Tickfaw 200...A Bleaux by Bleaux Account

So, it's Tuesday, and I am KINDA feeling recovered from another Tickfaw 200 experience, so I figured I'd take the role of a roving reporter and attempt to convey to the good readers of this site just what it's like down in the swamps of Louisiana.



One week ago, I left work and headed off to my local mountain bike trails for a couple hours of fun. 
On a typical day, that ride is what I look forward to.  It is my release, my escape, and my daily affirmation that my place on this planet is not limited to the manufacture of superabrasive grinding tools.  I can enter the forest with a head full of worries, and come out with a clear mind...basically, its a big part in the management of my current level of sanity (which is questioned by some that know me well, lol).  Last Tuesday, however, I was so overcome with the anticipation of what was to transpire over the coming days, the ride barely even registered.  I'd have to think hard right now to tell you what trails I even rode...all that is pertinent to this tale is that after about 2 hours, I made it back to my Jeep in one piece, took off my helmet, and replaced it with my Mercury Racing hat.  Mountain bike Mike was taking a back seat to Motor boat Mike for the next 5 days.



Reauxd Trippin'



The alarm went off at 4am, and the predawn darkness soon found myself, Mike P, and BZ loading our luggage into the bed of my new truck with an air of alacrity not normally associated with that particular hour.  There was frost on the cover of the boat as I pulled it off and stowed it, but the brisk chill didn't even register, as we knew warm temperatures were in our immediate future...850 miles to the south.  Our plan was to stop off in Effingham, IL, and hook up with another couple boats loaded with northerners looking to bust free of the confines of springtime weather and get the aquatic endeavors of 2015 started down in the heat and humidity of southern Louisiana.   At 5:04 am, we were "wheels up," and rolling, and under three hours later, we were exiting for a truck stop in Effingham just as Bill and Troy (43 Checkmate and 37 Outerlimits) were leaving from their hotel across the street.  Bill had come down from Grand Rapids, MI, and Troy over from Indianapolis, IN in order to meet us for a caravan south, and after some greetings and go-juice, the Yankees were following the compass needle pointing at "S."



We managed to pick up a couple more boats on our route (35 Nordic and 26 Checkmate), so there was a fairly impressive train of hardware rolling south...178 feet of fiberglass and approximately 6350 horsepower...which makes me smile.  Two fuel stops later, and we were on the home stretch.  Mike P's girlfriend Katie had flown down to New Orleans, and she beat us to the hotel by 1-1/2 hours or so.  She was both excited and concerned about our eminent arrival...excited that 3 38' Cigarettes and an Eliminator had just pulled into the parking lot...concerned that there would not be room for the rest of us!  I had the same worry, and just told the guys that if there wasn't enough room, we'd turn around and go home...I mean, it had only taken just over 14 hours to get there.



It turned out that Katie's concerns were well-founded, and when I did finally pull into the lot after Bill and Troy (having nearly nailed a light post with the boat on the FINAL turn into the hotel), I actually had to roll over a small curb in order to slip in and leave enough room for the Nordic.  The smaller Checkmate was staying elsewhere, but even without it, there was a VERY impressive impromptu boat show in that hotel lot, as a 30 Skater and 38 Formula made for 10 offshores crammed into a very small space.  A successful arrival turned into a parking lot party, so beers were consumed, new friends were made, and a trip to Chick-fil-a and subsequent meal on the swim platform of the boat rounded out the evening nicely.



NOLA



Things move slower in the south.  I figure it's most probably due to the heat, but, regardless, people and time seem to just slow down.  We experience it every time we go to a restaurant down there, and it always takes a while for us to acclimate to the pace.  Taking that into consideration, the amount of stuff we managed to accomplish on this day at our accelerated "northern" pace was pretty damn impressive.



First on the list was to get over to the Blood River Landing and toss the boat in the water, along the way meeting up with our friends Dale and Eileen who had arrived at 3am from Ohio with their 28 Pantera in tow.  Myself and Rob with the 35 Nordic pulled out at the same time and hit a local gas station to fill the boats, then made our way to Blood River, where we queued up behind a 29 Dave's Custom Boats catamaran and an 18 foot jetboat with a BEAST of a motor under the hatch.  The DCB had a battery issue and needed a jump pack, which I happened to have readily available.  Dale and Eileen were already there, and through our collective efforts, we got our AT, the Nordic, and the Pantera in the water and tied up without issue.  After settling in, covering the boats, and saying hello to our gracious host and event organizer Casey, we were off.



Dale and Eileen had decided they would like to accompany us in our planned journey to the New Orleans' French Quarter, so, despite a considerable lack of sleep, they followed us back to our hotel, where we all piled in to Katie's rental minivan of love and headed to the city.  The final personnel component of the trip (my lovely wife Michelle) was to be added in this foray as well...her plane was to land at 12:45, and I would pick her up.  We navigated to Bourbon Street, then everyone jumped out of the van at a stoplight and headed to a bar, while I jumped behind the wheel for a quick trip to the airport.  Michelle was waiting on the curb when I arrived, and I barely stopped the van for her to get in.  We made it back to the French Quarter in about 15 minutes, parked the van, and found our crew already over one Hurricane deep at Pat O'Brien's.  In a strange coincidence, Mike P ended up meeting a close childhood friend and his wife, so our group grew by two, and we moved from bar to bar, leaving empties in our wake.  My personal favorite was Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, which is the oldest bar in the US.  The whole joint is lit by candlelight, and I could only imagine the tales that the old hearth in the middle of the bar could tell.



After a couple hours of fun, we were back in the minivan of love and headed across the causeway towards Springfield, LA, and Craig and Patti Mears' house for a crawfish boil.  It turned out that the causeway isn't the best place to be at 5 pm on a weekday, and what we thought would be a short drive turned into a trafficky mess.   Also, when you are on a causeway, there is no way to get around the traffic...so we were stuck.  Our gracious hosts didn't mind the delay, thankfully, and invited us in to their house despite our tardiness.  The crawfish were boiled (70 lbs of them!!!), and the drinks were consumed, and we were introduced to a bunch of their friends and neighbors.  I'm not entirely sure when the wheels started coming off for me, but I suspect it was right about the time that I was trying to eat the crawfish...I just could not for the life of me manage to peel the tail and expose the meat with the fluid movements of the well-practiced locals, and I wasn't about to ask somebody to peel my mudbugs FOR me, so I only ate 4 or 5 of the little suckers.  Besides...there was drinking to do, and I was thoroughly enjoying my second frozen alcoholic beverage of the evening.  The combined effect of these last two sentences (piggybacking on the same type if situation earlier in the day...no food, MUCH drink) was to have severe consequence in the morning, but for now...I felt great.  We made it back to the hotel at a reasonable hour, and, apparently, I gave Michelle an excited oral dissertation on Jean Laffite before passing out.



Hang-eaux-ver



I'm pretty sure I was still drunk when I woke up at 6 am on Friday.  I DO know that I tried to throw up, but nothing happened...probably because there wasn't anything IN me.  Well...later on, that proved to be false, but for the time being, I stumbled out of the hotel to McDonalds, hoping a nice greasy Egg Mcmuffin would do the trick.  It did.  I was unable to eat it.  I delayed our departure by about 1/2 hour, as I was basically too dizzy to stand up.  I haven't felt like that in YEARS...probably because I haven't drank anything with Everclear in it for years!  Yes...the nice frozen drink I had consumed had a mixture of rum, vodka, and Everclear, and as delicious as it was...I don't think I will ever want another one.  Katie gave me a pill to help with the nausea, and I was on the road to recovery by the time we hit the Blind River Landing.  I uncovered the boat, and was able to take a couple bites of the now-cold and VERY greasy McMuffin, but decided that it would likely not do me any good.  Gatorade was my friend.



Everyone else was chipper and ready to rock, so as I clambered slowly out of the depths of my pain, they prepped the boat with ice, drinks, and snacks, slapped on suntan lotion, donned our matching bad influence offshore t-shirts (courtesy of Mike P and Katie).  When the motors started roaring, I snapped right to attention, and we all began to make our way out of the canal area we were docked in.  It appeared that the water level had dropped a bit overnight, and a couple of the boats were actually stuck on the bottom...people were having to get out and push.  Bill in the 43 Checkmate was the lucky guy who got a push from a gentleman named Flenner with a 37 Active Thunder like mine, and we followed him and Dale out of the channel.  Just as we were about to get on plane, I saw Dale's hatch go up, and Eileen looked at us and turned a thumb downward.  Uh oh.  Dale had been SLAMMING to get the boat ready, and had only just installed a couple of HP500s in it a few days prior to towing south.  In fact, his trip was delayed for two hours due to having the motors timed...then it was a 15 hour drive.  Well...he had a big problem...water was spraying everywhere, and he couldn't drive the boat.  Rather than leave them to try to repair it, we spun around with them, put their boat on the wall, and they jumped in with us.  7 people on the AT has happened before, so we were good to go.  Craig and Patti graciously waited for us in their 32 Sunsation, as did another boatload of Illinoisians that had recently transplanted to Texas, Greg and Tracy in their 25 Baja.  Craig's buddy in a 36 Baja completed our crew, and though we were a bit disappointed in having lost Bill and Troy and their group, we still had a lot of fun in front of us.



Navigating the twisting waterway out to Lake Maurepas had been an interesting challenge when we first came down to the 200 back in 2012.  Being primarily Lake Michigan boaters, we are not so versed in the turning abilities of our machines...at least not at speed.  We basically point and shoot at the horizon, so running 50 mph through a curvy and narrow waterway whilst navigating around other boats was a BIT intimidating...especially the first year, when BZ managed to get the stern a little loose on his 42 Fountain on a hard turn.  This was my first experience driving MY boat in this scenario, and I was pretty nervous, but I quelled the anxiety, and made it through without incident.  If I were to describe what it felt like...I would make it akin to driving a sports car on a curvy circuit.  The consequence for failure to negotiate a turn would be putting the boat into the cypress trees that lined the shore (something that has happened before on this run) rather than just spinning into a grassy field made things a BIT more interesting, but it was still an awesome experience.



We hit The Prop Stop on the way out and got our cards punched, then headed out to Maurepas, and the channel that connects it to Lake Ponchatrain.  After about a 20 minute run, we got to the town of Madisonville, where we got our cards punched at two more places, and decided to eat lunch at a restaurant called "Friends."  Well...I was absolutely DYING for food, and other members of the group were equally famished...but it took that joint well over 2 HOURS to get us seated and deliver the grub.  Craig and Patti and Greg and Tracy...along with BZ from our crew, smartly decided not to wait, and headed over to Sun Buns for the Powerboat Nation bikini contest.  We got pretty screwed on the deal, because by the time we made it over there, we could not find a place to park in the very crowded, very narrow, and very shallow channel where it is located.  Instead, we kept going, and ended up getting a nice spot at The Prop Stop for the afternoon.  My crew headed up to consume some Worm Buckets, and I hung around the boat to yack with Renzo, the owner of the 40 Baja we were rafted off over, and the owners of the 38 Cigarette that had rafted off me.  Renzo was from Missouri and boated on Grand Lake in Oklahoma, and the guys from the Ciggy were from Splendoria, TX and boated on Lake Conroe.  One of the great appeals of the 200 is meeting people from ALL OVER and talking to them about their "normal" boating in search of more places we might want to visit.  It was a gorgeous afternoon...we watched both Black Diamond MTIs and their owner Derek Wachob's accompanying 41 Cig Mistress with 5 400-hp outboards take off, then Bill Pyburn and Pure Platinum pull in.  The hardware this run draws is beyond compare...50 Nortech cat, 46 Outerlimits, a bunch of Skaters, Eliminators, MTIs, Cigs, Fountains, Formulas...you name it...old and new.  It is just damn impressive walking the docks at each bar.



Eventually, BZ and the other boats showed up at Prop Stop and joined in our raft...which had started with just myself and Renzo, and ended up being about 15 boats out.  We hung out for a couple hours, then decided to head back to Blood River for the party at Crazy Charlie's Funhouse.  Upon pulling back in the channel, we found Troy and Bill already tied to the wall, and just rafted right off them.  Dale and Mike P. went to go put Dale's boat on the trailer, and I proceeded to get back on the horse in terms of rum consumption.  BZ arrived later, and was clearly enjoying himself as evidenced by his communication being limited to requesting another beer by gesturing with his empty can and turning it upside down.



Rocking our Chicago shirts was a great idea, as I can't tell you how many people came up and talked to me just for that reason.  I met people from all over the place...but the locals were the most incredulous.  They simply could NOT understand why anyone would drive so far just to come to the Tickfaw.  To those of us that have been....it is obvious!  Its a party like no other. 



The Funhouse itself is only open for the 200, and they ship in copious quantities of alcohol, served out of a boat-shaped bar that sits 100 feet of concrete padding away from the live band each night.  Country music does not compute for this guy...but what the heck...when in Rome, right?  I ran into a bunch of people I had known from assorted online boating forums, like Joey (Spanish Fly) from Indianapolis, RB Hixon and his crew from TN, Mike Goldbaugh from AL, a BUNCH more people from Texas, Christ Helt from OK, and Greg and Yvonne (Cash Bar) from Florida.  There was a Cajun food-truck out in the gravel lot amongst the RVs full of poker runners, and we hit that for dinner.  A few more drinks, and we all decided to call it an evening, so it was back to the minivan and the hotel, which was about a 20 minute drive.  On the way out to the van, I glanced across the channel from where our boat was parked, and saw a pickup truck that had managed to slide down the grassy slope and come to a stop JUST before plunging off the seawall and onto a boat.  I was glad to be ending my night in my current fashion, rather than deal with that situation!


No Sleaux-ing Down


Another beautiful morning greeted us on Saturday...of the three years we have done this event, this was the nicest, weather-wise.  It was MELTING hot the first year, and a little cooler last year (jackets on the initial Friday run)...this year could NOT have been better.  Low to mid 80s, couple clouds every once in a while to relieve you from the sun...just awesome.  Today was to be "Skater-Day" for Craig and his boys (Patti prefers their Sunsation to their 30 Skater with outboards), so we traded BZ for Patti....we definitely got the better end of the deal.  After a quick stop for some more go-juice in the AT, we were off.


First on the agenda was a run across Lake Maurepas to the Blind River Bar, which is only accessible by water (they have to bring in food and drink by boat each day).  Craig was a nice guy, and let me pass him out on the lake before he turned into a dot on the horizon.  Two more Skaters did the same along the way, but my 60 mph cruise stayed just in front of a third cat before we entered the winding river and made our way to the bar.  It still felt early in the morning, but even before noon, the DJ was blasting tunes and there was a crowd of revelers on the docks.  I backed in next to Craig...oh yeah...for the uninitiated...BACKING in and docking with your stern cleats tied off is the way they do it down there...so practice at home!...and then a gorgeous 40 Skater with 1650s pulled in and tied off me.  We went in and had one of their signature frozen drinks, a Mud Bucket, and some jambalaya, and enjoyed the show for a while.  I eventually went back and hung out on the boat, and got a ton of compliments on it, which was cool, considering the amazing boats that were at the run.  Finally, we gathered the crew and fired the motors, bound upriver to the next card stop and some lunch.


Past Blind River Bar, the Tickfaw 200 boater is treated to yet another change in scenery, as the "river" turns into a diversion canal lined with seawalls and really nice homes.  There are a few marinas and restaurants as well, which require no wake zones.  We went past Canal Bank, which was the card stop, and headed to Hilltop Bar...which I pointed out was a bit of a misnomer due to the utter lack of hills in the general vicinity.  There, Cajun-speed was in effect once again, and it took well over an hour to get our lunch...next year, we might have some kind of contingency plan for eating...like sub sandwiches or pb and j on the boat, rather than getting stuck at these restaurants during the primo part of the day.  At any rate, my catfish sandwich was excellent.


On board the boats again, Katie got to ride in the Skater, as it was her birthday.  I'm pretty sure her smile could be seen from outer space.  We got our card punched at Canal Bank, and just as we were exiting the no wake zone, Bill and Troy showed up.  They spun around, so the 36 Baja running with us, the Skater, my AT, AND some other guy in a 30 Baja all ended up accelerating at once...on a waterway that was only about 200 feet wide!  I was pushed out to the right by Bill, and once I got on plane, had to back off in order to avoid being hosed down by his rooster tail.  The smaller Baja tried to keep up for a bit, but we ended up leaving him.  On the stretch from the last no wake zone to Blind River Bar, Troy chilled a bit and ran up on plane next to me.  His passengers were Kevin and Kristy...our friends from Traverse City, MI, and Kev had a GoPro on us.  I'm sure that's going to be a cool vid, as we rolled up together and ran it up to around 70 before I backed out and slipped in behind him.  It ended up being pretty fortunate that I did so, as about 1/4 mile before BRB, I was running about 50 and passing a cruiser on the left, when a kid on a SeaDoo suddenly came out from one of the houses on the left.  I cut the throttles back and steered right...hoping I had enough room to get by the cruiser...and very fortunately, split them without incident.  I was literally SHAKING, I was so freaked out.  If that kid had moved his finger another 1/2 inch and been going a TINY bit faster, he'd have driven right into my path.  I'm writing this just as an informative piece for anyone else who might venture down for the run...keep this possibility in mind!  I feel lucky, someone else might not be so fortunate.


My nerves had calmed somewhat by the time we hit the open waters of Maurepas, and we shot straight across to Sun Buns, where we'd been unable to go on Friday due to the crowds.  There were very few boats there, so we slipped in and had a few cocktails whilst chatting with our local pals.  When we decided to pull up and leave...I became suddenly sad.  This was to be the last run.  It all happened so fast...I wanted to stay!  But, alas, boats aren't cheap, and gas isn't free, so this was to be first leg of our return to reality.  We passed by the mob scene at the Prop Stop (wet t-shirt/hula-hoop contest earlier in the day had BROKEN their back deck due to the crowd!), and came into our channel at Blind River Landing and tied off for the final time just before the 7pm cutoff time for turning in the cards.  I broke out the rum, and then Mike P and I headed over to stand in line for the poker hand drawing (the line was RIDICULOUSLY long...probably about an hour).  I ran dry, and went back to get more rum, as the girls set up the grill we had bought and got ready to cook burgers.  The patties weren't thawed yet, but I had a pair of warm 525s that took care of that problem!  We had an awesome tailgate party as the sun went down, blasting 80s music out of our rental minivan of love and eating burgers, whilst trying hard not to be carried off by the copious amount of mosquitoes that descended upon us.


The Saturday night party at the Fun House has been a bit of a low key deal for us, as the daunting reality of a 13+ hour drive in the morning tends to harsh my buzz in a big way.  We all had fun, though, and met a bunch more people, including yet another Texas crew that helped us celebrate Katie's birthday with a song and sharing the cake that Dale and Eileen had bought.  I finally caught up with Brad from Powerboat Nation, and had him get our picture for the site, per Michelle's insistence!  By the time 11 pm rolled around and the winners of the poker hand were announced, we were ready to call it good.  So, we headed back to the trusty minivan, and headed back to the hotel to dream of the times we had just experienced.


Reaux-ling home...


Alas...all good times must come to an end.  Katie, Mike P, BZ and myself left the hotel, the minivan, and Michelle (the Poker Run Princess, as we called her, would be returning the rental van and flying home) just after 7 am.  The mission was a simple one...get home safely...but was complicated by the fact that the boat was still in the water and the trailer wasn't hooked up.  I found myself instantly jealous of the guys with boats sitting on trailers in the hotel parking lot, but we would be there soon!  Dale and Eileen already had their boat on the trailer, and we saw them leaving just as we were pulling in to Blood River...on their way to a 15 hour journey back to Ohio.  Troy and Bill's boats were out of the water and sitting on trailer at Blood River, but they and their trucks were still back at the hotel eating breakfast.  We were the ones at the back of the pack. 


There is only one launch ramp at Blood River, and, ostensibly, it is open when everyone and their brother needs to pull out on Sunday morning.  We had no trouble at all last year...but this year, an MTI was sitting parked in ramp from the night before.  Crap.  We rallied, though, as there was another, public, ramp only about 1/2 mile up the road.  The trailer was hooked up, and Mike P and BZ drove the rig over while Katie and I headed over to the boat, uncovered it, fired up, and made it to the ramp just as the other two were ready to back down.  Perfect timing.  The boat went on perfectly, we loaded all of our luggage into the cabin (it was supposed to rain back home), did a cursory wipe down, and were on the road.


Three fuel stops later, with BZ behind the wheel, we pulled in to my driveway, our mission accomplished.  Roughly 1700 miles of driving for three awesome days of Louisiana fun.  Was it worth it?  Geaux there yourself and find out!

Bro...do you even #endurance?

Preamble.

I am in North Carolina.  Pisgah Forest near Brevard, to be more specific.   I ended up here as the culmination of yet another parasitic idea that wormed its way into my mind, laid its eggs, and eventually took over the thoughts and ideas of its host and convinced him that, not only was a possibility, but it would be a SPECTACULAR experience that MUST BE DONE.  Sometimes I wish there was some kind of vaccine against such things, because I seem to be awfully susceptible to this process.  Anyway…the part that “sealed the deal” was that I turned 40 this summer, so what better way to celebrate but to ride my mountain bike 141 miles over 5 days while climbing over 26,000 feet?  So here I am.

Infection…and treatment

My symptoms began almost one year ago while on a ride.  I thought about doing something big for my 40^th, and something stupid, because that’s what I do.  It had to have the elements of physical difficulty bordering on the insane, but also have the penchant for fun…because, despite the fact that I like to challenge my body, my mind INSISTS on fun.  I had read about the Transylvania Stage Race and the BC Epic recently, and the Pisgah Stage Race some time before, and liked the idea of a multi-day event.  Pisgah was someplace I’d always wanted to visit and ride, so, after a painfully short thought process (at this juncture, I am considering it almost impulsive), I decided it was a goal worth attempting.

So, I began to ride.  As a past participant in many regimented training programs, I currently adhere to one simple rule…no training programs.  This means no watch, no set schedule, no cycle-computer, no Strava, no GPS…just the ride.  That is what I am looking for here at PSR..the ride…so that is what I trained for.  A big turning point for me came on Thanksgiving morning.  I left the house on my new fatbike, headed for two trail systems and eventually my parent’s house for dinner.  It was 16 degrees, and my Camelback hose was frozen before I was 5 miles in, but 5 hours later, I arrived.  I was cold, I was exhausted, but DAMN I was happy.  I hadn’t really “trained” for a ride like that, but I knocked it out without a thought.  I figured for PSR, I would really just rely on the fact that somehow, my legs can do this kind of thing, lol.  Just to hedge the bet, however, I’ve spent the last 10 months or so riding and running almost every day that I could.  That included a winter that was one of the coldest and snowiest on record in Chicago, a winter that saw me riding through 6 inches of fresh powder (well…mostly pushing the bike), and post-holing through knee-deep snow in the woods…product plug here for Brooks Adrenaline ASR with GoreTex…my feet were never cold!  Also…major product plug for Kati Pritchett’s pogies (protective sleeves that fit over bike grips)…they are the BOMB!

About 1 month prior to the race start, we had just returned from a vacation in Florida, and I knew I was really going to have to hit it hard.  Instead, I got sick.  I rarely get sick, and usually, it’s a couple day thing and I’m done.  Not this time…two trips to doctors, a misdiagnosis of bronchitis followed by a week later being diagnosed with enterovirus that “just has to run its course” meant a severe compromise to my training program.  I still rode, but I was ravaged.  2-1/2 or 3 hour rides were nightmarish in their difficulty…and I began to seriously doubt my ability to even do the race.  Even a 5 day course of steroids didn’t exactly knock it out of my system, but by the time I left last Sunday, I was breathing almost normally and my snot-level was approaching normal for the first time in a month.  Throw in a recurrence of patellar tendonitis in my left knee, and my confidence level wasn’t exactly high…especially considering that the more information I gathered about the race, the more I realized that it would likely be the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted.

 

Nerves.

Well, the time came to say goodbye to my lovely and extremely understanding wife, and on Sunday morning, I hooked up our trusty popup camper and headed in a southeasterly direction.  About 10 hours later, I arrived at Davidson River campground, which, conveniently, is the location for the start and finish of Stage 1 and 2 of the race.  My friends Marty and Omar were down here “working” on the house Marty is building over in Etowah…I use quotes here because “working” looked a LOT like drinking beer and occasionally mountain biking.  Anyway, they were good enough to snag me an electric site, which are only available on a first-come, first-serve basis, so that worked out very well for me.  After I finished setting up, they showed up, and we went out for dinner and a couple beers.  I had been feeling increasingly freaked out about this race possibly resulting in either my death, or, worse yet, a DNF, and my fears were not exactly allayed when I showed Marty the course profiles, and he alternately said things like “Oh my God, THAT is going to be hard” and “You can do it, though.”  We ate a great meal at Blue Ridge Pizza, and I enjoyed a couple Yeunglings, before heading back to the camper for the night.  We made a tentative plan to go for a short ride on Monday, so I could loosen up the legs and get a feel for what Pisgah had to offer.

I was up early, and made myself a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage, then shot Marty a text (my only means of communication out here…no cell service), and I headed up to his homesite, which is spectacular…he has his own 13 acres on top of a mountain.  We headed out to Bent Creek trailhead, and Marty, Omar, and Jenna the Amazing Trail Dog did about 1-1/2 hours of nice flowy, but very climby, singletrack.  It was a small window into what I would be in for…and I liked it.  We followed that up with a great lunch at 12 Bones BBQ, then headed back to Marty’s, where I picked up my truck and bid them farewell.

I headed back down to camp, grabbed a shower, and, like a wave…the nerves showed up again in force.  I know from years of competition that burning nervous energy is just about the worst thing you can do, but my lack of confidence in my abilities was pretty much trumping my rational thought.  I headed off to the meet and greet dinner with an unhealthly amount of apprehension, which wasn’t helped when the other races began showing up.  These guys and girls looked GOOD.  And…there was only going to be 57 of us.  Yikes.  I immediately set my goal to be a top 50 finisher.  And that was hopeful.  I met and talked to a couple other riders, and found out that there was at least a couple guys that were in the same boat as me…first time riding here…first time stage racers…and not super-serious athletes.  This bolstered my confidence a LITTLE bit.  Lee was from Birmingham, AL, Charlie from Raleigh, North Carolina, and Jesse from New Jersey were at my table.  Lee and Charlie were first time stage racers like myself, Jesse had done the BC Epic 7 or 8 years ago, and had also done the La Ruta De Los Conquistadors in Costa Rica.  Damn.  Confidence lowered.  I exchanged some texts with Michelle that night, describing the competition.  Some guys were so skinny it looked like a strong wind might blow them into the next county, then there was the requisite dreadlock guy (hey, it’s a mountain bike race!), long-hair guy (same), very tattooed guy (well…lots of them), and a chick with a Mohawk and a LOT of tattoos.  Michelle asked where this left me…I said…towards the back, I think.  Lol.  I didn’t stick around long after dinner, wanting to get off my feet.  I retired to my camper, and hearkened back to my old high school cross-country technique of watching the movie “Bloodsport” prior to an event.  I went to bed nervous.

 

Stage One:  Looking Glass Loop 28 miles, 6678 feet of climbing

I woke up nervous, too.  And cold.  Temps dropped into the upper 40s at night.  I resisted firing up the heat in the camper for a while, but finally gave in…placing my shoes in front of the warm air to at least start my feet in a warm place.  Two big bowls of Cocoa Krispies, a banana, and a Honey Stinger waffle later, I was ready to go.  And, suddenly, I had a thought.  I have done a harder day than this on a bike…the Mohican 100 was 100 miles and 11,000 feet of climbing in one day…and I survived that.  There was no real reason that this was going to kill me.  Right?  Right?!?  Well, that calmed me down a bit, and I rode a little warmup around the campground, stopping to meet fellow racer Rhonda, who, with her husband Rick, are here from NEW ZEALAND!  I think that‘s the first Kiwi I’ve ever met.  I ran into Lee, Charlie, and Jesse from the night before, and I could see in their faces that I wasn’t alone in my nervousness, but the vibe at that starting line was SOOOO relaxed, it was, well, a mountain bike ride.  Rhonda was there with a friend from Australia, I spoke to a guy from Virginia, and another from Maryland that had grandkids in Chicago.  Just a lot of nice people out for a day on the bike.  Excellent.  And then the gun went off.

I had been nervous about the start, because on the course profile, there was to be a 6 mile rollout on the roads.  My trusty Salsa Spearfish is a lot of things, but it is decidedly NOT fast on the pavement.  I was worried that I was going to be on the rivet through the entire six miles just to keep up with the pack.  Fortunately, everyone seemed to be more concerned with just keeping a nice easy pace…almost neutral…nobody attacked….and I just sat in and pedaled along nicely.  The road kicked up a bit, and a gap formed with about 20 riders…and I wasn’t one of them.  I ended up in no-mans land right away, with one girl and a guy on a Specialized.  We tailed the lead group by about 150 feet for a while, and I was pretty happy just keeping visual contact, when the Specialized guy says “Let’s bridge up to the group.”  Well, I’m a nice guy and couldn’t say “Go f#$% yourself,” so I jumped on his wheel, then put in a hard effort and we managed to rejoin the leaders, just as we turned onto a gravel road, and began to CLIMB.  I knew from studying the profile that this initial climb was going to be about 4 miles long, so I settled in at a comfortable pace, and kept telling myself to ride my own race.  A couple guys went by me, but for the most part, I held my ground.

At the “summit” of the climb, we dropped into the first singletrack of the race.  What a wake up call…a steep descent featuring a couple of three-foot drops formed by water bars…totally gnarly rootbeds, babyhead rocks…it was anything BUT relaxing.  Eventually, it started to kick upwards again…with a vengeance.  We were headed up the Mullinax trail to Squirrel Gap, which I had been warned about by a multitude of people.  The Mullinax climb was pretty brutal, but far from the worst thing I would see all day.  Squirrel Gap was as advertised…rocks and roots that required getting off the bike about every 2-300 feet…seriously unridable stuff…and it lasted about 4 miles.  Just when I thought things were getting better (the end of SG is a bit more tame), we ended up at Horse Cove, where myself, a couple singlespeeders from Maryland (one on a Surly Pugsley fatbike!) and Jesse from New Jersey (also on a fatbike, a carbon Borealis Yampa) spent the next 10 or 15 minutes HIKING and pushing our bikes due to the insane grade and washed-out roots.  When that finally relented past Funnel Top, we had a nice doubletrack downhill to the aid station at mile 18.  I was super stoked to hit that point and still feel pretty good…breathing was normal, legs felt good…and only 10 miles to go!  Could it be that I’ve got this in the bag?  Not so fast.  I only stopped at the aid station long enough to suck down an energy gel, and pedaled off slowly on a gravel road…kind of a “moving rest.”  I knew there was another four mile climb ahead, and it started mildly.  I passed a couple guys, then got passed by Jesse and a girl that was seriously putting down the power.  This was the second chick that passed me…the first was on Squirrel Gap…she went by me like she was on a flat trail!)  I stayed with them until the climb turned into a walk, and then kept up for another 5 minutes or so before they got away.  I ended up with yet another guy from Maryland walking uphill, and eventually gapped him.  Now, when I say walking “uphill,” I mean climbing up stuff that would have been difficult WITHOUT trying to push/carry a 26-lb bike. (authors note:  just had to pause in my writing as a walking stick insect is climbing my laptop!)  After about ½ hour of hiking and pushing, it became pretty apparent that this would NOT be an easy last couple miles.  I was quite literally just trying to keep one foot in front of the other and not trip, and had to keep picking up the bike to clear roots, downed trees, and huge rocks.  At one point, I was faced with what could only be described as a wall about 6 or 7 feet tall.  Apparently, this place puts the MOUNTAIN in mountain biking.  A couple times I thought I was at the top, only to be confronted with even MORE 20% grade and hiking.  After an eternity, the trail turned downward.  Only, rather than being relieved, I went from exhausted hiking to ass-puckering descent!  The trail was totally washed out, and in the interest of self-preservation, more than a few times, I had to stop and gingerly make my way around huge ruts and waterbars.  On more than one occasion, I lost control, and was lucky to keep the rubber side down.  Falling in this area would have had SEVERE consequence.  It lasted about a mile or so, and when it finished, I hit the start of the “enduro” section that is built into every stage.  For the unfamiliar, this is a “race within the race” that basically times a MOSTLY downhill section, with an award going to the best descender in the race.  Well, this particular enduro was two miles long…and the end was the finish line.  However, it began with about ½ mile of UPHILL, that again had me off the bike and walking.  When I DID start going downhill, the pucker-factor was right up in the 90% region, and I again had to stop a couple times and shimmy down some of the worst of it.  After about a mile, it turned into beautiful, machine-made trail with big launchable waterbars…I was going so fast my arms and wrists were SCREAMING…I actually had to stop and let them rest.  Resting on the downhill was NOT part of the race program, lol.

I blasted out of the woods and across the finish line, noting that my time was 3 hours and 31 minutes, but I haven’t yet seen what place I’m in…not that it matters much to me.  I am just happy to have survived!  After a great lunch (leftover meatball grinder from Sunday night) and a Zombie Killer cyser, I’m feeling pretty good right now.  Of course, I haven’t stood up since I started typing…so that could change rapidly!  Heading to the nightly awards at 6, which gives me time for another drink and a washing of the bike.  Laters until tomorrow.

 

Stage 2:  White Squirrel Loop 29 miles, 5118 feet of climbing

The more I looked at the profile for today’s stage, the more the nerves started to kick in.  Whereas yesterday was one mile shorter and had a LOT more climbing, this one certainly looked to be no picnic, with 5 big climbs on the menu.  I took solace in the fact that a couple of the climbs were on gravel roads, as opposed to the insanely steep singletrack that is so prevalent in these parts.  Once again, Cocoa Krispies were the morning fare (why mess with a good thing?), a couple bananas and some apple juice, and I was ready to go.  It was slightly warmer this morning…yesterday was 49 degrees…I could see my breath… but I still ended up kicking on the heater in the popup to dry my arm warmers and gloves, and give my shoes a little heat.  With a high temp forecast in the lower 70s, and a LOT of elevation change as well as some serious canopy in what they refer to as a temperate rain forest, I again went with a wicking base layer and arm warmers (even if, for the second day in a row, they lasted about 5 minutes, lol).   We started on a short loop of doubletrack that, unlike yesterday’s relatively flat road start, kicked up immediately.  And painfully.  I am running a 2 x 10 setup on my bike (2 rings in front, 10 gears on the cassette in the rear), and while my ENTIRE time training was spent in the big ring up front, pretty much 90% of this race has seen me in the small ring.  I felt pretty good…my legs were a little sluggish, but I did well to find a rhythm and even passed a few people who really seemed to be struggling.  We went back through the Start/Finish area and hit the road for a bit, before climbing again on the Thrift Cove doubletrack, which ended up on some pretty severe singletrack featuring yet another hike-a-bike up Black Mountain.  I survived it pretty well, with the notable exception of my right shoe rubbing all of the skin off my heel (we will probably be wearing two socks tomorrow!).  The descent off the mountain was SUPER fun, and I ended up with the couple that is leading the team competition.  She leads, and he follows.  She passed me just as the downhill started, and I followed her down…I asked her partner if he wanted by, but he said no, so I just tried like hell to stay on her wheel.  When the trail turned up again, I got by her and left them on the ensuing gravel climb.  At this point, I ran into the guys on singlespeeds from Maryland (including the guy winning the ss part of the race).  I passed one, and hung on to the wheel of the other as we bombed down Buckhorn Gap, on the way splashing through about 5 refreshing mountain streams…and apparently past a nest of yellowjackets that scored on almost every rider in the race!  I was lucky and escaped a stinging.  We hit the first rest stop at Mile 14, and I grabbed an energy gel and ½ of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and started up a 4-mile-long gravel road climb.  At least I wasn’t alone for the whole thing…I met my first local...he was 52 years old.  He left me after about 2 miles and I never saw him again…damn I hope I’m that strong in 12 years!  The road flattened out at the 18 mile mark, then turned into a screaming descent which I was thoroughly enjoying…until the hard right turn that sent us STRAIGHT up for about another mile.  It was so steep that about 80% of it had to be walked…at least by me…but once we hit the summit, there was a 2.22 mile descent at Avery Creek that was the day’s enduro segment.  I almost crashed about 5 times at the top, and finally had to rest my poor wrists and arms for about 10 seconds, and two guys got past me…one of which was Jesse on the fatbike.  We splashed through a good sized stream at the bottom, then had to balance and shuffle across a log bridge while carrying our bikes over a larger stream.  Jesse was GONE, but I ended up climbing the next three miles with a guy named Kasper from Brooklyn, NY.  We exchanged mutual feelings about not having ANYTHING like these trails in our respective areas of the country, and eventually I dropped him.  At the 27 mile mark, I was again off the bike and climbing ridiculously steep trail…I found myself wondering for the umpteenth time if anyone I ride with back home would even consider this as part of their ride…I’m thinking NO.  Right at the top, I was passed by a girl from Australia, who is leading the women’s enduro, so I knew I wouldn’t see her again.  For some reason, when I looked at the race profile, I was thinking that I had another big hike-a-bike coming, and the same NASTY downhill that finished yesterday’s stage.  What a pleasant surprise when, after a few minutes of descent, I realized that this was going to be the runout to the finish.  Of course, it wasn’t easy, as I slammed into the SAME wall I hit the day before and just took a little more skin off my left elbow, but mostly it was super flowy, and I was launching waterbars like crazy, mostly out of excitement that I had knocked another stage down.

 

Finish time was 3 hours, 45 minutes, and I seem to be finishing just outside of the top half of the Open racers.  Funny, when I signed in on Monday night, I was asked for the first time if I wanted to be in the Masters competition or the Open!  There are an equal amount of guys in each section, and I figured I have the rest of my life to compete in Masters, so I entered Open.  I am the oldest guy in the Open, lol, but my placing would only be SLIGHTLY better had I entered Masters.

Now I’ve got my feet up, some Dylan on the radio, an Angry Orchard in the cupholder, some Wheat Thins to snack on, and I’m enjoying myself.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a little easier, but most people have been saying “Stage races start on Day 3,” so we will see if my legs answer the bell.

 

Stage 3:  Promised Land Loop 28.5 miles, 3241 feet of climbing

Three down, two to go.  I’m tempted to call it ½ down, BUT tomorrow is supposed to be the longest and toughest stage, featuring a 12 mile climb that I can’t really say I’m terribly excited about.  That said, I am still here, and I still have motor control over my legs, so I guess I’ll be giving it a go. 

I’ve mentioned before that Pisgah is a temperate rain forest…well…rain it did…ALL NIGHT LONG.  And I think I heard every solitary drop as it hit the camper.  I barely slept…we’ll call it 3 or 4 hours…but, when 6:30 rolled around and my alarm was to go off, I was wide awake and ready to go.  It was to be an early day…the previous stages had started at 9 am pretty much across the street from my site…for this one, and tomorrow’s, I had to be up the road about 10 miles to the Cradle of Forestry (the very first school of forestry in the US) by 8am to load myself and my bike into the shuttle that would take us about an hour up into the woods for the start.  It was a long and bumpy ride, but my buddy Lee and I were talking with a dude named Garth (previously referred to as “dreadlock guy”), and it passed fairly quickly with him relating tales from the front of the pack, as he currently sits in second in the Master’s category.  He has done the Leadville 100 14 times, including a 13^th place finish, and regularly finished in 8 hours or under, which pretty much puts him in supernatural territory as far as I’m concerned.  He rides for Specialized, and lives in Columbus, OH, and travels the country as a medical consultant and bike racer.  Cool deal.

We got out of the bus and rode about 1-1/2 miles up to the starting area, and when the gun went off, we were treated to a FAST 4 mile downhill on gravel.  I started conservatively, but ended up with a good group that included the women’s leader.  As soon as we turned into the singletrack, I figured I’d get dropped, but my legs responded nicely, and I kept with the fast moving line through the wet, rooty trail.  We climbed a bit, and as soon as we hooked left and began to descend, I fell into the STUNG category along with about everyone else in the race.  A bee got me on the right quad…I couldn’t even take my hands off the bar to swat at it…it still hurts pretty good right now.  Another guy got stung on the lip or cheek, and the whole side of his face is pretty grotesquely swollen.  We funneled out onto a gravel section, then an actual FLAT section of singletrack (first one in almost 90 miles!), and I stayed with the fast movers, finally easing up a bit when we started a 4 mile gravel climb.  Mad style points to the guy that passed me and the rest of the group when we hit the road whilst doing a wheelie, lol.  I have been telling myself pretty much the entire time to just ride my race, so even though I ended up with the same couple that I did yesterday plus another guy who was an Asheville local, I didn’t push myself to keep their pace, and they rode away from me gradually.  The rest stop at 13 came VERY quickly, and I was amazed that we were almost ½ done already.  I grabbed a banana and started uphill, again enjoying the not-so-steep ramps on gravel, which continued straight into the enduro segment.  Today’s enduro was pretty brutal after about ½ mile, with a ton of rooty drops, some mud holes, and a few very sketchy log bridges across rivers that I chose to just walk.  Apparently another gentleman didn’t make that choice, and came walking back up the trail yelling and swearing, and clearly in a lot of pain.  Word is he either broke an arm or dislocated his elbow…yeesh.  Anyway, the enduro stuff doesn’t really mean anything to me other than a mostly downhill section, so I cautiously picked my way through the techy stuff and rode through to the end.  On the next gravel uphill, I knew the climb was about 3 miles, and turned to singletrack after about 1 mile, and I was thinking how glad I was that there wasn’t a lot of hike-a-bike today.  Yeah……..shouldn’t have done that.  I’ll bet I walked over a mile of that singletrack, and for the first time, my legs were screaming for mercy.  I stopped a couple times, but only for a second or two, but it was a rough go.  When the terrain did flatten out enough for me to get on and pedal, the wet rootbeds and wooden bridges on the trail kept me on my toes, and more than occasionally out of my pedals, as they gave an entirely new meaning to the word “slippery.”  Just as I was getting to what turned out to be the top, I had a little piece of deja-vu, as Claire from Australia pedaled past, same as yesterday.  Today, however, I managed to hang on to her wheel, and we both ripped down some SWEET singletrack off Daniel Ridge…probably the best trail I’ve yet ridden.  That gave way to more gravel, and at aid station two, I stopped and grabbed a PB & J while Claire kept rolling.  I ended up about 20 seconds behind her due to my stop, and basically stayed at that distance for the remaining 5 miles of rolling gravel road. 

My finish time for the “rest stage” was 2 hours, 41 minutes and change, and despite the pain my legs went through at the top of the singletrack, they recovered nicely, and I really metered my effort at the end to leave some in the tank for tomorrow.  I also finished ahead of a couple of the guys that beat me the last two days…so maybe I’m getting better?  Or maybe they took it easier than me?  We’re getting dinner tonight at the nightly awards presentation, so I will be showing up hungry.  Time for a drink and some nachos.

 

Day 4:  Carl Schenck Loop 34 Miles,  5178 feet of climbing

Well, today’s stage was as advertised…toughest one yet.  We started climbing right out of the gate, and I hit the Club Gap singletrack in a decent group that included some of the other people I’ve been encountering all week…Brenda and Lee of the duo competition, Kasper from Brooklyn, Claire from Australia, and a guy I’ve seen a few times, Dick, from St. Maarten, among others.  The descent off Black Mountain was a blast, dropping us down the S. Mills River trail, with some nice, flowy singletrack bench cut into a ridge.  Wetness again was the order of the day…its perpetually damp down here, and there were more than a few roots and rocks that required constant attention…one little slip…and boom, you are down.  A rider in my category had to leave the race today as he slipped one time and opened up his knee pretty good.  Just as we hit Squirrel Gap and its 4 miles of treacherous roots, Brenda went off trail and down a rocky area…ending up about 6 feet down.  Talk about hard core…she might have a broken rib…but not only did she just respond “I’m fine” to every query regarding her status, but she finished the day…passing me again about 3 miles later.  I wound up with Kasper, and we picked our way through Squirrel Gap and the following descent to Laurel Creek.  Just as we hit the bottom, Dick from St. Maarten apparently did so as well, hitting his head on a rock.  He insisted he was fine, and correctly gave us his name and where he was from, so we rode on without concern.  We were about 16 miles in when the climb began on a grassy doubletrack, and although Dick rode away from me, I dumped Kasper and also passed two other guys…one of which was Matt from Memphis, who is the guy right in front of me in the overall.  I climbed fairly conservatively, but, as I said before, I have a talent for turning off my brain and knocking out long uphills, so I was moving pretty good.  I went through the first rest stop at about 20 miles, and then hit the singletrack up Laurel Mountain.  I had caught Dick by the rest stop, but he rode away again on the single, and I wound up with Mike from Maryland, who is leading the singlespeed competition.  He led for a while, but has a REALLY hard time on the wet roots, as the best way to get over them is to stay in the saddle and pedal…something that is next to impossible on a singlespeed going uphill.  I got by him, and stayed conservative on my pedaling even though the grade was really not that bad…but I knew it kicked up severely at the end.  When it DID kick up, it was after about 10 miles of constant uphill, and talk about twisting the proverbial knife in the back!  The next 2 miles were absolutely brutal…we probably walked well over a mile of it…and it only got steeper the higher you got.  I actually was receiving text messages when we got to the top!  I can only describe it as literally pushing the handlebars above my head and taking tiny footsteps, while having to steer around roots that sometimes required lifting the entire bike to get over…all the while trying like hell to not slip and fall backwards.  If mountain biking has a nightmare scenario, this has to be it!  When I finally hit the enduro segment, I was both happy to be near the top, and concerned, as the night before, the race organizer Todd had promised an uphill section to start it that would “make you bleed out your eyeballs.”  And…he was pretty correct in that assessment.  Another ½ mile or so of hike-a-bike, and FINALLY the downhill started.  Now, I had just climbed about 12 miles or so, but this downhill actually made me want to go up instead.  Never have I ridden anything quite like it…huge slabs of rock, boulders everywhere, drops, roots…and killer switchbacks that had me getting familiar with the local flora on more than one occasion.  I would LOVE to see somebody good go down Pilot Rock…because I am NOT good at it, and proved it by losing my position in front of Memphis Matt.  I did discover ½ way down that my fork was still locked out, and that my rear shock was still in “climb” mode, but I’m really not sure that would have made much difference.  When I finally finished the two mile downhill, I rolled past aid station #2, and a girl there asked how I was feeling.  I answered quite honestly that I felt like I’d just been hit by a mountain.  Fortunately, what followed was a nice rolling 4 mile gravel road section, and a short bit of pavement to the finish line.  4 hours and 28 minutes…which was pretty much exactly what I had guessed it would take me.  Only two big climbs tomorrow, then a long downhill to the FINISH.

I guess I should take an opportunity to say what has been carrying me along on this adventure, at least for the bike geeks in the crowd, anyway.  I am rolling a 2013 Salsa Spearfish with a Rock Shox SID up front and a Fox Float CTD in the back.  That gives me 100mm of travel up front and about 80mm in the back.  Power to the ground is through a SRAM 2 x 10 drivetrain, with an X.7 front derailleur and an XX rear derailleur, with XX shifters and a carbon XX crankset.  I’m attached to the bike (at least most of the time) by Time ATAC pedals, and Bontrager grips.  SRAM is also supplying the stopping, with some new Guide hydraulic brakes and 160mm rotors.  Bontrager RXL carbon bars and a carbon seatpost, an aluminum Bonty 90mm stem, and a Bonty seat complete the frame componentry.  As for the rolling parts, Mavic Crossmax SLR wheels shod with Geax Saguaro 29” x 2.2” tires seem to be getting the job done.  So far, its been pretty bulletproof, and I have flogged this thing like no other bike I’ve ever owned!

 

 

Stage 5: Land of Waterfalls Loop 25.5 miles, 3186 feet of climbing

With everything I’ve dealt with this week as far as unexpected circumstances in terms of expectations for what this race would be like, you’d would think that I would take NOTHING for granted.  Even though everyone said the last day would be a cake walk, it’s the shortest, the climbing is all on gravel, etc, etc.  I didn’t completely ease off in my intensity, but, to be honest, mentally, I was thinking “just get through the first 10 miles, and the race is over.”  That sentiment was pretty much echoed at the pre-race festivities the prior evening by the race organizer Todd…although he DID say something about the second climb of the day that my brain kind of glossed over.

I had made an executive decision after seeing the forecast was for rain to come in overnight and then all day Sunday that I was going to pack up the camper and roll out in the afternoon, foregoing the final party.  It had been a long week already, and I had been having a hard time sleeping, so I really wanted a real bed.  I figured I’d finish up the race and be back in time to break down camp and roll before the 2 pm checkout time, then put a few hours on the road so as to lessen my drive on Sunday.  Again, maybe it was this kind of forward thinking that may have lessened my focus on the task at hand just a bit, but hey…it WAS the last day.

We got another early start, loading bikes onto a trailer (I would LOVE to have a total dollar amount of the bikes in this race…rough numbers…I’d guess an average of $4000 per bike(and that is probably low)…50+ bikes…so above $200,000 in two-wheeled machinery and not a motor to be found!).  We loaded ourselves onto a school bus for a bumpy 1 hour ride, and I am guessing that when I placed my Camelback on the floor in front of me, it must have been sitting on the bite valve and leaked out about ½ my water…and I didn’t notice.  That circumstance paled in comparison to another guy who showed up at the line prior to boarding the bus and couldn’t find his helmet…fortunately, I had a spare which I gladly lent him for the day.  Yet another dude had an issue when we were out in the woods at the starting line…his lock-on grip came off, and with no solution available…he was made to ride the entire day hanging on to a bare carbon bar.

People were pretty relaxed for this start, and when the gun went off, I found myself with a group of riders that had pretty consistently finished ahead of me.  I felt strong, though, so I wasn’t too concerned.  Also, in the back of my mind, I knew that the racer closest to me on overall time was still Matt, only 4 minutes in front of me.  I knew he was a great descender, and that we were facing the toughest and most dangerous descent of the entire race after the first climb, so I wanted to see if I could put some time on him and maybe make a race of it.  It was a gravel climb, and pretty steeply pitched, and it was also 3 miles long.  I was riding on the wheel of a local guy that said it would probably last between 30 and 40 minutes, so I settled in, and pushed hard to the top.  I had elected to wear glasses with clear lenses because of the difficulty of the upcoming downhill (I had problems on Pilot Rock with my eyes tearing on the way down), but they fogged up so badly at the top, I had to ditch them and hope for the best.  The descent we were headed towards was called Farlow Gap, and it was known as “the most dangerous” in Pisgah…and supposedly the most fun.  I do not equate these two terms in a downhill situation, so it should be no surprise that I was in the line of guys walking down the steepest and rockiest sections.  About ½ way down, in the gnarliest rideable area, a huge rock garden with a barely definable line, the top women and Matt, my chosen competitor for the day, came BLAZING by, just amazing, and definitely beyond my capabilities.  I had noted on the course profile that there was a significant gain in elevation after the initial killer drop, and it turned out to be yet another hike-a-bike, even featuring a waterfall crossing that left me on my ass.  It’s just not easy to walk on wet, mossy rocks with solid plastic soles…and try to carry a bike while doing it.  I faired pretty well on the ensuing Daniel Ridge downhill, staying with a couple guys and passing a couple others, then crossed a final river at the bottom and enjoyed the HECK out of like 2 miles of flat singletrack…the only thing in 140+ that I was used to!  Then…it was the second and final climb of the day…and of the race.  The part that my brain had “glossed over” the previous evening was that it was 7 miles long.  I started off like a house on fire, cranking up the first ramps and setting a good pace on the flatter sections, but about 15 minutes in, I started to feel it in my legs…and it hurt.  I dialed back, began drinking my Gatorade, and pretty much suffered for about the next 45 minutes, running out of water about 30 minutes in.  This was the most pain I had been in all week, but to call it pain wouldn’t exactly ring true, as my legs were pretty much numb.  The vision of crossing that finish line was the bright spark at the end of the tunnel, and I suffered like a dog until the climb finally relented and the multitrack turned into a beautiful machine-made flow trail.  Had I been fresh, this would easily have been the most enjoyable trail of the entire week, but as it did have slight increases in grade on occasion, I was oblivious to the fun factor.  The final enduro segment of the race was on this trail, and upon reaching it, I knew there was only 5.5 miles to go…yes…5.5 MILES of mostly DOWN Bracken Mountain.  I turned down the whiskey shot I was offered at the top, figuring I don’t have the stomach for that stuff on the best of circumstances, and headed off, launching off waterbars when possible, but mostly grabbing copious amounts of brake to make sure I didn’t finish the race with any more dirt on me than was necessary…and also with bones intact.  The descent was not especially easy, and even featured a couple switchback climbs that elicited a bit of obscenity, and when I saw I was getting to the bottom, I was pretty happy.  In fact, crossing that final finish line was pretty damn pleasurable, the culmination of almost a year of hard work, training, and time commitment.  I had left it all on the mountain, I had nothing left.  Time for the final stage was just under 3 hours.  

I high-fived with a couple other competitors, including Matt, who was so worried about me beating him that he chased me all day even though I was behind him (lmao), then headed over to the truck and had a celebratory beer with Lee, before heading off to the campground to break down the popup.  I skipped lunch in order to beat the deadline and avoid getting charged for another night, and was on the road by 2:08 local…not bad considering I had only just finished the race at like 12:30.  After a stop at McDonalds for some sustenance, I was rolling fast, and the hours went by quickly.  I wasn’t tired for some reason even by the time I hit Indiana, so I decided to shoot for my OWN bed.  I arrived at 11:30 central, after about 10 hours, and thus ended a REALLY long day with a nice shower and hit the pillow like a piledriver.

 

Epilogue

Probably the hardest part about explaining to people what this adventure was like is the lack of an adequate frame of reference.  Some people just think I’m nuts to begin with, some who have a background of competition wonder how it compares to other things I’ve done, and some who thought I was nuts to begin with are pretty certain that they were absolutely correct in their assessment after listening to me.  Of course, “Would you do it again?” is the most common question, and, per usual, my answer is no.  Not because of the difficulty, but because I am a “one-and-done” kind of person when it comes to this…there are a TON of events out there, and I like to try different stuff.  I WOULD highly recommend this event, however, to anyone interested in such a thing.  The organization is top-notch, and the promoters are clearly passionate about both their trails and the riding/racing experience.  Blue Ridge Adventures is amazing in this regard, and really allowed every competitor to concentrate exclusively on the race itself rather than logistics, something that is extremely important in a multi-day event like this.  The next most common question is “Did you have fun?”  And that answer is YES, yes I did.  Sure, there were moments when a pretty decent stream of expletives left my lips, mostly as a reaction to the incredible terrain, and there was a few moments of weakness in my mentality on the final day, but for the most part, I was super excited to be finishing each day.  I couldn’t quite believe it when I finished on the fourth day and was still feeling pretty damn good, and when I crossed that final finish line, the satisfaction I felt with having completed what certainly did turn out to be the most difficult athletic endeavor I have yet undertaken was incalculable.  I worked long and hard for that feeling, and it was worth it.

So what’s next?  I’m not sure right now…but I am looking for ideas…

Destination: Destin...which is totally across the nation...

Citrus, anyone?
Florida.  Land of orange juice, snowbirds, and the occasional face-eating drug addict.  Why does it have such a magic appeal?  Like moths to a flame, people seem to be drawn to our nation's southern dangling appendage.  I can only answer for myself and my lovely wife when I say that a very good reason to visit this land of excessive heat and humidity is the boating.  We had such a great time in our previous two excursions (Key West and Miami), that we decided it would be well worth it to take a shot at the Sunshine State once again, and knock another item off the bucket list by hitting the Emerald Coast Poker Run in Destin. 

The tiny seed of an idea plucked off the proverbial list began to germinate when our Ohio friends Dale and Eileen Castle encouraged us to head in that direction.  With tales of technicolor waterways, ample choices for lodging, and numerous options for procuring alcoholic beverages, the Castles assured us that we were making the correct decision.  They even went so far as to volunteer to join us, should this expedition take place.  Our resolve was further steeled by similar reports from other boating friends both online and in person..."GO TO DESTIN," they said. "BEST BOATING EVER!" they said.  So...we decided to make it happen.

After a couple months of intermittent searching and a rotating cast of characters interested in going, I found a three bedroom condo with a slip with East Pass (waterway to the Gulf) in front of the building and Destin Harbor out the back.  Waterview Towers turned out to be a perfect locale, walking distance from Noriega Point, and a short idle away from local hot spot Crab Island or open running on Choctawhatchee Bay or the Gulf of Mexico.  Our crew was to be composed of myself and Michelle, and two couples from Ohio that we had met at the 2013 Boyne Thunder event, the aforementioned Dale and Eileen, and Jeremy and Stacie Riggs.  All are experienced boaters and willing drinkers, so our hopes for a good time were well founded.



Bearing responsibility...
After a rapid-fire stretch of weekends that saw us mountain biking in Copper Harbor, MI, boating at Put-In-Bay, OH, Winthrop Harbor, IL and Michigan City, IN, we were ready for a vacation from all that vacationing.  Our plan was to drive up to Coloma, MI, and drop off Sonny and Rico, the Miami Vice kittens, with my parents on Friday, then attend a wedding in the evening, then get up and roll south for about 10 hours on Saturday, and finish the drive to Destin on Sunday.

Alas, all the best laid plans are sometimes for naught.  And naught reared its ugly head early on Friday morning when I went about my final task prior to the journey, which was to be greasing the trailer bearings.  Cursory inspection revealed some grease outside the zerks that had obviously been corrupted by water...not good.  This warranted further investigation, which would require removal of wheels.  I grabbed the 2-1/2 ton floor jack I had been carrying around for exactly this purpose...only to find that it was useless...not enough power.  I then enlisted my trust forklift with the intent of lifting all three wheels, as I'd planned to check every one at this point.  No go...the rear wheels of the forklift came off the ground...yikes.  The final solution was a 20-ton bottle jack under the center axle, which worked like a dream.  A dream which quickly turned nightmarish when I found water in three of the wheels.  An emergency repack-job followed, and after about 3 hours, a frazzled and extremely greasy Mike finally arrived home.  A quick shower, and we were on the road to MI...only to be delayed by construction traffic.  We encountered more of the same on the way home, and what should have been just over a 3 hour round trip turned into about a 6 hour trip.  We missed the wedding, sorry Mike and Amie!  I hit the pillow hard, but couldn't sleep because nobody told my brain to turn off.



It's all downhill from here...right?
Saturday morning bright and early and I am at Home Depot picking up a torque-wrench, not wanting to take any chances with the wheels I had removed and repacked yesterday.  By 8:30, we were all packed up and rolling down I-57.  We had hit Kankakee, when a car rolls up beside me flashing its lights and hitting the horn.  My heart jumped into my throat and I checked the trailer in the rearview...no smoke.  Looked over at the guy in the other car, and it was the garbage man that visits my shop every week saying hello!  Whew!  We stopped for fuel outside Paducah, KY, and I spent about 20 minutes trying to help a gentleman with a flat tire and no winch for his bottle jack.  We were just giving up when another guy stopped to help with the right sized jack.  I figured it would be good karma for my trip to help anyone I could!  We made it to just north of Birmingham and decided to stop for the night.  I swung the boat around in a very tight parking lot and got it parked right in front of the hotel, which drew quite a crowd.  Just as we were unloading our stuff and covering, locking the boat, a guy comes up to me and tells me he and his family had radiator problems in their truck and after fixing it had no money for gas to get home...could I help?  I told him I'd be back after getting into our room, and I did return and gave him $20.  I then watched him get in his old Expedition with his family, and drive out...right past the gas station.  Oh well...karma.



Destin-ation
The next day's drive was uneventful, excluding the slight error in judgment that precluded us from getting fuel PRIOR to driving into the wilds of southern Alabama/northern Florida.  We were on fumes by the time we hit Niceville...not exactly comfortable with 40 feet of trailer behind you.  Anyway...we fueled up the truck and the boat, and headed over to Legendary Marine, where we dropped the trailer and left the boat until it was to be forked in the next morning.  Lunch and celebratory drinks were next on the menu, so we drove into Destin proper and parked, taking in the HarborWalk area before going to AJ's for some lunch and a couple of PainKillers with 151 floaters.  We walked the boardwalk again, checking out the fish that were being filleted on site in back of the charter boats, when the sky turned dark.  We jumped in the truck and headed over to the condo at Waterview and the sky opened up.  It rained BUCKETS, which was a little disconcerting, as the previous years' poker run had been rained out, it WAS the rainy season in north FL, AND rain was predicted for every day we were there.  Not to worry...the sun was out 10 minutes later, and we were soon enjoying rum and cokes in the condo.  I chose to take a nap, while Michelle went down to the pool and walked the beach.  We ate dinner at a cool local joint called Bric-a-brac, and called it a night.



In the drink...
Monday morning I got up and went for a run, and barely survived for the heat and humidity.  It was BRUTAL, especially after the mild summer we have had in Chicago.  We hit up the grocery store for some supplies, then made the call to Legendary to drop the boat in.  By the time we pulled up 15 minutes later, they already had the boat off the trailer and it was 20 feet up in the air on the forklift.  Michelle ran to take pictures...I couldn't even look!  We got the boat prepped and fired up, and Michelle jumped back in the truck to drive to the condo, while I was to run the boat over.  I just asked the dock guys what I should do to NOT screw up, and was told to STAY IN THE MIDDLE.  Lol.  My GPS track from that morning is dead center, and with the help of that unit, I found the channel by Crab Island and into Destin Harbor.  We tied up the boat in it's slip for the week, got the lines set to account for the tides, and hit the pool for the afternoon.  We went for a short evening boat ride, poking our nose out into the Gulf, and pretty immediately turned around.  To use Michelle's words "We can't break the boat on the first day."  It was a little snotty out there.



Leave your brain at the rental counter, please...
We took it easy Tuesday morning, and hung out by the pool for a bit.  We went in for lunch around noon, and, after eating, we discovered that some other powerboaters from Tennessee that were staying at the same condo were going to head out to a bar for some food.  We asked if we might tag along, to get a feel for the area, since we had no idea what we were doing, lol.  They responded in the affirmative, so we followed a 28 Nordic and a 27 Baja across Choctawhatchee Bay to a place called Tropics.  I had a Pina Coloda and was laughed at.  What?  I like them!  We shot back across the bay, and our new friends invited us to beach the boat with them on Noriega Point.  I was going to, but chickened out at the last second...I just couldn't bring myself to put the boat on the beach...so instead we headed out to Crab Island.

Crab Island isn't an island at all...more like a big circular sand bar...and a TON of boats head out there every day and drop anchor in the shallows and party in the crystal blue waters.  There are even restaurants/bars on barges out there, as well as an inflatable playland for kid...an in-water waterpark!  I was exercising my usual amount of caution, and we anchored in about 9 feet of water.  Michelle was off the boat and swimming immediately, I was more hesitant, what with my fear of sharks and general dislike of salt water, but eventually jumped in.  The water was sapphire blue and 85 degrees...it was like a swimming pool.  Just awesome. 

We hung out for a while, slightly disappointed because our lack of foresight had left us with nothing to drink, and Michelle decided to clean some of the road grime off the bow with a sponge.  We noticed about that time, that the tide had begun to change.  The water went from sapphire to emerald green, and was also running pretty good.  So, to prevent any difficulties, she put a life jacket on and we used the end of the anchor line to tie her up, so she couldn't drift away in the current.  About that time, while she was cleaning, things got interesting.  Two rental pontoon boats in front of us either broke loose from their anchor, or pulled anchor, and drifted away, leaving one of their occupants behind.  As they floated past, tied together, a man in one boat looked at me and said "Help me save my son!"  I looked up, and there was a head bobbing in the current about 75 feet in front of the pontoons...both of whom were doing NOTHING to help the swimmer.  Suddenly, a woman jumps off the front of one of the pontoons and attempts to swim against the current to save the swimmer...with no life jacket.  I thought to myself "This is exactly how people die," ran below deck and came back with a couple life jackets, which I was about to throw, when another pontoon, that was underway, intervened with his throwable cushion.  Both people grabbed it...and they needed it.  The other pontoon got both aboard, and delivered them back to their families...who STILL hadn't figured out how to get their boats detached from each other.  After no less than 5 more rental pontoon boats and innumerable personal watercraft nearly hit us while we were anchored (apparently they don't tell the pwc renters that its a NO WAKE ZONE over there), we gave up and went back to the slip.

After some dinner at home, we headed over to the Harborwalk to meet up with another Tenneseean, R.B. Hixon, and his wife Fran, who we had met a few years prior at a Poker Run in Louisiana.  They were attending the "Party Gras" parade, and asked if we wanted to ride along on the Florida Powerboat Club "float," which was a 46 foot Cigarette owned by Chuck Stark out of South Carolina.  Of course, the answer was a resounding YES.  We piled on the Cig, and were given DOZENS of beads to toss out, and we were towed through Harborwalk Village and a massive cheering crowd.  Definitely cool.  After getting out of the Harborwalk, the Cig had to go back across the causeway to Fort Walton, so, with RB behind the wheel of the truck, and 8 of us in the boat, we rolled right down Highway 98.  Truly a unique and memorable evening.

We declined our host's numerous offers of beverages, and headed back to the condo to await the arrival of the Riggs'.  We were only back about 1/2 hour before they showed up, and Jeremy promptly put on one the more impressive displays of alcoholic consumption I have witness...downing almost an entire bottle of Captain Morgan in about an hour.  Clearly, the man was serious about being on vacation!

Early in the AM, the Castles arrived as well, with an intoxicated boxer-clad Jeremy greeting them with hugs.  Now, the party would start.



A hero is born...
Wednesday morning, I figured we would hear much from our newly arrived guests anytime soon, so I jumped on my bike and went for a ride around Destin.  Traffic around there is BRUTAL, so I stayed mostly on back roads and neighborhood streets.  I returned and made breakfast, than Jeremy, Dale and I went down and cleaned up the boat.  The girls hit the pool, and we soon joined them.  About 10:30am, Dale and Jeremy cracked their first beers (at least it was 11:30 Ohio time).  By early afternoon, we had walked the beach and hung out by the ocean and in the pool, and much more beer was consumed.  I hadn't had much to drink, as I figured boating would be in the offing for the afternoon, and, sure enough, we all piled in the Sommer Thunder for a quick run outside on the Gulf, then back over to Crab Island.  We again anchored in deeper water...AWAY from rental pontoon boats.  I stayed in the boat, while the rest of them swam for the shallow.  Unfortunately, the changing tides had brought in an infestation of jellyfish.  They were EVERYWHERE.  We determined that the general lack of screaming and splashing from the others in the water meant that these weren't particularly harmful jellies, and with Dale, Eileen, and Jeremy all suffering minor stings without too much discomfort, we were proven correct.   At some point, things got personal between Jeremy and the jellyfish.  It may have had something to do with the beer (ok, it had a LOT to do with the beer), but by the time he had swum back out to the boat, he decided that he needed to "save the rest of us from the jellyfish."  How would one do this, you might ask?  Well, the answer, quite obviously, is to jump ONTO the unsuspecting invertebrates from the swim platform.  In the end, Jellyfish Jeremy DID end up being our hero...not one of us suffered another sting...mostly because we were laughing so hard we didn't want to get back in the water for fear of drowning.

We ordered pizza in that evening, then got geared up to go to the FPC Ladies Night at Helen Back Café over in Fort Walton.  Exhaustion had finally caught up with Dale, and he opted out.  Exhaustion also caught up with Jeremy, but, fueled by beer, he chose to stay upright.  Stacie's only request to him was "Please don't embarrass me."  We were at the party for about two hours when Jeremy's attempts to depants me were thwarted, and he moved on to RB...a guy he didn't even know.  We made a quick strategic exit at that point.  I think Stacie might have been embarrassed.



Country Mike rolls hard
Michelle and I figured that since we'd be boating all day Friday and Saturday, we'd get a bike ride in Thursday morning.  The biggest problem, as I'd mentioned, was the ridiculous traffic and lack of bike lanes.  In order to facilitate a ride, we had to drive 15 or so miles out of Destin, where we found a nice bike path that paralleled the Gulf shoreline.  We rode about 15 miles out, and on the way back, Michelle nearly had heat stroke.  Probably wasn't the best idea to be riding at around noon on a humid 90 degree day, but she survived.  We made it back, ate some lunch, and met the others at the pool.  Then, as happens on vacation day afternoons, the rum came out.  Once again, I had an inkling that we might want to go for a boat ride, so I kept a low profile.  Suddenly, there appeared in our midst, a young man of 24 who was on vacation with his family, but obviously was not interesting in family time, when there was drinking and fun to be had.  Country Mike, as he was dubbed, was immediately served up a glass and joined in our little party.  We learned he was ex-Army, and had done a tour in Iraq, and had never ridden on a fast boat.  Well, that was all I needed to hear, so I loaded up the drunk crew, and we headed out for a short blast on the Gulf.  I swear I thought the boy was going to explode he was so excited.   That made me happy.  More karma points.

We got back and watched the sunset through the bottoms of our rum drinks, then proceeded upstairs, Country Mike in tow, for some delicious enchiladas prepared by Dale and Eileen.  I remember eating too much, and drinking a LOT, before pulling the plug early and heading to bed, with Michelle on my heels.  Apparently, Country Mike did NOT want to leave, and his attempts to keep up with Jeremy and Dale in the alcohol dept let to him vomiting in the washing machine of his condo, and also waking up with no clothes on and no idea where they were.  Ahhh, kids.



Where the F#$% is the Fun Run?
I was up and feeling a little buzzy Friday morning, so I ate a good breakfast and went over to the driver's meeting while everyone else went to the pool or shopping.  My head cleared in time for the meeting, and I SWEAR I paid attention...we were to meet at 1:30 north of Crab Island to see the helicopter, get pics, run around Choctawhatchee Bay, then head down the intercoastal to Juana's Pagodas in Navarre.  Well...we were there, as were a ton of other boats milling around and looking lost...but there was no chopper, and no apparent organization.  I was pretty frustrated, when, out on the bay, we saw a chopper running low over the top of a boat.  We decided to run out an investigate, and, sure enough, it was the FPC heli.  They came in super low, and got a ton of pics and video, which was cool.  We then met up with John Angelle and his crew in a 42 Fountain out of Louisiana, and, following my GPS, made it out to Juana's, where there was a whole TON of boats that might have been captained by someone less hung over than me in the meeting.

Anyway, Juana's was a really cool bar, everyone had drinks and I had water (I am a safe captain!).  We ran back to Destin with John, on the way getting passed by the Black Diamond 52 MTI on one side and Bob Bull's canopied 48 MTI on the other, which was exceptional.  When we pulled back in to Destin Harbor, we found our condo-mates from TN pulled up on the beach at Noriega Point.  I decided I would beach the boat...I mean, what the hell...there were a ton of Skaters and OLs and Cigs on the beach...what could go wrong?  Actually...the karma must've piled up...because nothing did!  Then I proceeded to jump on to the beach, walk over to say hello to someone in the water, and forget that my phone was in my pocket.  D'oh!

We had sub-sammys that night, and then headed over to the Harborwalk for the Captain's party at AJs.  The place was JAMMED, we had a couple cocktails, checked out some boats, and wound up listening to a pretty good band at a bar that served pretty weak drinks....so that didn't last.  Got back and in bed by midnight or so.


The Big Show
The Emerald Coast Poker Run is a different type of animal as far as poker runs go.  There is no mass start, and no "official" order to the card stops.  This eliminates the "race" to the first card stop, as well as the crowds and potential for accidents in a group start.  Card stops opened at 10 am, and closed at 4, and you were free to hit as many as you wanted.  Saturday morning was HOT, and the boat was almost totally out of gas.  The combination of these two things made for a not-so-fun 40 minutes or so of fueling up at the marina across from our condo on Destin Harbor.  $700+ later, we were full up and ready to run.  The course was about 80 miles total, so we were prepared.  It just so happened that our start time coincided with the arrival of the FPC heli, so once again, we got TONS of camera time.  Michelle's idea for the whole crew to wear red is really going to pay off in the pics!  We fell in with a couple 42 Fountains, a 47 Outerlimits, a 46 Outerlimits, a 34 Baja, a 35 Donzi ZRC, and even the Phantom 48 MTI.  Smiles and waves were present on every boat, and we hit six card stops in just over an hour, covering all of Choctawhatchee Bay.  We stopped for lunch at Helen Back and had some pizza (perfect poker run food, if you ask me), but the heat was so oppressive, all we could think about was a nice dip in the water.  The next stop was up the intercoastal at Juana's, and when we got there, we pretty much decided to anchor out and relax for a bit.  Dale had won a pair of tickets to see Kenny Chesney in a contest he'd entered the day before, and although we were only about 80 miles west, he wasn't about to leave the Run.  Regardless, he picked up the tix at Juana's, along with some other swag.  After about an hour of swimming and sun, we had to run back, as the boat needed to be put back on the trailer that afternoon.  We dropped off the girls and Dale, and Jeremy and I ran back to Legendary with the sticks pushed all the way forward.  A quick washdown to get rid of all the saltwater spots, and she was ready to be plucked.  Legendary even offered to flush the motors, which I happily accepted. 


Dale came and picked us up, we showered quickly, and headed over to the Convention Center in Fort Walton for the post-run dinner and poker shindig.  The food was alright, the conversation and people watching bordered on excellent, and the booze was plentiful.  As for the poker...well...I did even worse than my typical low pair, coming in with an ace high.  Not even bad enough for the worst hand, bummer!


We packed it in early, as the Ohio peeps were rolling out at 4am, and we planned to be on the road shortly afterwards. 


It was a good day.  Nothing broke.  Lol.


The Long and straight-ahead road..........
We didn't make it over to Legendary until almost 7am, but that was fortunate, as workers were just arriving, and they seemed to have misplaced my boat.  You know you have a large facility when a 40 foot red boat and trailer get lost in the shuffle, but that's exactly what happened.  It took a solid 20 minutes to find it, then we got it hooked up, strapped down, and we were headed north by 7:30.


We drove through a bunch of rain (which was ok, the boat was filthy anyway!), and at our first fuel stop in Alabama, I was once again hit up for money by a stranger with a sob story.  This gentleman told me he was a veteran and had a flat and his ex-wife hadn't given him enough money...all while I am trying to maneuver 60 feet of truck and trailer in a tight parking lot!  I reached in my wallet and gave him a $10 (biggest bill I had left, lol), then watched him walk across the parking lot and get in his vehicle and drive away...no flat.  WTF.  Guess I'll keep calling it good karma...it sounds better than "sucker."


Total drive time on Sunday was 14 1/2 hours, and total mileage for the trip stood at 1963. 


Wow, what a ride.


When can we go again?

"Sing with me...this is 40." -U2 Under a Blood Red Sky

"I've seen a lot of things, but I have not seen a lot of other things."  Ah yes, the introspective lyrics sung by a young John Cougar, prior to his insistence that the record company actually use his real name and drop the whole predatory cat thing...especially since it had been quite some time since a cougar was found in Indiana.  Still, he was a man with vision, and though these lyrics were among his more primitive, I find myself hearkening back to them as I hit the 40 year old milestone.


I guess taking a few minutes to look back on that which I have seen it apropos to this occasion.  I guess this occasion is an apt one for looking back on what I have made of my life...or what my life has made of me.  I enjoy looking back on the events and circumstances that have made me what I am, that have formed my actions and reactions in life.  I am fairly secure with just WHO I am, or rather, who I THINK I am...otherwise, this would be both painful and futile.


I am a person who follows the rules.  I suppose I have my parents to thank for that.  I am a person who cares deeply about how others are affected by my actions.  Should I inflict anguish upon another, I would tend to suffer tenfold within my own mind.  I am a person who loves his family, and who is proud to say he loves his family.  I am my father's son, my mother's son, and my sister's brother, and I am exceedingly thankful for each of them.  I am deeply ensconced in the idea of romantic love, a feeling that somehow took root in my soul the moment I got to know a girl named Michelle.  I am not mechanical, actuarial, or even economical, but I appreciate those who are, and find those with expertise in those areas to be my intellectual superiors.  I am a person who can transform feelings into words.  I am a person who can transform words into feelings.  I am a person who loves to learn about the past, and enjoys the juxtaposition of history against modern times.  I am a person who lives a very ordinary life, but secretly longs for much, much more.  I am a person that needs security, yet wants to escape.  I am a person on the move, but my pace is slower now.  I am a person that has come to realize that longer is better than faster.  I am better suited for distance.  I am a person who strives to find physical limits.  I am a person who believes that finding those limits is a key to defining self.  I am a person that does not fear pain or death, because...I am just a person.


What has happened that has made me the person I am?  Defining moments...like the first time I went fishing with my grandfather.  Or, the first time I scored a goal in soccer.  Or, the first time I ran a 5k with my dad.  The first time I really hurt my mom's feelings.  Perhaps the first time I really appreciated the incredible talent of my sister.  I have a very good memory for those moments...I can still picture them in my mind like it was yesterday.  The horror of moving away from my friends into a new neighborhood in 4th grade.  The agony of being bullied in my new school transposed against new found stardom on the soccer field.  The freedom and exhilaration of riding a Jet Ski...oh how I lived for that!  The choice of running over soccer...my first REAL life-affecting decision.  The triumph of crossing the finish line at cross country nationals in first place.  The soul-crushing goodbye to my girlfriend at the end of my senior year.  The agony of keeping that relationship alive for four long years, and the ecstasy of making it though with the realization that the "feeling" of love was indeed, the real thing.  The overwhelming feeling of being able to define who I was to an entirely new peer group in college.  The beginning of life as "us" instead of "me."  The knowledge that my best friend is by my side.  The search for...the future.  I think about it every day.


Have fun every day.  That is what I live for, that is what I do.  I want to push my limits, and eventually, I want to break out of the mundane.  Increasingly, I do not want for riches.  I do not want for material things.  I want to find richness in every day...in living a life where time is merely a guideline, as opposed to a structure.  I will get there, and I will have fun along the way.


So...here is forty.  Its just a number, so they say.  Indeed it is, but it is also a pretty good time to slow down and take a look around to see what life has wrought.  I know I can do this...and smile.

October and a dose of legacy

The winds of October are tinged with the subtle essence of impending mortality.  Leaves lose their green, shortly followed by a wafting fade into lifelessness and a return home to the cooling ground.  The birds have long lost their song, and nature begins its descent into the quiet solemnity that is winter.  The world is still alive, and waning days of sunshine reflect a brilliant myriad of colors that other months cannot possibly duplicate.  A last desperate throw of color in a world soon fading to grey.

It was on this day, October 15, some 17 years ago, that one of the brightest leaves in my life fell into darkness.  Seventeen years is a long time, but the impression this man made in my life is fossilized in my memory.  He was the source of endless childhood fascination.  He was the one who awakened my curiosity about the world.  He was the man who taught me how to fish.  He was truly the lynchpin of my family, and to this day, his memory is celebrated every time that family gathers.  To others that surrounded, he was known simply as Whitey, or Uncle Whitey (due to his shock of white hair).  To me...he was grandpa.

Lawrence Raymond Graf, Sr. is probably at the very top of my list of people I'd love to sit around and have a drink with.  When I was a kid, he told us that he rode the Oregon Trail as a cowboy.  Who was I to doubt that?  It was my GRANDPA.  I lived to wake up and go fishing with him at our cottage in Iola, WI.  The fact that he usually overslept somehow didn't matter.  Time in the boat with him was damn special...and he used to let me drive, so long as I could pull start the motor. 

As I got older, junior high and high school, annual trips downtown to Grandpa's with my two older cousins Tony and Phil were my initial forays into becoming the person I wished to be...outside the boundary of my immediate family...I was amongst peers.  When my oldest cousin Tony went off to college, Grandpa took Phil and I to visit.  Mission Missouri was the first time I drove on the highway, and the first time I attended an off-campus party, come to think of it.  My cousins and I were young dreamers, and our Grandpa encouraged those dreams.  Its so strange now to look back and put a finger on the exact time when I first felt like something other than a kid...because I was treated like an adult.

My Grandpa followed his own dreams as well.  He travelled the world in his later years, going behind the Iron Curtain more than once, even going so far as to smuggle Levi's into the U.S.S.R. at one point.  He had friends EVERYWHERE, but it was always family that was the most important thing to him.  That was his legacy, and that lives on in his descendants to this day.

That October day may have been bright with sunshine, and brilliant in color, but I felt nothing but the cold wind of sorrow...and loss.  The man who gave me so much to dream about, who I was so proud to tell of my accomplishments in school or sport, the man who's gregarious nature used to embarrass me in a restaurant when he'd invariably flirt with the waitress...was gone.  It hurt my heart, and still does to this day.

Likening his death to a day in October is one thing, but, there is no stopping the march of time.  The period of mourning, the long, monotonous grey, had to be endured in order to appreciate what had been given to me.  The rest of my life lay before me...like The Oregon Trail. 

To my Grandpa...Cent'Anni.

The Miker