The fact that it briefly dipped below 95 degrees today and that gas now only costs $3.50 a gallon in our neck of the woods has me hankering for another road trip. Who’s coming with me?

A block off the square in Santa Fe you find Pasqual’s which feels like its been around since way back before they put the ‘New’ in New Mexico. A breakfast quesadilla with eggs so organic that the chickens who produced them have better healthcare and retirement benefits than I do, washed down with and a good, smooth cup of coffee who’s beans were hand-picked by smiling children in Guatemala (and who’s healthcare package is only slightly less awesome than the chickens). Take your moral satisfaction, your full stomach, and your much lighter wallet, and go wander the square in the cool New Mexican sun washed daylight until margarita time.

Who’s sick of +100 degree days? This guy.

Texans are insane. It’s the heat and the good food. More specifically though, Austin cyclists are really insane. By some lucky quirk of geography and wind patterns, the weather in Austin is dry enough (a little more so than the eastern parts of the state) for us to pretend like we’re in a really hot, less mountainous version of Colorado. With no pine trees. And no snow.

People in this city are active, almost psychotically so. You want  to drive across downtown on saturday morning ? Forget about it, there’s a 5-10-15k going on. Probably most Sundays too. Something wrong with your car and you need to pull off to the side? Chances are peloton of road bikers are going to be asking you if you need a hand.

And all this while it’s 100 degrees out (and god knows how high with the heat index). I like to think it makes us tougher than our neighbors to the north who tend to stay inside or do non-stupid sports (frisbee golf? ) when the weather gets ridiculous. Or maybe we just work to hard - most of my motivation for getting on a bike after work has to do with dispersing some of the rage built up from sitting in an air-conditioned mausoleum all day and having photons unsympathetically shot at my face. An effort to dial the asshole meter back to a more tolerable four or five so my co-workers will be able to deal with me the next day.

I think we instinctively, biologically miss the old days, when working for a living meant physical effort, whether ti be tilling an existence out of the land, or earning a wage via the fabrication of something physical. Although I’m certain my Great-Great-Grandfather, a farmer from southern Oklahoma, would probably think I’m absolutely insane for waking up and riding a bike 25 miles for fun. Different times I guess. He probably wouldn’t get the time-investment involved with this website either (neither do I sometimes).

To cycling specifically, though,  Austin breeds some hard riders. Setting aside that one guy who won the Tour de France a few times, there are hard-core people out on the roads and trails - this dude for example who’s doing an eight day, 530 mile endurance race on the Colorado Trail (A race with camping sounds pretty fun - anybody?). There’s two weekly Crits that go on through out the summer, even when your tires are starting delaminate from the heat coming off the pavement. There’s also a Short Track Mountain bike race in the fall and a rumored Cross Season. There’s even just plain stupid people like us who do dumb shit like ride Lost Creek after work, when the average temperature is 98 degrees.

I was in a meeting recently, with some guys who know what they’re talking about and someone said that I was an average Austin cyclist - In this town, that’s one hell of a compliment.

The American Roadtrip. I’m not sure if other countries have this – it seems to me that Europe is too close together, and to interconnected with highly sensible trains, and the rest of the world can’t afford to be that extravagant. Maybe in China, but I’m not Chinese so I don’t know.

Regardless, the summer tradition – load the car and head west, an unconscious tribute to the days of taming a wild continent (genocide of the natives is kind of over looked for the sake of the kids here).  The drive to New Mexico is something else. It’s 12 hours, 34 minutes and 24 second from my parking spot to downtown Red River, nine hours of which is spent getting out of Texas. It’s a big damn state folks. We opted for the previously mentioned stopover in Amarillo, complete with Jehovah’s Witnesses, and angry English people. Amarillo has always been best described as “rode hard, put up wet,” a phrase that nicely captures its western cowboy roots and its utter craptasticness, although given the number of spanking new wind turbines up there (it looks like a strange forest), there could be something bright on the horizon for them.

Another fine thing about the road rip is the early morning roll out. Given Amarillo’s previously mentioned status, there’s no reason to hang out for the continental breakfast. 5 a.m. finds us on the road, watching a grey sunrise of the panhandle. Then it’s across the state line and up the flat plains of the Canadian river valley, screaming across pavement that has its origins in the Nixon administration.

This is the West as I like to see it – empty. You can drive for five hour and maybe pass three people on the road (who will of course give the requisite two-fingered steering wheel wave). Then, in Springer, you catch your first glimpse of the mountains – the distant purple lumps on the horizon, little teasers as if the guys who built these roads knew you’d been driving through the panhandle with nothing but flat cornfields and a game of highway alphabet that is indefinitely stuck on ‘x.’

Finally, your brain thoroughly unplugged after 11 hours from the driving motions of 20 mile stretches of flat, straight highway, you hit the first canyons in Cimarron, and from there you’re rewarded by 45 minutes of downshifting, hair-pin turns, mountain passes, gorgeous scenery as you wind your way up to 10,000 feet.

In short, we made it.

Read the rest of this entry »

The best converstation I’ve heard in long time – we’re checking in to the lovely travel-lodge in Amarillo, and in walks Winston Churchill’s long-lost younger brother who’s apparently been wandering around the Texas panhandle for the past forty years. He rolls up to the the kind of sad, emo-Amarillo-hotel-clerk:

WCYB: You’ve got be bloody kidding me…

Clerk: Uh, sir?

WCYB: You’ve got a huge bloody sign out there saying you have rooms for $39.99 and you’re charging me sixty dollars.

Clerk: Sir those rooms are for the upstairs singles, and as I told you, the Jehovah’s Witness convention is in town and has all the rooms booked.

WCYB: Then why do you still have your big bloody sign up (no shit he said ‘bloody’ that many times)?

Clerk: Uh, it’s a big damn sign.

WCYB (turning to us as Liz is signing the bill): And you, you got the $39.99 rate?

We kind of had to leave before we started laughing uncontrollably.

Tomorrow we hit the road, bound for New Mexico in the annual sojourn to get the hell out of the absurdly overheated Texas summertime. If all goes well, tomorrow night we’ll be in scenic Amarillo, and Friday morning we’ll roll in to Red River just about the time the Fourth of July parade starts.

I’ve traveled to New Mexico by car more times than I can count - from the early morning rollout in the family mini-van to last year’s solo subaru excursion. The packing, the driving out from town, making coffee by the side of the road, new-and-scenic Texas panhandle gas stations, books-on-tape, that really inserting musty small your car gets after being driven for 10 hours, and best of all, the first faint outlines of the Sangre de Cristos on the horizon as you barrel west on sub-standard New Mexican asphalt - all part of the fun.

A week ago, we packed our swimsuits, our sunscreen and our extra livers and headed off to the Caribbean to watch B and Amber get hitched. Some observations from the adventure…

In Jamaica, you should not expect any kind of ground transportation to leave in a timely fashion. This small problem is offset by the fact that you can not only drink on the bus, but its actually encouraged as you make a stop at a bar on the way to the hotel.

Also, Jamaica is just stinking beautiful.

In Jamaica there is apparently a national shortage of shirts. This is confined not only to the locals, but also, sadly to the tourists.

Jamaican driving is interesting - whether its a suzuki death-box or a 50 foot bus, the locals have no problem driving into oncoming traffic. They do it in such a friendly fashion too…If i were driving in the states and found myself wedged between a bus a dump truck and and oncoming semi, I might become upset, perhaps even have an episode of mild road-rage. These guys just look imminent traffic-death in the face and shrug it off. There’s probably a life lesson there.

In Jamaica, German tourists always forget to bring real shorts can often times be found videotaping your friends wedding. Creepy.

Rum is a whole different creature in Jamaica. Go rob a bank and buy some Appleton Rum, you’ll see what i mean.  I like manly drinks - whiskey on the rocks, vodka tonic, etc. This trip found me kicking back Pina coladas as if they were water (hence the packing of the extra liver).

Did I mention that it’s beautiful there? This whole Island in the Caribbean thing is not such a bad deal.

Speaking of Rum, the all-inclusive resort thing is an interesting beast mostly because of the magic wristband. Present your wristband, with wirst-and-the-rest-of-you attached at any of the restaurants and you get fed. Present it at any of the 125,000 bars at the resort and you get booze. It’s an interesting concept that sadly doesn’t work once you leave - the day after we got back i was stuck in budget meetings for five hours. I kept pointing to my wristband, but no one would bring me a drink - very sad.

Reggae is not only the music of Jamaica, but it is actually the only kind of music they have there. I like me some Bob Marley, but holy shit, you can only listen to Exodus so many times before the seizures start.

Speaking of music, in Jamaica, no matter how hungry you are, never ever ever eat at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. Shockingly Mr. Buffet is and even poorer restauranteur than musician.

It’s a pretty cool thing to watch your friends get married in such a spectacular place. Glad we got to be there.

My photos | Germ’s Photos

Somehow my bosses decided that sending me to a conference in Boston was an excellent plan for my professional development. Ok, sure. Can I go to New York afterwards and visit/drink with my sister for a few days after said professional development is complete? Ok, Sure.

Weird. Thanks for the plane ticket though.

Pictures

When we told Tim about the specifics involved in a marathon race his highly appropriate response was something along the lines of, “that sounds like something you should get paid to do, not the other way around.” I’m also pretty sure he prefaced the entire thing with an emphatic and heartfelt “you stupid hippy, why the hell would you do that?”

I can safely say that at mile 10 of the Mas y Menos this weekend in Terlingua, I couldn’t agree more. At mile 12 I was praying for any kind of mechanical failure that would necessitate as short break, and at mile 15 I actually considered selling my bike to a random Mexican dude who was watching the race and walking away forever. Nothing compared though, to mile 20 as we neared the tres cuevas climb. On the approach it went something like this -

me: Dude this is going pretty good.

germ: Yeah, not to shabby.

me: Is that the big climb (motioning to sheer, 13,000,000 ft cliff to our right)?

germ: Nah, I’m sure we’ll go back around that….

me: Oh ok, cool.

germ: Well actually…yeah, I see tiny people up there…

…and by tiny people, it was like the way 18-wheelers look like ants when your on an airplane.

This thing just went on and on. Not having the benefit of a pre-ride I tried to assault it assuming the end was a reasonable distance away. The sunofabitch just kept going up and up. One switchback after the other until, right before I started knocking my head on the International Space Stations’ solar array, there was a bunch of hippies sitting in rocking chairs and wearing oxygen tanks, welcoming us to the top, like some kind of weird patchouli-scented version of Into Thin Air with bikes. Clearly, I exaggerate a bit, but this was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever ridden a bike up.

Big bend is, well, big. It’s aptly named. Medium Bend would not do it justice. And the race fits, nothing about it is tiny, from the course, to the climb to the kickass food and free beer. There was a pancake breakfast at 5a.m. the morning of the race – you know those people had been up since 3 a.m. cooking in the freezing cold desert. The people who put this thing together are incredible – the only thing that’s been close rivaling it was the livestrong ride and that has the freakish, Lance Armstrong cult of personality to back it. This is just a bunch of people, in a tiny hippy town in west Texas putting on a big race. That’s a pretty neat thing to be a part of.

My Pics | Germ’s Pics

To all of you who were going to buy my Christmas presents – look no further than the wonder that is Skymall – I’d like one remote-controlled robotic shark, one, one solar powered talking bible and one ‘luv-handleer’ personal exercise machine. And if possible, I’d like all these things purchased at a cruising altitude of 10,000 or higher. Thank you.

As of Sunday, after 11.5 hours of standing on the accelerator as hard as i could (the panhandle is pretty damn boring), I’ve returned to the reality of going to work each morning, sleeping in a bed (as opposed to a car), warrantless-wiretapping legislation, traffic, 100 degree heat indices, and 600 un-read work emails.

In hindsight, maybe ending the roadtrip was a bad plan. I did manage to post the last few stragglers of my pictures up to the flickr account.

Oh and a side note - Thank you Texas DPS Patrolman Johnson for just slapping me with a warning on I-27. I drove 80, in the right lane the rest of the way I drove like a bat-out of hell as soon I saw you exit (your stretch of interstate is mind-blowingly boring), but you were a nice guy just the same.

Some observations from the road so far, again in bullet form, in no particular order…

- When confronted by the previously mentioned duo of Havelinas in the Davis Mountains State Park, I did the very manly thing by shouting, “whoa, bigpig bigpig bigpig bigdamnpig,” thereby waking up the entire campground with my manliness. Yeah, I’m cool like that.

- When I was leaving town I pulled into Wendy’s to get some much needed sustenance. At the pay window the cashier as me if I’d like to make a donation to a children’s diabetes fund ( keep in mind I’m paying for a fried-chicken sandwich here) and receive a coupon for four free frosty’s. It’s so ironic you almost have to admire the marketing genius behind it.

- Trelingua is what happens when the hippies take over. It’s not a bad thing, but you can’t help but chuckle at the existence of Trelingua and then Trelingua Ghost town 2 miles down the road, with various organic grocers, and funky diners in between. Urban planners everywhere are inexplicably twitching.

- I rode the rim trail in Cloudcroft today, one of the countries top ten singletracks ( I read that somewhere, don’t ask me where). Awesome trail, beautiful views, wicked fast down hills, gut busting climbs – I would like thank the US forest service for this trail. What I will not be extending them gratitude for is the maps of said trail which suck suck suck suck suck. Wow. I had no idea where the hell I was for about the last 1/3 of the ride. Thanks Ranger Bob.

- Thank you Texas DPS Patrolman DelaCruz for just slapping me with a warning. I drove 80, in the right lane the rest of the way (until I got to New Mexico at least).

- Riding a bike at 9000 feet is interesting because apparently there’s no damn air up here. Makes simple things like shifting, braking and not dying a tad bit more challenging.

- The Hotel Subaru has many fine accommodations, but electricity is not one of them. I seem to be doing fine without, but I’m at this idyllic campground outside Cloudcroft, and yet it sounds like I’m in the pit at NASCAR, with all these people running their generators. What are they doing in those trailers that this could possibly be necessary? I’ll be dishing out some payback tomorrow morning when I fire up my campstove, which has the same decibel lever (and heat output) of a solid-fuel rocket off the space shuttle.

- When I hiked the south rim in Big Bend nine years, we had a great view for about 10 minutes, and then a massive cold front blew in, effectively making it like hiking in cloud. This time the front was already there when I showed up, yet again making it kind of like hiking in a cloud. At least god’s sense of humor is consistent.

- It may be a sign that it’s been just you and the bike for too long on this trip, when you strap the hydration pack to the back of the drivers seat, and forgo meals in favor of a shot of gu. That’s some hard core driving.

More photos are up at the flickr 2007 roadtrip set.