Painful Memories

One thing I have found to be true of any vacation, adventure, or any other life experience is that whatever it is, it's always more memorable when there's some sort of pain or struggle involved. Things that you must overcome to accomplish what you're set out to do, or something that makes your goal just a little more difficult to reach.

A couple weeks ago I bought a new bicycle to hopefully help me accomplish a 340 mile-long bicycle trail. In August we're planning on riding the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal Towpath trail which connect to one another to form a complete passage from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington DC.

I'll have to admit, even I was a bit skeptical when my friend Tyler proposed the idea to me. I'll have to admit again, that I still have my doubts, but I'm going to give it my best shot anyway.

Yesterday we did our first "training" ride from Springfield to Boliver and back on the Frisco Highline Trail. The Frisco is a 35 mile rail-trail that was completed a few years ago by Ozark Greenways. 70 miles is the longest ride I have ever done in my life and I really didn't know how well I would fare, but I made it and I'm still here the next day (albeit I'm a little sore.)

Here's some of our stats from my trusty Cateye cyclocomputer:
Total Riding Time: 7 hrs 55 min 55 sec
Total Distance: 72.75 miles (this includes some riding around in bolivar)
Average Speed: 9.1 mph
Max Speed: 19.1 mph

Total Distance ridden on my "new" bike: 127.3 miles (in 2 weeks), I'm pretty proud of myself!

It's almost that time...

In exactly 6 days I embark with my wife and 2 friends on what I hope will be one of my best adventures yet. We will be spending 8 days in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and South Dakota. I know, it's not a enough time to even scratch the surface on any one of those states, but I've never been to any of them, and it's darn near time! Besides, if I don't go, I may not be able to afford it later if gas keeps going up!

Our first destination is Glacier NP in NW Montana where we will spend 2 or 3 days. Hopefully we'll get to visit the Canadian side of the park as well. Then we make our way down through Idaho where we will then enter the W side of Yellowstone, where we will spend another 3 or 4 days. Then we'll be on our way back where we'll make our way through South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore, and possibly the new Crazyhorse monument. If I'm lucky maybe I'll even see Wall Drug! I think the best part of the whole trip is we have absolutely NO plans whatsoever! That means we go where we want to go, and see what we want to see!

I thought air transit was supposed to be easy.

OK, so here I sit in Washington Dulles airport, someplace I'd rather not be, and also some place that I wasn't supposed to be today. Where do I start, oh let's see, last night we drove to KC to spend the night in order to be ready for our 0600 flight to Chicago O'Hare, which had been delayed to 1030 as soon as we checked in at 0445. Because of the delay we were going to miss our connection in Chicago to Norfolk, so our other option was to try to get on a jet to Washington (where I am now) as long as there were 3 openings, which there were. We were told when we left KC that there was a flight at 1230 that left Washington for Norfolk that we may be able to get on if there was room, otherwise we would have to take the plane that left Washington at 1541. As soon as we arrived here in Washington we checked on it. Guess what, the flight for 1230 had been delayed until 1600, but the flight we're actually booked on is still on-time for 1541.

I must interject a bit of positive feedback to the Washington Dulles Airport, this pizza place we ate at called "Famous Famiglia" was FABULOUS! I had a Pepperoni Stromboli and some garlic knots and it was probably the best pizza I'd had in a while! They also have these shuttle vehicles that look like something from Star Wars, it was quite a ride I must say! I was wondering where the blaster cannons were to shoot the snow speeders as they whizzed by!

It really doesn't matter to me when we get there, but we're supposed to be at a wedding in Norfolk at 1900, so I hope for everyone else's sake we show up on time.

I guess I might understand why it's so difficult to run an airline from the perspective of scheduling hundreds of flights per day, mandatory pilot rest hours, Federal regulations, etc., but man it's sure frustrating when good money has been spent to get somewhere. It seems to me that you must put ALL faith in the airline, there is absolutely NO guarantee on arrival times, and you really have NO options as a measly passenger in a ginormous airport (or any airport for that matter). I'm all for less regulations, letting private industry manage themselves, and making nothing "mandatory," but like I already said, "man it's frustrating."

No time for adventures

As I sit here in my man room, otherwise knows as the second bedroom, I look around at my cool things like my wake skate that I only use a couple times a year, my shotgun, my 2 way radios, and my cool new water pump and I loathe studying. I wish I could be out doing something cooler than studying the urogenital system and why people have chronic respiratory diseases. Why does everything so urgently consume my precious time? I look down at my dog and realize that he really doesn't have any agenda, no plans other than eating, playing and sleeping, and sometimes I wish I was the dog.

Goodnight.