Mar 19, 2009

Today we start




We couldn't wait to leave Delhi, but not sure that we ever want to leave Sikkim. Just about the friendliest police state ever.
We are taking off today for the start. I can't some it up here but maybe a haiuku will help.
Chance in eleven
person box, no choice is ours.
Eggs not allowed.

Mar 14, 2009

A place of Contradictions; Cliche, cliche





As I'm reading up on my immanent trip to India, over and over the reference books warn you/ me to be prepared for a land of contradictions. Bustling cities/ Empty country sides, Wealthy middle classes/ extreme poverty. Hot/cold, Spicy/ mild.

Cows in the streets, religious groups that let vultures carry the dead away. Tibetan refugees in lands where plastic bags are confiscated at the boarder as if it's a smutty magazine in church.

Interact with nothing but your butt with your left hand and green and yellow are lucky colors, instead of a sign of vomiting.

Men hold hands with each other and women are both leaders of the country and at one time encouraged to throw themselves on their dead husband's funeral pyre.

The list goes on. That's not my list. It's my research. I'm leaving final conclusions on hold.

From what I just heard, no India Currency is allowed to leave the country.

I'm excited to get to know another culture.

The race is from March 20th-29th. Keep your eye out.
www.sikkimmtb.com

Mar 2, 2009

Attacked by Animals: Returned to Earth


I like to travel. Usually its a chance to step outside myself, be a fly and watch the world do it's own buzzing. Now that I've given myself sufficient distance from the month of February I think history is ready to reveal the success that the month was for me. Like the former president I like to think that time will be the true judge of a life traveled in haste.
Being that it was bitterly cold in the northeast with sub double digits temperatures and I had a growing intolerance for my beard, layers and frozen dish sponges, it was time to go south. I decided to make the trip serve multiple duties. One: do the second Snake Creek Gap race on Feb 7th. Two: Have a mini training camp in Asheville with IFers. Three: Visit all the family members that I have been pissing off by not stopping by and saying hi during hurried trips through their areas. Four: Race the 12 hours of Santos in Florida. Five: Get some tan lines that you could use as a straight edge. Six: Gather up my Lady friend and have a romantic drive up the East coast back to the big chill.


It's a BUI warning sign in NC.

Asheville NC was my first stop on Friday night to meet up with Sam Koerber to join forces in driving to the Snake creek gap race. After much committing and recommitting to going tonight, then in the morning, then no tonight, actually in the morning. We slept for a good 4 or five hours before waking up in time to make the drive and catch a shuttle to the race start. It was still cold but I went with shorts and short sleeves to psyche out all the comp. I had high hopes for a sub 2:50 time, since master trash talker, Bruce Dickman, had challenge me with a stay at the Mulberry Gap lodge as incentive.
Well Sam and Thomas decided to leave me to my musings in the first 30 min and I found myself wishing I was skipping stones on cripple creek. With three people in front of me I was thinking I was the biggest turd for thinking I could break 2:50, much less get top three. Then I was tweeking the bean thinking about the fact that it's only Feb. "Why am I going this hard?!!"

I barely caught Tim Carson before the final 6 miles and was a little happy to at least be sitting in 3rd place, but that guy is persistant like a street lamp shining at your eyeballs through the window while couch surfing at someones house.

Well with that race out of the way and me 2 min shy of my one goal in life, I decided to head back to Asheville with Sam and start getting to know some of the new IF team members. I went directly to Kylie Krauss's house and rendezvoused with Kylie and Kyle and got ready to come eyeball to eyeball with my first one-eyed cat.

He's not really a pegleg.
Chedder's care taker, Kylie

Asheville was a visit, where I finally got a chance to feel like the traveling fly I want to be.
Staying on Kylie's couch with Kyle, we got to be in attendence of a deep frying marathon birthday party, a couple steller mountain rides, some dumpster diving, scotch drinking,
race strategerizing and my newest favorite hobby; cast iron cooking.

Kylie's house mates had the cast iron cooking down to a "T" (as in the golden love that is southern sweet tea.) I knew my cosmic energies were lining up when, a few days later, my visit to one particularly neglected Aunt resulted in a found dutch oven on her property as we were doing a walk around. She lovingly took it back inside, scrubbed out the rust and reseasoned it for me. A symbol of our familial tie reseasoning.
I got ahead of myself here. Directly after Asheville I drove to my Granmothers outside of Fort Walton Beach Florida. After a long drive, my Gandmother was still up with a glass of Scotch in one hand and food wating for me in the kitchen.



A full nights sleep and a full gut, fueled me up for my ride to an Aunts house in Alabama about 90 miles away. A headwind of about 10mph fought me on the ride there, as well as the horror that riding highway 98 for 40 miles through Pensacola can be. Heavy traffic, navy fighter planes screaming by over head and the accelerated heartbeat thump of low flying military helicopters, make for a sensory overload. Strange that my city life hasn't desensitized me to these external anxiety machines. Fortunately the last 40ish miles were in Alabama.
I never thought I'd think to myself "thank god I'm in Alabama". The roads there were clear, calm, rolling and bereft of white noise. Each car that came by actually possessed a moment in time, standing out as a significant event.



















It's travels and such.