RTR Day 7, Buena Vista to Breckenridge

June 21 — Buena Vista to Breckenridge

69 miles

5:31 ride time

8:00 elapsed time

Max. elevation 11,542′

Started at 6:50

It feels strange to be doing everything for the last time: tearing down camp, getting the bikes, loading the luggage, pulling all our gear on and rolling out. Last day of Ride the Rockies 2008.

All spring, every time I told someone I was doing Ride the Rockies, they’d want to know where it was going this year, and I would dutifully reply “Starts in Durango, ends in Breckenridge” and eyes would widen appreciatively. I just kept saying it again and again, wondering if repetition would make it seem more possible. It never really did. I just couldn’t really imagine what it would be like to ride 435 miles across the state. And here, at the end of this day, we’ll be in Breckenridge. So I guess I’ll know.

The morning is cool and hazy, and starts right off climbing out of town toward Trout Creek Pass, the first of two passes for the day:

And surely I can be forgiven for thinking, hey, I climbed Cottonwood Pass yesterday … whassa big deal?

Yes, the afterglow of Cottonwood was still with me. For about half an hour. That climb up to Trout Creek was a big, fat grinder, and first crack out of the bag, to boot. It now occurs that it’s the end of a long week of many miles and much climbing, and suddenly my legs are feeling like mush. Grrrrr. The road ain’t great either, a lot of traffic, and narrow. By the first really humpy part of the climb people are already bailing and walking. Could be … a long day.

And indeed, just getting to the first aid station of the day, only 15 miles into the ride at the summit of Trout Creek Pass, is a real effort. It was a grind.

And the mood is different this morning, too, it seems. We’re all realizing that we’re tired, and the high of Cottonwood is slowly being replaced by the spectre of Hoosier Pass, which, although it’s many miles down the road, stands between us and the big damn party in Breckenridge.

The day is still a bit strange and hazy, cool, almost clammy. The sun is out but I keep my arm warmers and knee warmers on as we push off for the downhill side of the pass. We will spend the next few hours and 30 miles or so skirting the west edge of South Park, the wide basin between the Front Range of the Rockies to the east and the Collegiate Peaks and Arkansas River valley we just left. Very different countryside than what we’ve been in; open, exposed, and a whole lot of it. And I hate to say it, but without any climbing, it gets a little monotonous.

The Hartsel aid station comes 14 miles from Trout Creek, and we disembark for our usual bottle filling and breakfast burrito. We’re both feeling silly and, I think, ready to be done and yet reluctant to have this amazing experience end.

But we still have a lot of miles ahead of us.

The next stretch, from Hartsel to Fairplay (about 20 miles) seems flat but is actually relentlessly uphill. The pack is really spread out today and Carol and I ride together most of the time, just the two of us. I’m just feeling tired today, and flat, and by the time we’re getting closer to Fairplay I start to seriously fall off her pace. I’ve been trying to keep fueled this morning but either I haven’t gotten the timing right, or I’ve just gotten worn down. By the time I get to the Fairplay aid station I’m really feeling low, cranky, and tired.

We all know that the climb to Hoosier begins immediately after this aid station, but as if to emphasize the point, the road just past the aid station visibly rears up. It’s not a nice sight. I feel terrible, really wobbly and wrung out, and I’m completely dreading this last climb. I’m testy and snappy with Carol. It’s still cool, and when the sun goes under a cloud the wind comes up and it’s almost chilly.

I get something to eat; I also treat myself to a fruit smoothie. When asked if I want any supplements in it (protein, etc.) yes, I do ask for steroids. No luck.

The sag wagons are busy, busy. We hear an RTR official announcing that there’s now a waiting list for sag; a lot of people are tired, and the vision of the road cranking up just past the aid station is having a definite effect. I’m reluctant, to say the least, but at some point we’re gonna have to go. And so we finally do.

It is indeed an ugly hump from the aid station, but then we’re in a series of rollers for the next few miles. I know this climb to the pass will be bad, but it will end; end every mile that slips under our wheels now is that many fewer to go.

We come into the tiny town of Alma, the highest-elevation town in the country. Who knew? There’s not much here, some old, old buildings, a going mine, a saloon. I ask for a short rest break and we pull over on the sidewalk for a few minutes. Riders keep trickling through — I guess we didn’t all sag!

Past Alma, we’re finally on the nowhere-to-go-but-up part of the climb. The climb starts from a pretty high altitude so there are no switchbacks, just pretty much a straight shot up to the top. One big, loooooooong ramp. We all settle into our little individual cocoons of concentration, going deep, going slow, but going, and going. Carol has dropped me; we’ll see each other again at the top.

I climb a good long way and finally give in to a short rest break. The break is good; the break is bad. I gain a little relief, but I lose my rhythm. I’m not feeling the altitude too badly, my wind is hanging in there, but my legs are so shot. I rest three or four minutes and then clip back in.

My counting game is not working on this climb, because each time I get to 100 my mind is thinking, okay, maybe I can stop. I don’t even want to let that into my mind, no wavering, no stopping. Gotta just keep going. I start in on a mantra, I … can … do … this … I … can … do … this. It’s getting really hard and I’m starting to feel it in my lungs. Then I’m just repeating I … I … I … the road is still rising ahead of me and now I’m gasping with each breath, agghh, agghh, agghh. But I’m not … gonna … stop.

Finally, I see cars up ahead, on the side of the road. Thank you jesus, it’s the top. A few hundred yards more and it’s over. I coast to a stop, unclip, and walk slowly across the road to find Carol. She repaid the favor from Cottonwood Pass yesterday and shot this video of me coming up:

And here’s a beautiful, beautiful thing:

Carol and Terry on Hoosier Pass

Now it’s 10 miles to Breckenridge and the finish line. To quote Lyle Lovett:

     I’ve had an excellent time, so far
     There’s only one thing that I fear
     I’ve been up so long on this lucky star
     It could be all downhill from here …

That song has been stuck in my head all week, and now, whizzing down the other side of Hoosier Pass, I’m singing it at the top of my lungs.

Yeeeaaaahhhhhhh.

The descent is fun, twisty, giddy, and we’re all going faster than traffic so we’re taking up the whole lane. Carol and I know this stretch of road from when we vacationed in Breck last winter, so we feel like we’re getting on to home turf. We’re flying and life is so good. Ten miles later, we’re on the outskirts of town; our faithful, faceless orange spray paint pavement markers have been busy and there are messages of encouragement and celebration (I just loved one of messages spray painted on the climb up to Hoosier: DEATH BEFORE SAG). A couple of blocks later there’s a sharp left turn; I call up to Carol, who’s just ahead of me, and she slows down so we pass under the Finish banner hand-in-hand.

And then it’s over: 435 miles, four passes, two summits, and one divide. A lot of Pig Newtons and only one flat tire. Gallons of Gatorade, a couple of cold showers, and a lot of Porta-Potties. Highs and lows and one awful damn big grin. Awful damn big. We did it.

Can’t WAIT ’til next year!

 

 

 

 

 

RTR Day 6, Crested Butte to Buena Vista

June 20 — Crested Butte to Buena Vista

76 miles

5:43 ride time

9:00 elapsed time

Max. elevation 12,126′

Started at 6:45

It’s incredible what one day of rest will do for both your body and your attitude! We were both up early and ready to go this morning, nervous and excited about Cottonwood Pass. It had been my singular point of worry all through training, but I’ve felt so strong this week, and getting stronger … I’m ready to take a swing at it.

A beautiful morning in Crested Butte.

Full moon over Crested Butte

We caught the shuttle bus down into Crested Butte town and stationed our duffel in the parking lot next to the transport trucks. We have a system now:

1. Leave our regular shoes on, drop off the duffel near the trucks.
2. Walk the requisite 19 miles to where the bike lock-up is located (always at the maximum distance from the trucks).
3. Get bikes and walk them back to trucks.
4. Change into our cycling shoes, stow our regular shoes in the duffel, and load duffel onto truck.

Walking in cycling shoes is a pain and it ain’t too good for the cleats, either. But now that we’re almost through the week, we’ve figured it out!

But something strange is going on this morning — why has someone spray painted all the bikes white? The cool mountain air has pooled down in the valley overnight, and there’s a heavy frost. The air is frigid. The poor people who camped out at the school last night are struggling to pack up tents stiff with frost. We chatted with one guy later in the day who said the temperature in his tent was 32 degrees this morning! We picked a darn good time not to be camping.

So it was a chilly, chilly start to the day. That tortuous uphill that we had struggled through late Wednesday afternoon into Crested Butte was now a fantastic 17-mile downhill to the turn-off and first aid station of the day at Almont. Although it was cold, the day was crystal clear; alongside the road were brilliant green pastures of cattle, and frogs singing from the ponds. Almost too incredible to believe.

RTR Day 6, Crested Butte to Buena Vista

And it was absolutely delicious “gravity biking,” which is what I’ve decided to call the phenomenon whereby all you have to do is pull your leg up and let the weight of it carry through the rest of the pedaling cycle; gravity does the rest. This happens on long stretches like these that are slightly downhill. You build up a most wonderful momentum, and while you’re still pedaling, it seems almost effortless and you can easily roll along at 20 mph. Sweeeeeeeeeet.

So we made short work of it to Almont, where we left the main road and turned east toward the pass. Yes, it was open. I was not going to be denied the chance to face down my demon.

The mood out on the road and at the aid station is high and excited. It seems the rest day did us all good, and another beautiful morning is unfolding around us. We’ve all been on our bikes enough hours and across enough miles since we began, way back in Durango, that we’re feeling strong and confident. So much effort has already been put out … so many turns of the cranks. And now this big, big climb.

Leaving Almont, the road winds up along the Taylor River through yet more incredible Colorado scenery. For those of us who live on the Front Range, cozied up against the mountains but spending most of our time on the hot, dry flats, being in the rural high country day after day is such a treat. What a truly fantastic way to see the state.

The morning chill is finally easing and a few miles up the road from Almont people are beginning to pull over to shed their layers. Lush pastureland borders the river along this quiet road, smoke drifts from the chimney of a ranch house tucked back in against the hills. The road is climbing, but gently, and soon we’re at the second aid station.

The station is back from the road in the shade of the pine trees. Carol and I are both feeling good, good, good and we take the time for some breakfast burritos and to enjoy the gorgeous morning. Another ten miles of climbing, including one sharp, short uphill to Taylor Park and the reservoir. The landscape opens up around the reservoir and we can now see the snowy ridge of the Continental Divide ahead of us, to the north and east. Folks are down on the reservoir, in their boats fishing; what must they think of this endless train of cyclists coming through?

(“They gotta be nuts …”)

We top off our bottles at the Taylor Park aid station, then pedal a few miles further around the reservoir until we reach the turn-off for Cottonwood Pass. Here the pavement ends; we’ll see it again in fourteen miles, at the summit of the pass.

Riding skinny-tire road bikes on a dirt road? I truly wondered about this idea. But RTR has gone over Cottonwood several times before, so I had to imagine they knew what they were doing. And it turns out that the dirt road is amazingly good — very smooth, wide, and hard-packed. There were definitely areas with sandy potholes (not fun; they’d suck your wheels every which way), some washboards, some gravelly patches. But almost always you could steer yourself around the hazards and keep to the hard pack. It got trickier as we ascended and people began to get tired; it required some serious concentration to pick out a good line while moving in and out around the other riders.

So now it was just time to shift it down, down, down and just chug. We hit aid station 4 about half-way up the climb and took a good long rest. The road climbed first through open scrub land, and then into the cool of the pine forest. And it climbed. And it climbed. Chug. Chug. Chug.

I started playing my counting games to keep my mind occupied, to distract myself from the tiredness in my legs. This is something Carol taught me when we were first training and I was trying to overcome my psychological distress with hill climbing, and it has really worked well for me. I either count breaths or pedal strokes, work my way up to fifty, and then start over. On the short hills around Fort Collins I never get past 150; here climbing towards Cottonwood I would do sets of one hundred with this carrot held out to myself: every time you get to 500, you can stop and take a little breather.

Now the road was beginning to come up out of the trees, and soon it began to switch back, back again, corkscrew its way up to the pass. Coming out of the trees was great because it meant the top was getting closer; but not so great, because now you could see where the road was going. And it was still going up.

But my legs were feeling great and I wasn’t having to stop. I … was … climbing … Cottonwood … Pass. I kept going by people and I kept feeling good. I came up to a sharp switchback where the photo people were stationed and I was feeling so ferocious that I flashed ‘em a bicep on my way past. Now I was climbing between massive snowbanks — the great, overhanging drift below the pass that had kept the road closed until just a week ago. People who had passed earlier had carved GO RTR! in big letters into cold walls, brilliant in the sun. I came up the last long ramp to the pass, crossed over onto pavement, and was there.

I didn’t know where Carol was; I had passed her a mile or two below and knew she’d be right behind me. I put my bike down quickly, dug out my camera, and ran back down the road to catch her coming up:

That’s Carol (fifth rider coming up) topping out Cottonwood Pass. Yeah, baby. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

The wind was whipping fiercely at the summit, but the sun was warm, the day clear as a sounding bell. This is early afternoon on a summer day at high altitude in Colorado — not usually a good time to be on top of a mountain. But the charmed weather we’ve been having all week is holding again today and it’s time to party on Cottonwood.

I hugged Carol and we laughed; I was so overcome with emotion that I cried, too. It was an indescribable sensation — of accomplishment, pride, strength, and pure joy. I was in the most beautiful place in the whole world, with my partner, best friend, and dearest love, and we’d gotten there, together, on our own two wheels. All the hours and miles of training, all the hills I had battled my way up, all the while thinking, I don’t know if I can do this … so hard … so tired … and yet, here I am. I didn’t just climb this hill. I crushed it.

It was such a powerful experience, neither one of us wanted to leave. The poor Highway Patrol officer who was directing traffic at the crest of the pass was having a time of it — all these completely insane and giddy cyclists running around in the road, taking pictures, just being nuts — and the people in their cars wondering if the bus from the asylum had crashed and all the inmates escaped. It was truly a scene.

And ya know what’s next? Nineteen transcendental miles downhill to Buena Vista, a classic rip-snortin’ descent, and you want to talk about being high on life? You know you’re having an experience you’ll never forget.

Carol blew me up going downhill (although I think I cracked 40 mph for the first time) and we caught up with each other again just a couple miles outside of BV. “Bueny” (pronounced “Byoony”) has hosted RTR many times and is another one of those wonderful communities, like Montrose, that really has its act together. Getting set up at the high school was a breeze, and we were soon on the shuttle bus to the town park for a fantastic dinner and live music, at the end of one of the most memorable days of my life.

RTR Day 5: Crested Butte

June 19, rest day in Crested Butte

As of today, we’ve covered 281 of our 435 total miles, and Carol and I have spent approximately 19.5 hours in the saddle. So we’re averaging around 14.4 mph, which, I think, is pretty darn good.

You may be curious, what does one think about during all those hours? Here are some of the deep thoughts that have been going through my head:

1. Why does my nose constantly run while I’m biking? Even when it’s hot?
2. I wonder how many pedal revolutions I’ve gone through so far?
3. Does having a constantly runny nose contribute to dehydration?
4. What is that burning sensation?
5. Okay, let’s say I’m averaging 60 rpm (though it’s probably more like 70-75), times 60 minutes in an hour, carry the two … wait, where was I?
6. Why does my nose constantly run while I’m biking?

And so on. Believe me, no major world problems are being solved. And that, frankly, is quite lovely.

What was truly lovely was collapsing in our condo last night. It’s a wonderful little place with a decent bed, a kitchen, and a shower that about knocks you off your feet. Heavenly. We did a little saddle-sore triage (thanks to a large tube of A&D Ointment), and were asleep before it was even dark outside.

And this morning: NO ALARM! First of many wonderful things. Peace and quiet. Coffee and hanging out; catching up on journaling; washing out cycling clothes (including gloves and helmet straps, which are absolutely encrusted in salt), reorganizing the duffel bag. For some reason we’re still carrying around what feels like a 10-pound bag of gummy worms, now all thoroughly squished together. You don’t even want to know what the Pig Newtons look like.

After we were collected, we went for a little walkabout in Mount Crested Butte. Nothing spectacular; just lots and lots of fancy condos clustered around the ski lifts. This is a tiny little ski resort, though, and it reminds me of what Snowmass looked like 30 years ago. But you don’t come here to admire the buildings; it would be pretty hard to compete with the scenery.

One of the RTR “goodies” for this rest day is a free ticket to ride the chair lift, so Carol and I quite happily indulge. The day is perfect in every way: cool air, warm sun, no wind; a few puffy clouds, and a surrounding amphitheater of high mountain peaks. Beautiful, beautiful place, and one I hope to come back to.

There were a steady stream of RTR’ers on the chair lift, which is cleverly equipped to haul bikes up the ski slope too. A lot of people had taken the opportunity to rent mountain bikes and try out some of the runs down the slope; we, personally, just couldn’t see putting our butts in a saddle again quite so soon! We even saw a couple of adaptive mountain bikes — totally cool.

As for us, we hopped off the chair lift and wandered for a bit through the forest in the sweet high mountain air. We didn’t linger too long, though, as we had massages scheduled back down at the high school. After a short walk we rode the chair lift down, grabbed a bite of lunch, and caught a shuttle bus down to town.

(Just an aside: getting a massage when you’re screaming sore all over isn’t really a very pleasant experience. There’s a cadre of massage therapists who follow RTR from town to town, and there’s an assembly line of people moving through the massage “machine” every day. It helps so much to get some of the gunk wrung out of your muscles, especially after yesterday’s marathon 92-miler. But my quads were so tender I could barely stand to have them touched! I about went through the roof. Then the therapist climbed up on the table and “walked” down my back on her knees. OMG. Ow.)

We spent the rest of our glorious rest day doing some grocery shopping, wandering around the town (a very neat little place), and then fixing a delicious lasagna and salad dinner for ourselves back at the condo. Tomorrow is a big, big day: Cottonwood Pass, at over 12,000 feet, fourteen miles of climbing on a dirt road, no less. The rumor was flying all over today: that the pass still wasn’t navigable (it was only finally opened to traffic six days ago due to deep overhanging snow drifts) and we’d be re-routed over Monarch Pass, which would put us at around 105 miles for the day. But these guys who run RTR really know what they’re doing, and I have no doubt that tomorrow morning we’ll be heading up that dirt road.

RTR Day 4: Montrose to Crested Butte

June 18 — Montrose to Crested Butte

92 miles

7:25 ride time

10:55 elapsed time

Started at 6:30

Well, what do you think? Can we ride 92 miles? It is, I think, going to be a looooooooooooooong day.

New strategy: breakfast on our own, in the tent. Bagels and cream cheese (lotsa carbs!). A Naked Juice fruit smoothie for me. For Carol, an experiment: a Monster energy drink.

And then we were off.

RTR 2008 Day 4, Montrose to Crested Butte

When we woke up, the wind was already blowing. Not such a good sign. Jill, who has ridden this stretch before (at least as far as Gunnison), had warned us of the winds and counseled an early start. Riding out of town, we were all greeted by a stiff wind tunneling right down out of the hills east of Montrose. I was in my small chainring, perilously close to being out of gears altogether, riding on the flat.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t flat; we were immediately on a ramp headed up to the first climb of the day, Cerro Summit. The wind had us at a practical stand-still. We were all hunkered down, glued to the wheel in front of us, everyone looking for some sort of draft. It’s so hard, with this many riders — finding other people riding at your pace, and riding consistently, not slowing down, speeding up, weaving, swerving, whatever. I’d find a little pack to settle in with for a few minutes, but then they’d falter and I’d have to pass and go looking for the next pack. Carol was out somewhere ahead of me; I felt like I was riding through sand.

I was struggling not to become completely discouraged; we weren’t even climbing and I couldn’t keep my speed over 10mph. Ninety-two miles? See ya some time around midnight. Wind. It totally blows.

Then the road started tipping up more, and we were climbing up to Cerro Summit. It’s a long, winding ramp that doesn’t look like much, but after four or five miles of it … geez, what a slog. But the pay-off was a sweet downhill into the Cimarron River valley, which was just beautiful. And did I mention that it was downhill?

Unfortunately, another climb was in the offing, this time a 7-mile grunt up to the top of Blue Mesa Summit. But thank god, the wind had quit by now. I made it to the top, passing Carol along the way, and waited for her there.

She got to the top and put her bike down next to mine; I was chatting about the climb and so on, and she wasn’t saying anything. She sat down on a wood fence and was just silent. It hadn’t really been an awful climb; mostly just annoying because it was so dang long and around every curve there was just more of it. But she looked cooked. After a few minutes, she told me that she had totally bonked shortly after Cerro Summit; that she had broken out in a cold sweat on the climb up to Blue Mesa Summit and was now feeling nauseous and really shaky. It was the Monster energy drink; it had given her a huge “up” at the beginning of the day but had now dropped her like a brick. Not good. SOOO not good. MANY miles to go. I felt just terrible for her.

We took a long break until Carol felt like she could get under way again. Now we had another nice, long downhill and I hoped it would give her a respite until she started to feel better. I was feeling good; I would just pull her, for a change.

We came down into another beautiful, narrow river canyon when the State Patrol stopped us. We stood over our bikes on the shoulder for five or ten minutes, wondering what was going on. In true mob fashion, weird rumors started coming back down the line: maybe there had been a bad accident up ahead, and they didn’t want us to see it. I hadn’t seen any accidents yet during the week, although in the bathroom in Montrose I had seen a woman with some bandaging on her shoulder and leg, covering road rash from the crash earlier in the tour.

But as it turned out, we were waiting for a trailer with a wide load to come up the canyon. Just not enough room for all of us!

The rest of the day was awfully long. I kept glancing in my rear-view mirror (mounted on the side of my helmet) to make sure Carol was right behind me. On a long stretch along the Blue Mesa Reservoir I heard her say, Look, we’ve got a tailwind. And sure enough, the grasses along the side of the road were all bending their heads toward the east. It was a huge psychological boost. And with the two climbs behind us, now we were making good time.

We got to the aid station at Sapinero shortly after noon. It had turned hot and although the wind was blowing in the right direction, it was still drying us out. The landscape around the reservoir was open, rocky, and baking in the sun. We scrounged a scrap of shade at the aid station and got something to eat; Carol was still pale, quiet, and feeling very poorly. I was truly wondering if she should considering taking the sag wagon; we had over 50 miles to go.

I led the way to the next aid station, at mile 55, where the DJ was set up and the general party was going on. By this time the wind was blowing whitecaps on the reservoir; still going our way, thank god, but it was so hot and dry. Carol was just spent. We saw a road that curved around the east end of the reservoir and headed back into the wind; it was just too horrible to image that we’d soon be there. Meanwhile, we heard the DJ over the sound system offering a free T-shirt to anyone who would jump in the reservoir; next thing you know, a woman had totally stripped down and was heading into the water. A very popular choice, judging from the roar of approval.

Carol pulled on a lightweight long-sleeve shirt to give her some protection from the sun and reluctantly got back onto her bike. She told me later that she had very nearly decided to sag, but warrior that she is, she gave it another go. Almost immediately we came around a curve to see that our road continued on straight to the east, NOT doubling around the reservoir and back into the wind. We both cheered. We now came into a lush green valley where the Gunnison River flowed into the east end of the reservoir, and shortly after came out onto a high plain blanketed in sagebrush and covered over by the most enormous blue sky.

RIde the Rockies 2008, somewhere west of Gunnison

You know how in the West you come upon those high, open places where you can see the road ahead of you for miles and miles and miles? That’s very intimidating when you’re on a bike.

But the tailwind held true and I kept pulling us along and the miles rolled by until we came into Gunnison. Carol was hanging in; covering up from the sun had helped revive her. We took a shade and rest break, I got my first flat tire on the road just north of town heading up toward Crested Butte, and we re-grouped one last time at the final aid station, still 19 miles from the day’s end.

That last 19 miles was a killer. I was just worn out and the aid station did little to help that. Carol felt better now and offered to take over the pulling and I gladly let her. I had pulled us for 45 miles and was used up. We had lost our tailwind; the wind was now coming down the valley and although there weren’t really any hills to speak of, it was a long, constant uphill until we finally hove into CB.

Tomorrow, however, is a rest day — a beautiful, shining dream to contemplate on those last endless miles. Plus, total bonus, we have two glorious days in a condo up in Mount Crested Butte (the ski resort area) awaiting us. Perfect timing. We showered at Crested Butte High School and changed into our “civvies,” got some food and beer at the community feed (we learned our hard lesson in Telluride: eat as soon as you can), and then finally caught a shuttle bus up the mountain and got checked into the condo.

What a day.

RTR Day 3: Telluride to Montrose

June 17 — Telluride to Montrose

65 miles

3:49 ride time

5:30 elapsed time

Started at 8:00

Man, it took us FOREVER to get out of Helluride. This morning, we tried just pulling on our sweats and hitting the breakfast line first, before packing up camp, but were still in line for freakin’ ever. The breakfast was not being managed by the school or a local civic group (that was the best; the Optimists in Buena Vista, for example, had it down to a complete science) but by some caterer. I paid $7 for three pancakes. They were out of coffee. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. They … were … out … of … coffee. Thunder of Zeus! There isn’t a court in the land that would have convicted us for rioting.

Fortunately, there was also a guy with a mobile coffee cart who followed us from town to town. I went back to camp to begin breaking things down while Carol stood in line to get us coffee. We had been in the tent getting dressed for maybe a whole five minutes before I managed to knock my coffee over, soaking sleeping bags, pads, and the floor of the tent, not to mention sacrificing the dang coffee in the first place.

I want to go home now, I said.

Finally, at 8:00, we rolled quite thankfully out of town. Take a look at this beautiful picture:

RTR 2008 Day 3, Telluride to Montrose

Mmmm hmmm. That’s right. Fifteen gorgeous miles of downhill. That, my friends, is the way to start your day.

But it was finally dawning on me: it was just going to take, if we were lucky, two solid hours every day between the alarm going off and actually beginning our day’s ride. Those two hours were going to be frustrating, irritating, and worst of all, take place veeeeerrrrryy early, which is not my favorite thing. But oh, then! Once on the bike, life was gonna be grand.

And so it was with our Glorious Downhill from Helluride. We descended rapidly into a sweet river valley that swept us down to the first aid station in Placerville, which we reached in record time. One of the very lovely things about going downhill is that you can take the pressure off your unmentionables for a nice long while. It was a crack-up watching all the various gyrating and wiggling that we were all doing this morning, after yesterday’s long ride, trying to find that last little spot where we could still comfortably sit. At the aid station we did our usual thing, refilled bottles, ate a banana, I stretched some sore butt muscles a bit, and then we headed out to climb Dallas Divide.

What is a “divide?” Is it easier than a pass? But harder than a “summit?” Who knows. The profile made it look like a bit of a hump. But it turned out to be a sweet, easy climb through some just drop-dead unbelievable scenery.

The happy cows of Dallas Divide

Does that fence look pretty fancy? I heard one of the other riders saying that this whole huge chunk of land is part of Ralph Lauren’s ranch.

I was climbing really smoothly and easily this morning, much to my surprise and delight, and waited here for a couple of minutes taking pictures until Carol caught up with me. It was just a short distance from here to the top of the Divide, where we took another picture break.

Just down from the top was the next aid station, but we were feeling so fabulous that we decided to clip back into our pedals and just keep going. And why not? We had nothing but 36 miles of down, down, down to Montrose. It was a ten-mile whiz down to Ridgway, where we stopped for a bite of lunch at the aid station. I discovered the chicken-casear wrap vendor and life was just awfully dang good. We found a spot of shade in the lee of one of the repair trailers (which were set up at every aid station; good for a quick tweak, lube, or major repair, all free), since it was just about high noon, and relaxed and laughed and just shook our heads over our good fortune to be alive.

Cycling rocks.

Thus fortified we re-mounted, took a left turn and headed north from Ridgway to Montrose. I realized that I had forgotten to put my gloves back on, but then thought it might be nice and a little cooler to have them off. All well and good until about three miles later, when we came upon a section of highway that had just been chipped, but not yet sealed. Now THAT seriously sucked. Not only did we have to proceed very slowly (feeling your front wheel start to wash out in a patch of deep chips is not a nice feeling), but I was just sure that some goof ball coming the other way was going to spray all those nasty little rocks right up in my grille. Suddenly the miles were passing very much more slowly, and the early afternoon was getting pretty hot as we came down out of the mountains.

But a few miles later, it was past. We were back on decent roads, I got my gloves put back on (one of the things gloves do for you is cushion the road vibration; which I sure could have used on the chips!) and although by this time we’d picked up a bit of a wind, it was a pretty easy ride the rest of the way to Montrose.

Reflections on Pulling and Sucking, Part II

It was sixteen miles from the last aid station into Montrose, technically downhill, but pretty flat, so it’s not like you could just coast. You could spin in your big gears, on the big ring, which is a lovely thing, I think, but you gotta keep the legs moving. And, as I mentioned, we were into the afternoon headwinds. So drafting became important.

Carol pulled for miles and miles, and I would occasionally spell her. We came upon a guy who was riding at our pace, and the two of us sat behind him for a few minutes. Carol then moved around him to take the pull, out of politeness. He let her do that for, oh, about 45 seconds before he went back around her and took off. Guys mostly didn’t like having women pull them. Whaaaaaaaaaaat ever.

We were in a small pack of about six riders as we came into Montrose. At each traffic light people in their cars would lean out and say, “Where did you come from today?” and “how far have you ridden?” It was just unbelievably cool to say, “Yeah, Telluride; we rode 65 miles,” and they’d be all, like, Wow! Yeah, baby. THAT’S what I’m TALKING about.

Montrose has hosted Ride the Rockies about a kajillion times; they all know the drill and have it down to a science. At Montrose High School the baggage trucks were actually close to the football field, and the showers in the girl’s locker room had hot water. I think I stood under the shower for about 20 minutes, it just felt so wonderful. We were in relatively early in the afternoon, so had plenty of time to pitch camp and get cleaned up. Extra bonus, the location of the beer garden, entertainment, and community dinner was an easy walk. Montrose loves us!

A little humor from our friends in Montrose!

A really great band was playing at Rotary Park, there was cool grass and shade, and we sacked out and snoozed off and on in the warm afternoon. A couple of cold Fat Tires and sizzling hot brats really put us completely into bliss. Hours later, on our way back to the high school, we hit the local Safeway for some supplies (we’re going to fix our OWN dang breakfast tomorrow morning, bagels and cream cheese, thank you very much) and then finished off the day with a couple of cones at Dairy Queen.

We love Montrose !!!!

(P.S. Carol realized at about 1:00 this afternoon that she was missing staff meeting. She was pretty upset about it. Not.)

RTR Day 2: Cortez to Telluride

June 16 — Cortez to Telluride

77 miles

5:57 ride time

8:45 elapsed time

Started at 7:15

Okay. Kid stuff is over. Now comes the first real ride — 77 miles to Telluride, over Lizard Head Pass. My longest training ride had been 62 miles, and today we’d go over 10,000 feet to boot.

Got some sleep the night before — being tired sure helps. We have a dandy system of sleeping bags, foam pads, and Thermarest mattresses that, coupled with with the soft ground of the football field, make a pretty darn comfy bed. Ear plugs are essential as well — we are crammed together like a Bombay suburb and tent walls don’t give you a whole lot of privacy. It’s an interesting experience.

But now it’s time for up and at ‘em, wiggle into our Lycra (I’m wearing my Mizzou jersey today, to fly the colors atop our first pass), and pack up our camp. We join the many other hundreds of our tribe in the long, long line for breakfast — ahhh, breakfast. There was just no way around it. You have to eat. And so does everyone else. We tried several different ways of timing our arrival during the week, but nothing worked. There was always a line. A loooooooooooooooong line. A slow line. And I’m none too happy to be even be up at 5:00 in the morning, to begin with. And you want to get going, get on the road. But instead — you wait.

This morning was funny because the man collecting money (the morning’s breakfast supported the local public radio station) got all lit up over my Mizzou jersey. “Hey, did you see the guy in the KU sweatshirt?” he asked me, and I said, Yeah, I did. “Should have charged him extra,” he said. All during the day people were hollering at me, Hey, Mizzou! And Go, Tigers! Carol would just grin and shake her head. And I would just puff up like crazy.

But we’re just dilly-dallying here, aren’t we? We finally got ourselves fed and collected and clipped into our pedals at around 7:15. The route profile showed a sharp climb out of Cortez toward Dolores, and our first aid station of the day.

RTR 2008 Day 2, Cortez to Telluride

It was hard getting started; it takes some miles before the joints feel lubricated and some kind of rhythm comes back. We pedaled along back roads out of Cortez and then had just a bit of a climb to Dolores, not bad. That was a little over an hour of riding and a good warm-up. For the next few hours the road wound up along the Dolores River, through an absolutely beautiful green, lush, cool valley. The grade was so gently uphill that it was hardly noticeable.

These miles rolled very easily by and the morning was just delightful. As we went higher, we started seeing more aspen and sharper hills ahead. We took a good long break at the aid station in Rico, an old mining town; the grade was definitely beginning to pick up, and would continue to steepen as we approached Lizard Head Pass, 18 miles ahead.

Hills. Climbing. My Achilles’ Heel. My first pass, my first test. It’s not so bad for the first 8 or 10 miles out of Rico. Uphill, but manageable. I pulled over once to take a couple of pictures — hey, it’s not a race! Stop and smell the roses. And catch your breath.

All of a sudden, the hill gets serious, and my heart sinks. Well, here we go. Pain and suffering. It is a sharp little pitch and I set my sights on a target farther up the road — the end of a guardrail along a pull-out — and take another rest break. Yeesh. It’s gonna be a long haul to the top.

But then I’m back on and the grade flattens out — ! I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m getting up above tree line now, but the road is just wandering placidly along. It seems to have gotten the nastiness out of its system. Sure enough, a mile or two of this and I can see the summit ahead. You can tell the summit of any pass along the RTR route, because it’s a giant party. Hundreds of people, music playing, huge traffic jam, and more boatloads of freakin’ nutty cyclists arriving by the minute. There is a sizable contingent of Colorado State Highway Patrol with us all week, motorcycle cops, and they do their level best to keep us from getting run over in our giddy excitement as we jump off our bikes and start hugging everyone around us.

It’s nuts.

Pass bagging: Lizard Head Pass, 10,222'

There are bunches of photos from Lizard Head on my Flickr page; check them out.

What an amazing feeling, to be on top of the first pass! It was just huge. Just that one bad little hump, and the rest was no big deal. Incredible boost to my confidence! And a flat-out gorgeous, beautiful place to be. We grinned; we giggled; we hugged and mugged for the camera. Wow.

And 3/4 of the way to Telluride! Just 13 more miles, mostly downhill! Baby! Let’s get the party started!

Did I mention something already about the difficulty in interpreting the route profile maps? Well, the map shows this one leetle hill between us and Telluride, at the Ophir Loop Junction. And it just about killed me. It just went on … and on … and on. I passed a man on a hand bike (used by paraplegics; you pedal it with your arms) and we were both coming up around a curve to find that there was still MORE hill ahead. I can’t repeat what he said, but it went double for me. @#$%. It was just endless.

Mixed in with that were downhills that were frighteningly steep on a road that was amply cracked and potholed. Each morning, in the wee wee hours, the intrepid RTR road marking crew went out before us with their cans of orange spray paint to mark road hazards. They must’ve gone through a few cans on that descent into Telluride; and to top it all off, there was a crosswind. So for yours truly, who is still quite nervous about the consequences of something going wrong when you’re screaming down a mountain pass at over 30 mph … it was white-knuckle time, for sure. Plus, if you white-knuckle it for long enough, you start to get cramps in your hands from squeezing the brake levers.

It was good to finally get down the hill.

We then had a lovely (not) several mile ride on Telluride’s terrible bike trail — so rough I was surprised to have any fillings left in my teeth when we finally arrived at the school. Not nice. We were getting a little frayed around the edges. Add to this that it was 4:00, and we had massages scheduled at 5:00. Mad scramble to find the baggage, claim one little patch of ground on the football field, and line up for the shower truck — but running out of time. There was a rumor of indoor showers in the girl’s locker room, and since the massage team was set up inside the high school, at least we’d be going in the right direction.

Can you remember your last ice-cold shower? I don’t even want to talk about it.

But the massages were quite wonderful and very much needed. We felt a little better-adjusted and sanguine about life, up until we realized that it was now well after 6:00 and we hadn’t had anything substantial to eat since lunch. Yes. We crashed. It was horrible. I thought I was going to keel over. It kept getting worse: instead of the community feed being anywhere near the school, it was literally over the other side of the mountain, reachable by bus and gondola. When we finally staggered off the gondola, we found that all but one of the food vendors had run out of food. The last one had a line a mile and half long. We found a restaurant but their kitchen was backed up an hour and they’d run out of food too. It was a nightmare.

We finally got back to the other side of town and found a nice little Mexican restaurant and sat down to eat at 8:30. I have never tasted such fabulous chips and salsa. We drank a gallon of ice water. We cursed the very name of Telluride to the heavens, so that it will be known for all time as “Helluride.”

RTR Day 1: Durango to Cortez

June 15 — Durango to Cortez

47 miles

3:21 ride time

4:00 elapsed

Started at 7:20 am

I didn’t sleep too badly, in spite of being tired and wound-up, and when the alarm went off at 5:00 we were both ready to see what was going to happen next. We caught the shuttle bus back to the high school without incident, got our bag loaded on the baggage truck, and sat down to breakfast in the high school cafeteria. There was hardly any line — the only time THAT happened all week, let me tell ya. I had such a knot in my stomach I could hardly eat. We hung around until the opening ceremonies were finished and then joined the river of two-wheeled humanity flowing out onto the road.

I was just a mess. I was so nervous — and I hadn’t gotten my seat height set right when we put the bikes together the day before — and the angle of my handlebars was wrong, too. I was tight all over and nothing felt “right.” I stopped us twice on the way out of town to adjust my seat; I was snappish and cranky and it’s a wonder Carol didn’t tell me to just get over myself. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The day’s ride was short — under 50 miles — but the route profile made the climb up Hesperus Hill look very ominous. (As the week wore on we got better at interpreting how these profiles actually translated into real life — sometimes more accurately than others!).

RTR 2008 Day 1, Durango to Cortez

It was really different to be riding with soooo many other people. As was the case the whole week, about 2/3 of the riders were very good about warning you with “on your left!” as they passed. Then there were the others … mostly it was just a point of good manners, but there would be times when someone would come hammerin’ right past you, right off your wheel, and just about startle the hell out of you.

The climbing started pretty much right out of town, as we wound up a lovely canyon. It was a bit of a slog, but not the monster it had looked on the profile. Some people were bailing out and walking, but I ground on up in my very low-gear grindy way and found Carol waiting for me at the first aid station.

The first aid station! Success. Maybe this WAS gonna be okay.

And what a gorgeous morning! Durango — all of southwest Colorado — is a treasure trove of mountains, valleys, and wide-opens; shading a bit into what looks like the canyon country of Utah, but still with that lovely high-mountain freshness of Colorado. From the top of Hesperus Hill we could see back into the valley of Durango and the San Juan Mountains to the east and north, and toward the drier country of Cortez to the west.

By now I was loosening up and enjoying the ride. Before I knew it we were to the second aid station, at Mancos. This was the drill: get pulled off the road without running over anyone else, or getting run over yourself by one of the other dozens of cyclists coming or going; find a place to lay the bike down, or prop the two of them together (a delicate art form of balance which we perfected as the week went on); put on your cleat covers, re-apply sunscreen, get water bottles and clomp on up to where the Gatorade barrels were located; hit the porta-potties as necessary; re-apply the Chamois Butt’r; clomp on back to the bikes, remove cleat covers, re-mount and continue.

Aid stations are the best thing ever. During the course of a multi-hour ride, you need to consume a steady stream of carbohydrates, mostly in the form of sugar — stuff that can get into your muscles fast, with a minimum of processing — in order to avoid the dreaded “bonk.” Optimally, this means at least a full bottle of Gatorade, Accelerade, Cytomax, whatever, per hour. RTR obviously has a deal with Gatorade, which was okay, but as the week wore on Carol in particular found that it didn’t work as well for her as some of the other stuff we’ve used. But I digress. Aid stations at RTR were spaced at just about 1-hour intervals, which was a perfect time to top off the bottles and even get another little snack, if needed. Carol and I both carried a supply of Fig Newtons for extra carbs (“Pig” Newtons, as they came to be called), and let me tell you, having never been really all that fond of them anyway, I am REALLY over them now. But they give you a good little pop as you’re riding along.

(On a short ride like this one, on Day 1, we didn’t need to eat anything else while we were riding. But later in the week, after being out for six or seven or more hours, you have to eat as well as drink.)

The rest of the ride into Cortez was nice, uneventful, and fast. We passed by the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park and were then on a mostly flat, hot and dry stretch for the last few miles into town. Into a west headwind, of course. We hooked up with another woman rider who was going at our pace and took turns “pulling” for each other in a mini pace line. The person in front “pulls” and the others draft, of course, or more accurately “suck.” Pulling and sucking. I had many, many, many hours to contemplate their dual natures over the week. Maaaaannnnnnyyyyy.

Carol is a natural puller, being the strong cyclist she is. I’m a natural sucker. What can I say? Anyway, the three of us made short work of the last bit into Cortez, and soon enough we were at the high school.

So: first day’s ride under our belts (or I should say, sweaty waistbands), and now to figure out the REST of the drill.

First: leave bikes at secure lockup area. Check. But remember to take sunscreen out of the seat bag, leave helmet, take water bottles.

Second: where are the baggage trucks? As was the case every day, in every town, the baggage trucks are parked at the farthest possible point from the camping area (usually the football field).

Third: how do we get these two horrible behemoth bags from the trucks to the football field? Today we’re lucky: enterprising kids are offering wagons, wheelbarrows, and the muscles to move them and our bags, all for tips. Hell, kid — you got it.

Sweet! There’s a great spot right inside the fence. We’re set up in pretty quick fashion and pleased with ourselves. It becomes obvious, however, that this “prime spot” was still available because it was right next to the phalanx of porta-potties that follow RTR everywhere. It’s not that they smell — it’s that, starting at about 4:00 in the morning, there’s a steady stream (pardon the pun) of people slamming in and out of them. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Okay. We learned fast.

The next adventure was … The Shower Truck! I’ve never seen such a thing. It’s a semi-trailer, divided in two sections, each with five or six shower stalls. One for the guys, one for the women. Completely cramped quarters, naked happy cyclist bodies of all shapes, sizes, and ages; chatting and laughing, and glorious running water. It was wonderful! The line outside the guys’ side was long, and they looked pretty glum standing out in the hot sun. For one thing, there are a lot more men doing RTR than women, so there’s just a numbers issue there. But one of the women was laughing anyway, saying the guys were too shy to all pile in there like we women did … they were going one at a time.

Dang! Did the ride! Set up the tent! Showered! Clean clothes! A lovely lunch of baked potato with all the fixin’s! We were pretty pleased with ourselves. And since it was baking hot outside, we brought our two Thermarest mattresses into the high school, put them down in the hallway, and sacked out for a couple of hours. All this and a nap, too. Life is goooooood …

After our little snooze, we were ready for more fun. We jumped on a shuttle bus that took us to the Cortez Cultural Center, location of the beer garden and evening’s entertainment. We lounged in the shade, enjoyed our Fat Tires, and started to really settle into the RTR experience. Which is to say … who’s got it better’n us? Ain’t NOBODY got it better’n us!

Carbo loading, Ride the Rockies-style

Ride the Rockies: In the Beginning

June 14 … finally on the road. The week leading up to this day has been really tough — so much to get done, at work, at home, getting everything ready. All the packing, including Carol cleaning and breaking down the bikes to pack in their travel boxes. Trying to get the yard watered, mowed, weeded, writing all the great long complicated instructions for the house sitter. Yikes. I don’t think I was this nervous before our wedding ceremony last summer!

So it was almost a relief when the alarm went off at 4:30; we could get in the truck and point ourselves up into the hills. We got to Breckenridge around 9:00, unloaded the bike boxes onto the transport semi, and got ourselves loaded onto the second bus leaving for Durango.

Ride the Rockies transport semi

Coach USA bus to Durango

It was a long ride and we didn’t arrive until mid-afternoon. Along the way I watched the scenery out the window, snoozed a little, read the Velo News Tour de France special issue, chatted with some folks sitting next to us. I tried not to notice the road too much; the first part of the trip, from Breck to Buena Vista, we’d be re-tracing in a week, only this time on our bikes — and I really didn’t want to see how steep it was.

We all rolled off the bus at Durango High School to a scene of hundreds of people, bags, bikes everywhere. Carol and I took turns getting our registration packets while the other waited in the shade with the duffel bags; the whole process was amazingly organized and streamlined. We each got our numbered wristband, matching numbered sticker for our bike, route and profile map book, jersey, and general instructions. After registering, our next (very important!) stop was to sign up for massages for later in the week — per our RTR veteran Jill’s very good advice. We figured massages after day 2 and on our rest day in Crested Butte would be well-timed.

Registering at Ride the Rockies

The beastly duffels

Not too long after, the semi with all our bikes arrived. A massive bucket brigade formed up behind the truck and people started passing boxes along down to the parking lot. We found our boxes and got the bikes put back together again in about 20 minutes; then we wheeled them down to the “lock up” on the Durango High School tennis courts.

All that was left now was to get our bags squared away for the trip to the hotel. We hauled two big duffels with us: one packed with our camping gear (tent, pads, sleeping bags, pillows, chairs) and one with all our clothes. They were both beasts. We left the camping gear duffel on the baggage truck, and hauled the other duffel with us to the shuttle bus.

During the week, at each host town, a cadre of big Coach USA tour buses served as a shuttle service taking people from the day’s staging area to the local hotels, community events, beer garden, and so forth. The trick was finding the right bus going to the right place, and making sure the driver understood where you wanted to go. We got ourselves and our bag onto a bus for the drive to the Durango Lodge, but ended up getting dropped off about five blocks away — a very long way to carry a 60-pound duffel bag at the end of a long day.

But we got there, got ourselves settled, showered, and walked back downtown to find the beer garden and dinner. The host community for each day’s ride had dinner and entertainment arranged for us, and of course, our very good friends from New Belgium Brewery, right here in Fort Collins, is a major sponsor of RTR, and looking forward to that cold Fat Tire at the end of the day was a major incentive to get the miles under my tires! In the smaller towns, like Montrose and Buena Vista, a single community organization like the Optimists would put on a dinner; in places like Durango and Telluride, several local vendors were out selling burgers, brats, and so on.

But it had been a long day and we called it quits pretty early, and after a brief visit to the Durango-Silverton narrow gauge railroad depot we went back to our room, got our gear sorted out for the morning, and hit the sack — alarm set for 5:00. This was NOT a vacation to sleep in!

Snakes on a plain

I want you to know that I have tried, really tried. All god’s creatures and all of that. I am a lover of nature and I am not a sissy and I am certainly not squeamish. I usually kinda dig looking at scary things.

But I just have never, ever been able to warm up to snakes.

Last November, at a conference for interpretation professionals, I found myself in a workshop where the leader, at one point, handed around several snakes. I watched them being passed from fascinated person to fascinated person, trying to fight down my willies. I couldn’t do it. I finally had to excuse myself from the room and go quiver out in the hallway.

My Grandma Willman had an expression for this: the heebie-jeebies.

Maybe it started when I was a kid … on a Girl Scout field trip, we visited the Herpetology Department at the University of Missouri. We were in a hallway lined with glass terrariums full of various snakes. During the tour I happened to be stopped next to the rattlesnake which, as I looked over, proceeded to strike the glass right in front of my face, inches away.

Okay? I still have bad dreams about rattlesnakes; they are my nightmare creature.

But yes, I understand that not every snake is a rattlesnake, just like not every shark wants to eat you. I do.

But the point is, our yard is literally crawling with snakes this summer.

It used to be kind of a novelty, in years past; part of our little “habitat for inhumanity.” You’d see them a couple of times during the summer. It was okay. It’d give you a start, but it was okay. They’re beautiful little garden snakes, about a foot, foot and half long, with a lovely orange stripe. They eat pests. They’re good.

I saw our first snake just a couple of weeks ago, sunning herself in the flower bed on the east side of the house. She startled me, but then I was cool with it. We named our snake of last summer “Medusa,” so I figured this was Medusa making her appearance.

Then late last week, I saw Medusa out front, getting a drink of water from our bubbling rock. I hadn’t arranged all the rocks around the grate yet, so she could easily get to the water.

Then things got out of hand. Over the weekend we were doing some yardwork, and I dug a small little snake out of the compost pile. I was reaching down to brush the compost off the shovel blade and into the flower bed when I saw a tail wriggling. I was horrified — I thought maybe I’d chopped the poor thing in half. But it was intact, and I put it back in the compost. God knows how many more of them there are in there. Then I surprised a bigger snake in the flower bed on the south side of the garage. I took Carol out to see it (she likes snakes, for god’s sake), and she spotted another one, this one all gray (maybe getting ready to shed?). And then further down the bed, past the giant cranesbill geranium, there was ANOTHER snake.

I had been out there dead-heading the alyssum, and asked Carol to take the clippings back to the compost pile for me, so I could avoid another snake experience. She came back a few minutes later with bad news/good news: she had spotted THREE more snakes on the way (bad news), but Pippin had cornered one, out of curiosity, and although the snake was trapped, it didn’t try to bite her and eventually escaped.

I went back to the garage flower bed the next day, to check on the aphid situation with the Shasta daisies, and OKAY! This time I braced myself for the inevitable. Terry, there WILL be a snake in your flower bed; just look really closely before you start rooting around. But this time, the damn thing FLUNG itself out of the flower bed as I approached (a big one, too, about 18″) and slithered like mad off across the lawn. The dogs are like, what UP? About gave me a heart attack.

Then the weather warmed up sharply yesterday, and no snakes. Maybe they had been so active the days previous because it was cool, and they were trying to stay warm. Checked the daisies yesterday and no snakes. Pulled up some random clumps of grass and headed back to the compost pile. You guessed it:

She looks a little fat, doesn’t she? We assumed that they just ate insects, because they’re not very big snakes; but I think she must have snagged one of the baby mice we see out front behind the hedge.

But I am OVER IT. I think I’ll be spending the rest of the summer indoors.

Present & accounted for

Just found out yesterday that my colleague Brenda Martin and I are going to be presenting at the National Association for Interpretation’s national workshop in Portland, Oregon this November. We’ve got a 2-hour session and will be presenting on the subject of “Sustaining the Circle of Life Through Oral Tradition.” I was going to use my segment to talk about oral history and documentary film, but with the current direction of my explorations, I think I’m going to be talking quite a bit about digital history and whatnot too. By that time I should have a very workable demonstration website based on our Soapstone oral history project materials.

The last time I presented at a conference was 1990 or 1991, I can’t remember which, in Orlando, at the IEEE Professional Communication confab. I think this one will be a whole lot more fun (because for one thing, I promise you, I ain’t gonna be wearing no suit).