solitary: took off on sunday for yellow river for about 24 hours of self-imposed solitude trying to get my head straight and relax a little bit. made good time getting out there and getting camp set up (spotted a couple cars in the parking lot...pretty sure marty and the fuhrnmanator were out on the trails somewhere) so got out for a hike and then jumped in the van to check out more of the park that i'd never seen before. fire, beer, brats, dark, sleep, cold, sunrise, fire, bacon, lemon streussel, coke, ride. ride was awesome and pretty sure it became recon for next years std. if i can find a route out that direction, through what i rode and back and still have it fall within 100 miles it will be next years century. between what i saw in person and on the map, it looks like there could be some pretty cool unimproved adventures along the way as well but it wasn't the day for me to be exploring. lunch, break down camp, realization that the night away was exactly what i needed.
60/60: percent chance of rain saturday and sunday. listen, i want to finish transiowa. transiowa is brutal in perfect weather. but something about the challenge of epic brutality makes me smile a little a bit. how miserable can we be and still finish? what can we push our bodies through and still come out the other side? that being said...i think i'd prefer sunny and 60 degrees.
4: days. vomit. brush teeth to remove vomit taste. ride, check list, get organized. realize vomiting won't help. try to avoid vomiting again. try to avoid last minute changes to bike that i'm tempted to do but will inevitably cause catastrophic failure mid-ride. working tonight, tomorrow night, double thursday, leaving friday. figure out saturday's 3a.m. breakfast. sleeping arrangements secured. need to purchase pre-cooked bacon and orange slices. make a decision on fenders in light of the forecast. amazing this is what i'm left with despite all the good sunday night's camping trip did for me. maybe the thoughts haven't changed much, but there organization has which really does help the stress.
3 comments:
Love Yellow River! My boy and I camped there last summer and biked up to the fire tower. I'm going to do some hiking there this year.
I really hate having to work so much at the shop at this time of the year. My wife is also finishing the semester at college and my stress level is off the charts.. the best is to bottle up all the anger and just burn it up on the gravel roads on saturday and sunday. weather is going to be fine.
best,
ari
Yep that was Brian and I. We were out for some gravel miles. made a loop around and through YR.
Nice job in TI!
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