... Back on the Road

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been riding my bike all that much. Some things have changed ... My job, for example. I have a somewhat nasty 12 mile bike ride to get to work plus a 45 minute train ride -- meaning 3-4 hours of commute everyday ... If I drive it's only 35 minutes.

My bike bag has been gone. For quite awhile. Which means a backpack (umm ... no), or the crap bag made by timbuktu&trade (again no). Or not being able to carry anything on my road bike. Despite having a couple of mountain bikes ... as soon as I had a decent messenger bag I took the racks off my bikes and gave them away. They never were all that good at carrying my stuff -- a computer, a stack of groceries, and so on.

SO today I bought a new Chrome Citizen, just like my old one. It has some new features, like the insertable laptop cozy, keyring loop, light attachment point, and new phone and Ipod carrier. Generally it's the same awesome bag, but strictly for righties (left shoulder?) ... never mind us goofy footed bastards. I bought one anyway, figuring it would be good to try it on the dark side. It could take awhile to grab my bag, swing it on, clip the buckle, stick my left foot in and cowboy it all up on to my steed, but I'll get the hang of it. C'est le vie.

Yesterday, at the gym ... I was doing the fly with like a 12 on the weight scale markings and I surprised something in my chest and it responded with a popping sound and some pain ... And I noticed the weather outside was suprisingly good. Like 70 degrees, sun, slight breeze, you know ... the barefoot me in shorts everywhere weather. Pass me a whine cooler. Winter, it seems, is fading. And so is weight lifting. I tried to row a thousand meters on the machine in my typical 5 minutes ... and I looked outside again. I went down stairs and got into the hot tub.

SO today I rolled my road bike out of it's winter hiding place. Added new stuff to it's bike bag, watered up the drinking bottle. Put my bike bag stuff in the new bike bag. Called up my bike riding buddy. "I think it's time for a ride," I said stupidly.

We rode 13 miles, and stopped for sushi in the middle. We rode back in the dark ... and it was really dark. Not too bad for the first ride in a while. A good start to the Spring.

Finding Paradise

Well, the route from San Francisco to Zion is not as clearly defined as you might imagine. Initially, I was going to go this way then that way, then I really thought it would be cool to stay at one of the big hotels in Vegas ... which is one.) expensive, and two.) not possible if you're me. I went that way. I ended up in Beatty, NV. Let's all imagine that some of the bling was missing, not to mention the girls. I followed the general advice of Abbey, and the very specific advice of the bar man at the stagecoach and turned East before the "Spaghetti Bowl", which is what I swear he called Las Vegas. I am probably better off because of it.

Zion is still where I left it. It seems crowded, and busy. Go figure. And I am still having trouble finding it. I had a plan to expose my inability to find it through a series of pix, and despite a lot of blogsnot™, I have managed it.

Springdale, Utah is an interesting place. I find it to be some tourist art extravaganza. It reminds me of the wilderness, with a hot tub, laundromats, RV's, and berry pie. And a petting zoo.

Maybe tomorrow I'll go find Zion.