A Moment to Reflect

Currently I'm sitting in an apartment North of Seattle that doesn't belong to me. In the other room is the camping mattress I bought in San Francisco when I was expecting to ride up the Pacific Coast and the volume of things I would be packing was an issue because we still didn't even have a tent. I didn't arrive in Seattle on my bike, I didn't even arrive in Seattle with it for that matter. Plans change, not for better or worse sometimes, but they always change, and after a brief stop in Portland, David Smith and myself ended up in Seattle for a few days where we trekked across the city on foot. Amazing how much the speed at which your traveling changes your perception of a place. The mile here and there around the city ate up quite a bit of time, but while we were in Portland the entire city was at our every whim...

There was a moment in Portland when someone asked us when we had finished our official tour, and Dave responded to them it was a week ago to the day. I looked at him with such incredulity and almost yelled at him for lying. He looked at me, and I looked at my watch, and it was in fact the 19th; 7 days after we had arrived at the Pacific. Time had officially resumed its hasty movement towards tomorrow and I think it was then and there that the magnitude of it all set in. I was thinking about all the places in between where I was right then and there, and where I was 3 months earlier. It was a flood or memories, and I don't think I said another word in that conversation for some time.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to apologize to anyone I told that I would be updating this website with some regularity. I don't know how I could have been under the impression that I would want to spend time in front of a computer when boundless opportunities would present themselves to see things that I likely will never be able to see again, unless of course I do this trip again. Anyone who would like to see pictures of the places along the way can look at the roughly 1300 I took over the summer at www.flickr.com/ozoneis0three and please, please email me if you want to know what's there.

But at present, I find myself in a state of mind that I'm sure many of my brothers and sisters in arms are as well: what next... I had been looking into the licensing requirements of different states around the country, and noticed that 2 do not require professional degrees before sitting for the exams, Washington and Colorado. I'm about 600 hours or so shy of fulfilling the minimums for the Intern Development Program, but those hours are some of the hardest to get because they're in the realms of Construction Supervision and Contract Negotiation / Administration. Things which sound very official, and are the things typically around which the really expensive lawsuits are fought. But, assuming I could get those somehow, I could in theory begin taking the exams sometime next year and possibly be a licensed architect by the time I'm 25. Mind you that the young architect's award is capped at age 40...

But then what? I'd be 25 and an architect. I'd have a legal title, like doctor, lawyer, judge. Do I just go and lead another Bike and Build trip across the country, before doing something else? I read Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and he talks about taking steps to live a good story, but what was missing from his book was the back story, his back story. Very few people can afford dam near any of the things he talked about doing, and it seemed he moved in very well connected circles because there were many of his friends whom he talked of going out and doing equally ridiculous things. I realize that I have in fact just finished one of those ridiculous things, but when he mentions that a friends of his committed 25 large to build a school in Africa, I can't say I know of many families who even have that put away to begin with. So my question is this, what do I do about the ridiculousness of it all? And there was an answer for that in Miller's book as well, just keep paddling and eventually the distant shore will come closer, but I get the feeling Miller had a certain amount of netting in which to fall, and I feel not as though I'll be walking the tight rope between the World Trade Center, but running laps on it for some time...

Again With the Typing

So, as much as I despise the keyboards on Macs, it's all I have to work with for the time being. I've included a few pictures which should hopefully substitute for some lengthy paragraphs. I think I got these up sequentially, but probably not. The night shots are in Charleston SC, as is the large stone wall, it's a dam. The first middle of nowhere shot is just across the border into Georgia, followed by the bridge after a 3 mile descent into Scottsdale, Georgia. Then we have the largest breakfast I've ever had at Gene's in Greenville, SC. Then we have Brian [B$], Katie R, and myself, and Katherine and Tyler whom we met at a church camp outside Oxford, Mississippi where they let us zip line across the lake. After that we have a waterfall/river where we went swimming after a solid 2 mile climb, there was some 30' cliff jumping going on, excellent times all around [Yes, I went]. The following picture is a storm front in the middle of Georgia [I told you I probably didn't get them in order...]. Then we have the Big Dam Bridge in Little Rock, Arkansas where the cyclists and runners are concerned about people bringing livestock [read: horses, cattle, show ponies, goats, things that take large poops...] across the bridge. And lastly is the beginning of a long day in Mississippi, I forget the town at the moment, but we finished the ride some 94 miles later in Stuttgart where some 75% of the rice in the United States is produced. Tomorrow we're crossing into Oklahoma, with a 106+ mile ride...

The executive summary.

So, I'm going to try and type this as fast as possible, as this keyboard in the YMCA in Norcross GA has an awkward spacing and these typos are occurring fairly frequently. Reminds me of typing on a Mac. First off, my right achilles is healing, hopefully. I think I strained it on the ride into Greenville, SC where we took a 10 mile detour. fun. We got a tour of the Hincapie headquarters there, and met with several of the higher ups who make this trip happen, they were all wonderful people. I was amazed at how bustling Greenville was for how remote it is from any other major city. Apparently Michelin and BMW have their US headquarters there, and they employ the majority of the town. I haven't been taking a lot of pictures, though the ones I have I think have been pretty good. Lots of long exposures from Charleston that came out well.

What else, what else... Athens GA was an interesting, though topographically challenging city. Our host was amazing, as was the host in Hartwell. I think I'm actually eating better on this trip that I used to feed myself. Today's dinner was brisket and baked beans, both incredibly savory. Wake up is at 0630 tomorrow as the mileage is supposed to be about 80 and the hills long and steep. Rumor has it there is a solid mile climb on tap, hopefully the grueling rides I went on in Denver will come in handy tomorrow and my achilles will continue to strengthen. We found a large lake when we were on Monck's corner, and went swimming in Hartwell, GA as well. Got caught in a torrential downpour on the ride into Greenville where we tacked on a 10 mile detour. There was in fact some double dutch beneath the gas station canopy. I was hoping to type some more, but I need to go arrange my things for tomorrows ride, and my derailleurs need some adjusting if were going to be climbing all day.

I also buzzed my hair off, it was getting to be entirely too hot. Natalie isn't very skilled with a set of clippers, and I find myself still cutting some of the longer hairs she missed with a knife.

That's all for now I suppose. Thanks for reading.

A minor update...

So there isn't much internet access on this trip, nor much time to really post pictures and updates, so I apologize for that. I'm hoping to snag a computer later today or tomorrow to transfer a lot of thoughts and pictures but if all else fails ill hopefully be able to type out a few things on my Zune as I'm doing now. Yes, I have a Zune and not an ipod.

Midnight train going anywhere..

What you see next to this is everything that will be my life for the next 3 months. It's all going to fit into bag on the upper right. That mattress will be in my friend Gabe's house around noon today [T-minus 3 hours]. I was fortunate enough that he recently had a son, Ryker, and he and Jenny had to move from their studio apartment downtown to a 2BR house in West Denver. I also picked up a set of Conti Grand Prix tires for when I chew through these Pro3 Race tires that I love so much, but they are like the French that made them, finesse. I need to figure out how I'm going to get from the train station to the Church where everyone is meeting up, namely I just need a pedal wrench. So long for now.

For the crows on the power lines

To your left is a picture of one of the cell phone towers on top of lookout mountain. I've been riding up through Golden to do this climb, it's about 5-8% for a solid 7 miles and on this past Sunday it became the first leg of my first century. Started at 7:30 in the morning with this route, then South to the Cherry Creek Reservoir and ran two laps around it, back to the Highlands for a grand total of 101 miles. The Friday before I happened to stumble upon one of those ear bud popping hipsters, but this one in particular happened to have a Bike & Build jersey on, so I had to stop and ask if she was riding this year. Turns out that she's riding on the Providence to San Francisco, and isn't quite a hipster as it turns out. We were supposed to go for a ride today, but it was raining/sleeting/snowing and instead hung out at Forest Room 5 [a true hipster joint]. Ride's rescheduled for Thursday, potentially a century this weekend with 50 miles of climbing. I'm still convinced no one reads this, but this one's for the crows.

training and such

So I'm wrapping up the final fundraising push. Apparently there have been some issues with Google checkout and credit card companies denying the charge because there has been a bit of fraud with the service? Anyways, there has been snow on and off in Colorado for the past few weeks making a training regimen hard to stick to. Tomorrow I'm going to try and put in 80 miles or thereabouts with a ride to Lookout Mountain in the early morning, followed by a trek south to Cherry Creek Lake, and then back up to the Highlands. We'll see how it goes...