with COLD water, is amazing.

Needed some more pics before I left. Look at how amazing this place looks!


There is a restaurant right there at Lynx Lake, but the only thing that was veggie friendly, was deep fried - so I left.







Details from Strava - I swear I did more miles, wonder if me forgetting to turn my GPS back on is what lost mileage...

Hrm, can't seem to figure out how to post strava data...

Will try garmin data when I get home... sorry for the crappy blog entry.

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Surprise! It's snowing in Globe, AZ

This weekend we had a camping trip planned. I wanted to test some of my bikepacking kit, so I can get a better feel of what I am missing, but I decided that i wouldn't subject Jessica to me sleeping outside the tent, and all of our friends wondering why I'm such a weirdo, and why she puts up with me.

I didn't get any pictures when we got there Friday night, because it was already rather late. A friend had taken our tent up, since we'd be arriving later on, and they had it setup for us already!

We spent the night sitting around the campfire, talking and hear some stories from Mark, Ian's dad. He has a lot of outdoors experience and was sharing some of his worldly wisdom.

I realized, at some point that I had forgotten my shoes, I just had my flipflops... I also realized that I didn't bring any pants, just shorts. No biggie, its not that cold, the fire is warm and its no big deal. I joked, due to some rain forecast for overnight, that we'd all wake up to half a foot of snow.

I may as well have been in a horror movie and said "Nah, we've got plenty of bullets" because sure enough, when I woke up in the morning, we had snow. Lots of snow.

Me looking not so amused. Thankfully Tomas had an extra pair of shoes, and I had warmed them up in the truck before taking this picture, because I couldn't feel my feet. I do barefoot plenty, but certainly not used to snow.

Driving out of the camping area had to take this picture, I wish we would have known it would snow, so we would have taken pictures of before and after. There was NO SNOW here the afternoon before.

On the way out of Globe, AZ we stopped at a diner for some grub. Going into this I knew my pickings would be slim, but I ordered up a Veggie Omelette hold the mushrooms (for allergy). Again, the dumb things that come out of my mouth come back to haunt me - I said to Tomas, $10 says my omelette has mushrooms in it...

 The waitress brought out all our food, even called out who had Veggie Omelette and handed me an omelette with sausage, mushrooms and all sorts of other bullshit I didn't want - So completely obvious that it was not what I ordered I didn't even have a bite before I sent it back.. I generally don't send food back, but this time I did. I was given a second omelette, it looked a little less omelette like, but seemed to be clear of bs - after a few bites I realized it is full of mushrooms. Sent that one back. Third time I got a soggy pile of half-cooked eggs with some veggies in it, no sausage or mushrooms. Everyone was waiting on me to finish, which was a bummer. Its bad enough that I'm doing the vegetarian thing, and it comes up in conversation a lot. I feel that people think I'm judging them, I'm really not, and I'm sure they don't feel that way, for the most part, but I feel that way and it bums me out.

I gave my debit card to Jessica, and asked her to pay, because I didn't want to speak with anyone, not that I ever expect anything for free, and was willing to pay for my omelette, It surprised me, after advising the waitress when I initially ordered that I was allergic to mushrooms, that having to send the food back twice and getting a steaming pile of crap, they charged me for it. Oh well.

Driving back into town, my body must have known I was getting close to home, my insides started doing its mushroom rumble dance.

Ended up feeling like crap for the rest of the day, took a nap after falling asleep in the shower (yes, its possible, no its not as glorious as it sounds). Now its 1am, I can't sleep and I still feel like garbage. Can't help but blame the mushrooms.

For the record, my wife is the most amazing person, the last two times camping without her were not as awesome as they could have been if she had been there. Despite the snow and coming back 2 days/1night early, I'm very happy we made the trip.

Blog!

So, I decided that instead of indulging, so much, in Facebook, to share my thoughts, I would start one of these blog thingies. Its a way that I can document and keep track of myself, for later reflection.

 The past year has presented itself a lot of changes, and I want to ensure I keep myself grounded. Its easy to lose sight of what is important, when you are so caught up in doing what you think is important.

I should have started this back about a 10 months ago, when I decided to get my health in check.

It has been a journey so far, and I don't anticipate it getting any easier. So here goes.