Just how far will you go for fun? We seem to be increasing the mileage with every experience, and this particular adventure took us from Chicago to Pompano Beach, Florida and points south via highway and waterway. This is the story of a dream fulfilled, and another bunch of ticks off the bucket list.
We rolled out of town immediately after work/school on Thursday night before Easter with the goal of Paducah, KY as our destination for the night. Our trusty Dodge truck had taken us to Wyoming and Quebec in the past nine months, among other trips, and now it would be faced with its biggest challenge, towing an empty 40 foot trailer down to Florida, and a trailer full of 10,000 lbs of boat back from Florida. Excitement was in the air, and the drive blew by. Before we knew it, we were 5-1/2 hours south and stopping for the night. Hindsight being 20-20, we probably should have put a few more hours on since we were feeling awake...
Friday morning, we were up and rolling by 7:30, and had a beautiful drive through Kentucky, into Tennessee, and finally into Georgia. We stopped for lunch about 60 miles north of Atlanta, GA, and upon resumption of our trek, promptly ran into massive amounts of traffic. Traffic is a pain in the butt, but if there's a reason for it...say...bad weather, construction, or a wreck...it is slightly more tolerable. Traffic just for the sake of traffic is damn near unbearable...and that's what we dealt with ALL day. I had been warned about how horrible Atlanta would be, but, in a great irony, the actual city of Atlanta was a breeze. In fact, we rolled right through downtown...didn't even take the bypass...discovering later on that anything over six wheels was illegal on said thoroughfare (we had 10 wheels...d'oh!). South of ATL, we got nailed again...and again....and again. Its not very easy to maneuver in traffic with 40 feet of trailer behind you, so we just had to suck it up and suffer. What was supposed to be a 13 hour day in the truck turned into a 16 hour day...we finally stopped in Fort Pierce, Florida at around midnight...with 1-1/2 hours to go to get to Pompano and a 7:30 am appointment at Active Thunder (keep in mind, this was Eastern Time...so it was an hour ahead for us. This was not a happy time for Michelle.) We slept for 5 hours and started driving again.
Saturday, the sun rose as I piloted our rig even further south. The anticipation and nervousness that I'd been putting off in lieu of concentrating on the task at hand began to grow in my gut, and my mind was racing with questions I had to remember to ask Pat at Active Thunder and trying to mentally catalog all of the things I would have to pack on the boat so I didn't forget anything, as we would be on the water for 5 days. We pulled up to AT to find the boat and Pat waiting for us, and were greeted with the happy news that we would not have to be dipping our new trailer in salt water at all, as we would just use the trailer the boat was currently on to take it to the ramp and pull it out later in the week. We spent the next 45 minutes or so loading our provisions into the boat, trying to ignore Pat's eyerolls when we loaded our road bikes...not exactly a commonplace practice in the world of offshore boating! Then, with a quick handshake and directions to the ramp, we were off to get wet.
I took my sweet time at the ramp, walking over to survey the ramp itself as well as the parking area, so I had my entire route planned out before execution...the smart thing to do with 40 feet of boat and trailer behind you. Also...its best to not look like an absolute idiot if you can avoid it. Well, I was successful on all counts...backed the trailer in, floated the boat, and tied it off on the wall, then went up and parked the truck and trailer (although, admittedly, it took me a while to line the rig up so I was only using one parking spot). So...I was feeling pretty good about myself when I jumped in the boat to fire it up and take off. I turned the keys and the motors roared to life, and, without hesitation, I put it in gear and we pushed off the wall. Well...task number one was to turn the boat around 180 degrees and head for the Intercoastal, so I put the port motor to forward, and the starboard motor in reverse. I was fighting a wind and a slight current, but suddenly, everything started feeling...wrong. A quick glance at the dashboard told me that the starboard motor had died. I was not prepared for this in the LEAST...especially considering the motors were fuel-injected and should NEVER die! So, I was faced with fighting a wind and current and turning a large (and unfamiliar) boat with one motor...and, no power steering (that pump is on the starboard motor, apparently). Yup. Full-on panic. Turned the wheel as hard as I could while trying to restart the motor, and it wouldn't fire. I had to reverse-lock the wheel and put the boat in reverse to get the bow to come around, and by this time, all I wanted to do was get the boat back on the wall. Michelle jumped on the bow, and managed to get on land, and I was able to get the boat close enough that she could pull me in. We tied it off, and I was immediately on the phone to Pat in a panic. Repeated attempts to start the motor would result in a sputter, but it wouldn't catch. Pat finally answered and came quickly over, and, after the quickest glance and turn of the key, proclaimed "You had me come over here for THIS?" Well...I felt relieved and stupid at the same time...and that degenerated to just feeling stupid when he pumped the throttle a couple times and the motor instantly lit. Turns out, you CAN flood an EFI engine if you do not let it warm up properly. Oops. Learn something new every day. Pat kicked us off the dock, and down the Intercoastal we went to the Sands Harbor Marina, where I successfully docked the boat. We then got some help from the locals tying off to compensate for the tides, and hit the accompanying hotel's restaurant, pool and BAR. Pina Coladas for me and Rum Runners for Michelle, replete with Bacardi 151 floaters. A walk across the street to a terrific restaurant for dinner capped an exciting day, and we went to bed EARLY.
I woke up early on Easter Sunday and went for a run on the beach, and upon my return, joined Michelle for a bike ride up Ocean Avenue to Deerfield Beach and back. We then loaded everything up, secured the bikes, and cast off for parts unknown. We decided to head south towards Ft Lauderdale, and, it being the weekend, the entire Intercoastal was a no wake zone. We were in no hurry, and there was PLENTY to look at in the form of massive houses and yachts for the 45 minute trip down. The only bit of excitement was getting pulled over by the Florida DNR because we didn't have numbers on the boat yet. I showed them my paperwork and they sent us on our way. We motored through Ft. Lauderdale in awe of the multitude of 100+ foot yachts...truly amazing.
We had decided that Miami Beach would be our destination for the evening, and, given that we had idled for nearly an hour and were getting a little restless, we decided to head out to open ocean. The wind had been blowing pretty good for the past couple days, and I knew the waves were going to be pretty big, but last November's trip in 8+ footers gave me the confidence that the boat would handle it with aplomb. As for myself....well...nothing like a challenge to get the ol' heart rate pumping. I told Michelle to grab a couple life jackets from below, and hooked the lanyard up to my shorts (kills the motors in case I go overboard). She said that this didn't exactly instill confidence. I said better safe than sorry, after all, this would be my first time really driving in the ocean, as Pat had handled the rough-water duties on our trip to Key West. Past the cruise ships and towards the ocean we went, and the waves began to grow. Our bow stabbed one and we got a nice face full of water...fortunately at low speed. As I progressed, and the wave height did the same, I noticed a rather large yacht bearing down on us from the open waters. When he was about 1/4 mile off our bow, it became apparent to me that he would NOT be slowing down. The yacht was every bit of 60 or 70 feet, and running 30 knots plus...you don't have to do the math to realize the size of the wake this thing was going to be tossing. I nailed the throttles in order to get on plane before we hit, and succeeded...barely. He roared by without a sideways glance, and we pounded through the 10 foot wake before turning our bow straight out to the ocean...and we began to launch. I throttled out right away, as I wanted to make sure the bikes weren't bashing against each other OR the upholstery. When Michelle confirmed that they were ok, I got back on plane and parallelled the shoreline, which meant the waves were hitting me broadside. I just drove in the troughs and rolled up and over the breaks, but in order to keep the boat from flying, I could only run 35-40 mph. It seemed like it took forever, but Government Cut finally appeared, signifying the end of our journey. We wrapped around the south end of Miami Beach, and into the Miami Beach Marina, where we grabbed our slip for the evening and tied off.
After a VERY busy morning, we decided it was time for a nice relaxing nap on the sunpad of the boat, which was rocking and rolling pretty good due to the winds and tide. I had just fallen asleep in the peaceful warm sun, when I heard a group of people walking down the dock. There were expressions of admiration for our boat, then an exclamation: "Hey....can I have a ride on your boat if I give you a ride on mine?" I picked my head up to see a group of 6 people, and said "Which boat is yours?" "The one on the end of the dock," replied a young-looking guy wearing a hat that said "Clubbing Isn't A Crime." "Come on over and have a drink!" My eyes bugged out with the realization that I was just invited to go on a 100+ foot boat. I looked at Michelle and said let's go. She declined, saying she'd rather take a nap. Oh well. I jumped below, grabbed a shirt, and went over to the big boat. Sean, the owner, was in his mid-40s. He told me he'd purchased the boat last fall in Europe and had it sailed over...and that he'd already been kicked out of this marina twice because he parties were too loud. He spoke with the voice and demeanor of a person that quite possibly had not slept in a few days...and was not about to slow down. He tossed me a beer, and I went to the aft lounge where the others were relaxing on the couches in the sun. Sean went off in search of music...from him and his friends, I learned that EVERYTHING in Miami Beach was about music. You had to have BEATS at all times. I asked what he did for a living and received the answer "Nothing." Must be nice! Sean reappeared, and beats were produced. It was like 2 or 3 in the afternoon on Easter Sunday in a marina...and the club music was bumpin. I began to feel...old. Lol. Suddenly...Sean was in my face. "DUDE! I am going to CHANGE YOUR LIFE!," he said. I was chilling on a couch with a beer, and replied that I kinda liked my life just the way it was. He laughed and said he had just gotten a text from a friend of his that was having a party at his house, and that it would be EPIC if we pulled up to the party in my boat. And...oh yeah...his friend was a BILLIONAIRE, with 5 100+ foot yachts, including a 200+footer he had just bought a couple weeks ago. "All this guy does," said Sean, "is party with topless 22-year-old models." He then whipped out his I-phone and produced pictures of just that....a row of topless chicks across the rear deck of a megayacht. My mind was begging for traction at this point...apparently I had just entered some parallel dimension where nothing matters but the PARTY...and I was definitely running in the slow lane. Was it time to shift gears? I looked down at my boat and saw Michelle sleeping in the sun and thought...how the HELL am I going to break this question to her? Well...I did...it went something like "Hey honey, we've just been invited to bring a millionaire playboy and his friends over to a party at a billionaire's house....wanna go?" Fortunately (or perhaps not?), our rational minds quickly took over and figured that this looked WAAAAAY too much like the opening scenes of a "Hangover" movie, and we begged out of the adventure. Thus ended our brush with the Miami Beach party scene. And we were ok with it. Lol. Instead, we walked over to the local bar, Monty's, and had an appetizer and a couple drinks, before coming back to the boat and realizing that it was still rocking and rolling like crazy...not exactly conducive to a nice night's sleep. Michelle jumped on Trip Advisor and booked us a room in Miami Beach for like $80. We drank a couple rum'n'cokes and took a nice walk, then loaded up a change of clothes and some more rum in a backpack, and took a drunken ride downtown Miami Beach to our hotel, where we partook in said rum, showered up, and walked the famous Lincoln Avenue mall, which, despite it being Easter Sunday....was JAMMED with people and really cool. After a long day, it was very nice to crash in a stable, air-conditioned room.
Monday morning, we got up and biked back to the marina to make sure the boat was alright, then headed back down to the Art Deco district for breakfast at one of the hotels. While we ate, a woman walked up the street with a large bag of volleyballs, and proceeded to one of the courts nearby. When we finished eating, we walked over to the beach, passing by the volleyball court. My jaw dropped when I realized who the woman was....Olympic gold medalist Keri Walsh! Nobody else seemed to even notice, but Michelle and I sat and watched her practice for a while, then went to the beach for a bit, and returned to watch her practice some more. Definitely a cool experience. Back at the boat, we decided to head over to our next destination, Coconut Grove. We would be navigating by sight and Iphone, as the screen on our GPS chartplotter seemed to be broken (no backlight, no matter what we tried), and, moving with extreme caution, we managed to successfully find the channel we were shooting for. Slightly before this, however, I had noticed the sky taking an ugly turn, and as we were idling into the marina area, raindrops began to fall. I aimed for the nearest empty dock...in this case, it was a fuel dock...and got tied up and began to cover the boat just as the heavier rain began to fall. Well...for the next two hours, it POURED. I was so glad we were not boating in it, the severe lightning, gusting winds, and pounding rain would have quickly eliminated our meager navigational skills. Anyway...we were dry, and we had cold beer, so we just had a couple brews and relaxed under the cover. When the storm broke, we called the municipal marina next door and got a slip, motored over, and then walked over to a beach bar/restaurant called Scotty's for some dinner. The place was kind of a dive, the food was just OK, but we later found out that its a musical hotspot, and that a few months before, Sir Paul McCartney had sat in with the band there! The rainstorm killed the wind that had been blowing since we arrived in the south, and we had a nice relaxing evening on the boat.
Tuesday, we decided to explore Coconut Grove via bike path, which was an adventure in itself, as the "bike path" had me wishing like crazy that I was on a mountain bike. It was CRAZY rough, and riding in the road was decidedly not an option, with ZERO shoulder and copious amounts of traffic. We survived a 20 or so mile ride regardless, and then packed the bikes into the boat once again for the journey to our next destination. We decided to attempt to run down to Key Largo to a bar called Gilberts, where we had stopped for lunch on our way down to Key West. It was to be a 50 or so mile run, and without the GPS, we'd be pretty much groping our way down the length of Biscayne Bay. The depth of Biscayne Bay is only about 10-12 feet, so, despite its enormity, things could go bad pretty quickly at high speed. We used the charts on our Iphones to the best of our ability, but in the middle of the Bay, we lost service. Somehow, we found the channel, and with it, the major navigational hazard between us and Gilberts...The Featherbeds, a section of coral reefs that you HAD to take the channel through, or else run aground. Our success was short-lived, however, as once we passed the Featherbeds, we could not locate the next channel marker! Rather than get lost somewhere in unfamiliar waters, we decided to just give up on the Gilberts endeavor, and head over to Key Biscayne and Crandon Marina. After another 1/2 hour or so of cruising, we found our way into the Marina and grabbed our slip for the night. As we were tying up, Michelle yelled "Oh my god, there's a dead manatee in the next slip!" I secured the boat and ran over...and sure enough, there was a HUGE manatee behind the boat next to us...only...it wasn't dead. It was enjoying the cool fresh water provided by the hose that somebody had left turned on and dangling in the water. We took a bunch of pictures, and named him Bill Zimmerman. Then it was off to a little private beach to enjoy some cool rum'n'cokes and wade in the beautiful blue waters...a nice way to spend an afternoon for certain. The marina only had "beach showers," which kinda meant showering with only three walls, but we took turns guarding the area and had no issues, lol. Dinner that night was to be at The Rusty Pelican, a short bike ride away on Virginia Key overlooking the Miami skyline at sunset. Michelle called and requested the best seat in the house, telling the staff it was important as it was our anniversary. The little ruse worked perfectly, and we had a spectacular view to compliment our spectacular dinner.
Wednesday was to be our last day on the water, and we were going to be running all the way back up to Pompano Beach on the ocean, which had calmed down over the last couple days, thankfully. In the morning, we jumped on the bikes and rode down the length of Key Biscayne to the state park, and checked out the lighthouse area that had been there since 1825, and had once been raided and burned by Seminole Indians. We then rode through an abandoned zoo teeming with peacocks and other wild birds, before turning north, riding across Virginia Key, and then up and over the massive causeway to the mainland, before turning around and heading back to the marina. From there, it was over to the gas dock to splash some go-go juice in as a precaution (didn't really know how far I had to go, or how many miles per gallon the new ride got!). In my haste, I dropped one of the gas caps into the water. Now...I REALLY don't like salt water, and I REALLY don't like swimming in the ocean (I am somewhat terrified of sharks and other bitey creatures that live there)...but, I manned-up, grabbed a mask, and dove down for the recovery. Seriously brave move there....Michelle was shocked. Lol. We fired up the motors and headed back north. The seas were pretty sloppy, about 1-3 foot with an occasional bigger set, and I ran the boat at 45-50 mph all the way back to the Hillsboro Inlet north of Pompano, where we ducked into the Intercoastal and idled back to the Sands Marina and the same slip we had last Saturday. Another afternoon of cocktails in the pool was followed by a short trip up the ICW to Two Georges restaurant in Deerfield Beach...its pretty cool going out to dinner by boat.
Thursday morning, we had an early appointment with the ramp, as I was going to need to get the boat over to Active Thunder to get it fitted on the new trailer. We had decided to spend that night at the Sands Hotel, so we lugged our gear up to our room on the 8th floor, then untied the boat and idled away. I had parked the truck and trailer last Saturday, and used the automated paybox to purchase 5 days of parking at $5 per day. I did this at 8:48am on Saturday, and here it was, 8:55 on Thursday as we came idling up to the ramp. Sure enough, there's a meter maid writing me a ticket! I tied up on the wall and ran across to her to plead my case...I was less than 10 minutes late after 5 days! Useless. Stupid cop. Oh well. We put the boat on the trailer with Pat's help, then Michelle rode back to spend some time on the beach as I straightened things up on the boat and in the truck, then Pat and his trusty sidekick Kenny used a gantry to pick the boat up off the old trailer, and slid the new one underneath. We reset the position of the bow stop, made sure it was sitting level, and it was done. I drove off to the Sands to chill out for a bit, Michelle came up from the beach, and we assumed our now customary rum'n'coke position down in the pool for the afternoon. By late afternoon, a HUGE storm was bearing down on us, which made for a pretty spectacular experience up on the 8th floor...I was VERY thankful the boat was safely tucked away inside the building at Active Thunder. We then met up with Jason Mozden, and old high school friend we hadn't seen in 20 years who lived down in the area, at a cool restaurant in Fort Lauderdale By the Sea. It was great catching up with him, and a perfect way to wrap up the Florida portion of our vacation.
We hit the road on Friday morning with the big boat behind us, looking to get up to Atlanta if possible. It was pretty nerve-wracking for the first 1/2 hour or so, getting used to how huge this boat was compared to our Fountain, but eventually, I got used to it, and really came to enjoy the increased braking power provided by electric-over-hydraulic disc brakes on every wheel. It towed like a dream. We made it as far as 60 miles south of Atlanta when traffic came to a halt, and we decided to call it a day.
Saturday, we blazed through Atlanta, and were making great time towards our intended destination of Franklin, TN to visit our friends Brian and Cindy Miller in their new home, when a 10 mile backup right at the border of Georgia and Tennessee tacked another hour onto the trip. I had been extremely nervous about the pass over the mountains at Monteagle, but my truck handled both the up and down with ease...I barely had to touch the brakes on the way down as the transmission and exhaust brake took all the hard work out of it. We were just getting to the point of REALLY being sick of being in the truck when we arrived in Franklin. It was absolutely awesome seeing the recently retired Mr. Miller and his lovely bride, and their hospitality was much appreciated. Brian even woke up early and reset the bow stop that had moved on some bigger bumps in the road (allowing the boat to move 3 inches forward on the trailer...yikes). After some sightseeing in Franklin and a wonderful lasagna dinner, it was off to bed.
ONE MORE DAY in the truck. Lol. Michelle had been talking before we left Pompano about how she couldn't wait to come back someday...all that was an afterthought by now....we just wanted to be home. Traffic around Louisville and just north of Indianapolis were the only things that slowed us down, and we arrived home safe and sound after another 8 hours of hauling. I don't even want to SEE the inside of that truck for a week!
So...there you have it. A detailed recap of the great adventure that was our spring break 2013. Hope you enjoyed the show in even the slightest, as we certainly enjoyed the experience. Every mile of it.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Like Grilled Shitake.
In my life, I have had the privilege to be afforded with athletic ability. I like to think I have used this ability to my fullest potential, but there is always a lingering doubt about "what could have been" had I not been injured, or had my mentality regarding competition been stronger. These days, I suppose I continue to use that gift, albeit in far less serious and, consequently, far more enjoyable circumstances. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy fine-tuning my body into a veritable mileage monster. I truly loved to run, and, deep down, I still do. The sacrifices I made in my life physically are both a point of pride and a point of consternation to this day...and I would not change were I offered the chance to do it again. Now all I have are the memories and the residual pain of many years wear-and-tear on my body...which tends to keep the memories pretty sharp! So, I figured I might as well attempt to convey what it felt like...to be a runner.
Cross country was, and is, my favorite running discipline. I love to run off the road. I find it mentally easier to break up a long run into a series of segments, and concentrate on where I'm stepping and where the next turn or hill is rather than how fast I am going. Of course, in college, I was pretty much made to be concerned about ALL of these things...speed being the obvious goal. Racing cross country at the Division I level wasn't a big deal in and of itself, but that's as far as I ever got in terms of exclusivity in the running world, so I remain proud of that accomplishment. I figure at one time, I was knocking out miles in greater quantity and higher speed than a good portion of the general public, so there's my justification for this blogular iteration.
Getting to the Starting Line
Miles. Miles by the thousands. Miles of pavement, miles of gravel, miles of dirt. That's what it took to get to the starting line. In high school, I had somehow parlayed workouts totalling approximately 25 miles per week into an extremely successful career, culminating with a victory and course record at the Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympics. In college, it became immediately clear that there was NO WAY that was going to happen. My freshman year, weekly mileage immediately averaged 75 and above per week. And that meant running 7 days per week. Sure, NCAA regulations maintain that an athlete may only practice 6 days in a week...but the caveat lay in the wording...only six days of SUPERVISED practice were allowed. If you wanted to be successful, you ran the "suggested" 14 miles on Sunday, without the coach...and usually with a hangover.
At any rate, with my mileage tripled, and even quadrupled by the end of the season, it was quite an adjustment to my body. Eventually, the miles won, leaving me to end the season with a stress fracture in my femur. Yes, it hurt. No, I did not stop running. I had worked hard, and wanted badly to compete in the biggest races of the season. Plus, the doctors gave me a 90% chance that the leg would not break completely during the race. There's a sneak-peek into my mentality...and the reason I wanted to write this out...
I ran through multiple twisted ankles, countless bouts with shin splints, patellar tendinitis, pulled hamstrings, pulled calf muscles, pulled hip flexors, the aforementioned cracked femur, a bunion that, according to my podiatrist, could have been from an 80-year-old, and, the bane of my career, a stress-fractured 4th lumbar vertebrae. Looking back, its a wonder I had any healthy days in those four years.
Workouts
Our program was rigorously structured, and, in some cases, even individualized, with each athlete shooting for goals ascribed by our meglomanical and ever-present coach, Christopher Buhler. The man was an AMAZING athlete who ran nearly every work out with us, and despite spotting us 15+ years in the age category, he consistently beat about half the team in some workouts. I could go on for days about this man, but, for the purpose of this story, a small vignette is all I will need to get the idea of what it was like to run for Coach Buhler. Prior to a track meet at Purdue University, he handed each of us a slip of paper in our individual scheduled meetings with events and times written on it. He handed me a paper that said "800 meters - 1:59 1600 meter - 4:00." Keeping in mind I was a DISTANCE athlete (5000m and 10,000m were my track events), this would not exactly be a cakewalk. He looked at me in the eye, and said "You WILL run these times." I ran exactly 4:00 for the 1500, puked my guts out, and came back with a 2:00 for the 800...both were the fastest I had ever, and would ever, run in those events. Myself and my teammates, would do just about anything we could physically to meet the expectations of this man. That is the sign of a great coach. The title of this post is a phrase Coach Buhler liked to use with impunity...I never quite understood why...
My all-time favorite workout in college was on Mondays in mid-cross country season. We would get in a van and drive 12 miles off-campus, out into the farm fields surrounding lovely Muncie, Indiana. After a cursory stretch, we would jog out another mile and then back as a warmup, and then begin our 12 mile return trip. The goal would be to increase our pace every mile. We started at a leisurely 7:30 pace, and by the time we hit campus, we were knocking on the door of 4:30 miles. We would be FLYING through campus, dodging vehicles and pedestrians...it was exhilarating.
College cross country races are 8000 meters (8 kilometers) during the regular season, and 10,000 for NCAA Regionals, so the kilometer was a vital instrument in training. A 3:05 minute kilometer was equivalent to a 5:00 mile....we would regularly knock out 1k intervals in 2:45 with minimal rest between. On a good day, it was an amazingly effortless endeavor...on a bad day, it was a death march. We ran a 10k loop regularly in the low 30 minute range...as a TEAM. It was really fun ripping off 4:50 miles with a group of your best friends...and your coach.
The Start Box
Race day was usually accompanied with a bundle of nerves. We had a strict regimen prepared by Coach Buhler, replete with uniform specifications. Black Nike running pants and a grey t-shirt with a sublimated "Ball State Distance" on the front...all go, no show. The idea was to hit the line with a layer of sweat...that way you knew you were warm. We stretched, did a few pull-outs to simulate the start, and, eventually, warmups came off and we were ready to toe the line. Cross country meets start in a HUGE line perpendicular to the course, with each team contained in a "Start Box." You could usually fit four guys across the front of your box, and the final three on the team just behind. Sometimes, you'd be looking down a line of guys 200 strong. Starting fast was imperative.
I always hated the start. There was always an instant red-line...going as fast as you can and putting yourself in oxygen debt isn't very appealing when you have 5 or 6 hilly miles to go. The most important thing was the ability to come out of that gutted feeling and find your rhythm. The absolute key to all distance running is finding rhythm...if you are out of rhythm, say, due to injury or just lack of mental focus, you are pretty much toast. You will find yourself in pain, and the pain will eventually consume you. I have always been a fast starter in spite of myself. Prior to every race, I would tell myself to take it easy off the line, settle in, and make my move later in the race. Inevitably, I would find myself at the front of the race, sometimes that was a good thing, but many times it simply meant I would be getting passed for the remainder of the race! I came out of the gate at a race my freshman year and found myself in the top five after the first kilometer. I looked at those in front of me, and was horrified to see that Bob Kennedy (a future Olympian running for Indiana University) was not there, even though I knew he was at the race. I was palpably relieved when somebody else asked "Where's Bob?," and another Indiana runner assured us that he would be by...he was simply using this race as a training exercise. Sure enough, before we hit the second kilometer, he passed us like we were going backwards. I was happy to finish in the top twenty.
Cross country can be a lot more brutal than it would appear from an outside perspective. There are flying elbows at the start looking to connect with a chest or a face, sharp metal spikes on the bottom of shoes that shred shins readily (I still have a TON of scars), and there's the infamous turn-flag grab and rebound. I was the victim of the latter by one of my own teammates in a race...the flag sprang back and nailed me between the eyes. All of this, plus the battle against what could occasionally be some seriously difficult terrain. I tended to prefer the more difficult courses....lots of hills and turns were advantageous to a short guy like me. Most races were held on golf courses, which could range from desktop flat at University of Illinois, to extremely "rolling" like Southern Indiana University. Indiana University had its own dedicated cross country course, which was really nice, and quite challenging. Oh...and then there was the weather. We trained in all conditions (my personal record extremes are a head index of 114 and a wind chill of -63), so we would be prepared to race in all conditions. From blistering heat and choking dust to freezing rain and sloppy mud, we did it all. And somehow, we did it with speed.
Pain
At some point in the race, ALMOST without exception, you would begin to feel pain. Sure, there are a couple races I can remember when it all felt so easy...like I was floating...but the vast majority were spent in a constant mental battle against physical limits. I had been trained to embrace the pain and use it to gauge my performance. I knew the pain level that was actually GOOD to be at, and I knew all to well when that pain began to be debilitating. I could tell what my pace was usually within 5 seconds per mile, just by how I was feeling. The delicate balance between pushing yourself and pacing yourself was a constant game of chess contested between body and mind. From the outside, running doesn't seem very cerebral. Inside the mind of a distance athlete is a constant brain battle. Checking breathing. Checking stride. Adjusting for terrain. Looking for teammates. Pass this guy or draft off him for a while? Power up a hill. Stride out on a downhill. Attack a turn. And that nagging thought that never, ever goes away...will I have enough left in the tank to finish strong?
When I was physically well, I was a strong mental runner. I found it easy to convince my legs and lungs to perform at a high level. I was always breaking down a race flag by flag...running from corner to corner and attacking turns like I would have in my days as a soccer player. I made it fun. I talked to my competitors, both to relax myself, and as a psychological weapon against them (How can that guy be talking when I can't even breathe?) I waved to my parents if they were at a race, I looked forward to hills, and when the finish came, although I didn't have the strongest kick in the world, I would generally push myself WELL into the red zone...feeling the pain burning my lungs and crushing my legs...and making the eventual stop at the finish line feel so very good. At those times, pain was my friend.
Then there were the bad times. The times when the pain literally overwhelmed me. My particular cross to bear was my fractured vertebrae. The pain in my lower back would literally leave me crumpled on the ground. It would be as if someone had stuck a corkscrew in my back and was just winding it tighter and tighter...it would prevent me from even breathing normally. It was as if all of energy would be sucked into the spasming muscles around my sacroiliac joint, and eventually, I could not even stand upright, much less push myself to run sub-5 minute pace. The physical pain would bring about a rapid and unforgiving flood of mental pain, and that would generally spell the end for me. It was too much. I met my limits time and time again...like an engine hitting a rev limiter, and it left me as a ragged husk of myself repeatedly. Perseverance faded to struggle. Struggle gave way to frustration. Frustration rapidly ate away at confidence. I was left with nothing. Pain had won.
The Finish Line
By the time I had finished my senior year cross country season, I was mentally burned out. Constantly dealing with my back issues (which remain with me to this day) had broken me down to questioning what had previously been unassailable....my love for the sport. I needed to take a step away from the competitive drive that had left me raw and bloody for want of my prior physical state. I was hurt, and after well over a year of trying everything, I knew my career as a competitive athlete was over. This realization, painful though it was, also happened to contribute to an epiphany of sorts: I didn't HAVE to do this. Call it maturation, call it coming to my senses, call it a sudden onset of sanity...but I made peace with the finish line and came away from years of pain (both good and bad) with an indefatigable source of pride in what I had accomplished.
Running has helped me grow as a person in innumerable and immeasurable ways, and putting the thoughts of that process down has been somewhat cathartic. Of late, I have strayed from putting one foot in front of the other in favor of cranking out miles on two wheels, but always the drive and purity of athleticism that is running flows through my veins....probably why I enjoy the singlespeed mountain bike so much.
So...I started to run again. I'm not fast, nor do I portend to be fast. I run to enjoy myself. I run to BE myself.
Cross country was, and is, my favorite running discipline. I love to run off the road. I find it mentally easier to break up a long run into a series of segments, and concentrate on where I'm stepping and where the next turn or hill is rather than how fast I am going. Of course, in college, I was pretty much made to be concerned about ALL of these things...speed being the obvious goal. Racing cross country at the Division I level wasn't a big deal in and of itself, but that's as far as I ever got in terms of exclusivity in the running world, so I remain proud of that accomplishment. I figure at one time, I was knocking out miles in greater quantity and higher speed than a good portion of the general public, so there's my justification for this blogular iteration.
Getting to the Starting Line
Miles. Miles by the thousands. Miles of pavement, miles of gravel, miles of dirt. That's what it took to get to the starting line. In high school, I had somehow parlayed workouts totalling approximately 25 miles per week into an extremely successful career, culminating with a victory and course record at the Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympics. In college, it became immediately clear that there was NO WAY that was going to happen. My freshman year, weekly mileage immediately averaged 75 and above per week. And that meant running 7 days per week. Sure, NCAA regulations maintain that an athlete may only practice 6 days in a week...but the caveat lay in the wording...only six days of SUPERVISED practice were allowed. If you wanted to be successful, you ran the "suggested" 14 miles on Sunday, without the coach...and usually with a hangover.
At any rate, with my mileage tripled, and even quadrupled by the end of the season, it was quite an adjustment to my body. Eventually, the miles won, leaving me to end the season with a stress fracture in my femur. Yes, it hurt. No, I did not stop running. I had worked hard, and wanted badly to compete in the biggest races of the season. Plus, the doctors gave me a 90% chance that the leg would not break completely during the race. There's a sneak-peek into my mentality...and the reason I wanted to write this out...
I ran through multiple twisted ankles, countless bouts with shin splints, patellar tendinitis, pulled hamstrings, pulled calf muscles, pulled hip flexors, the aforementioned cracked femur, a bunion that, according to my podiatrist, could have been from an 80-year-old, and, the bane of my career, a stress-fractured 4th lumbar vertebrae. Looking back, its a wonder I had any healthy days in those four years.
Workouts
Our program was rigorously structured, and, in some cases, even individualized, with each athlete shooting for goals ascribed by our meglomanical and ever-present coach, Christopher Buhler. The man was an AMAZING athlete who ran nearly every work out with us, and despite spotting us 15+ years in the age category, he consistently beat about half the team in some workouts. I could go on for days about this man, but, for the purpose of this story, a small vignette is all I will need to get the idea of what it was like to run for Coach Buhler. Prior to a track meet at Purdue University, he handed each of us a slip of paper in our individual scheduled meetings with events and times written on it. He handed me a paper that said "800 meters - 1:59 1600 meter - 4:00." Keeping in mind I was a DISTANCE athlete (5000m and 10,000m were my track events), this would not exactly be a cakewalk. He looked at me in the eye, and said "You WILL run these times." I ran exactly 4:00 for the 1500, puked my guts out, and came back with a 2:00 for the 800...both were the fastest I had ever, and would ever, run in those events. Myself and my teammates, would do just about anything we could physically to meet the expectations of this man. That is the sign of a great coach. The title of this post is a phrase Coach Buhler liked to use with impunity...I never quite understood why...
My all-time favorite workout in college was on Mondays in mid-cross country season. We would get in a van and drive 12 miles off-campus, out into the farm fields surrounding lovely Muncie, Indiana. After a cursory stretch, we would jog out another mile and then back as a warmup, and then begin our 12 mile return trip. The goal would be to increase our pace every mile. We started at a leisurely 7:30 pace, and by the time we hit campus, we were knocking on the door of 4:30 miles. We would be FLYING through campus, dodging vehicles and pedestrians...it was exhilarating.
College cross country races are 8000 meters (8 kilometers) during the regular season, and 10,000 for NCAA Regionals, so the kilometer was a vital instrument in training. A 3:05 minute kilometer was equivalent to a 5:00 mile....we would regularly knock out 1k intervals in 2:45 with minimal rest between. On a good day, it was an amazingly effortless endeavor...on a bad day, it was a death march. We ran a 10k loop regularly in the low 30 minute range...as a TEAM. It was really fun ripping off 4:50 miles with a group of your best friends...and your coach.
The Start Box
Race day was usually accompanied with a bundle of nerves. We had a strict regimen prepared by Coach Buhler, replete with uniform specifications. Black Nike running pants and a grey t-shirt with a sublimated "Ball State Distance" on the front...all go, no show. The idea was to hit the line with a layer of sweat...that way you knew you were warm. We stretched, did a few pull-outs to simulate the start, and, eventually, warmups came off and we were ready to toe the line. Cross country meets start in a HUGE line perpendicular to the course, with each team contained in a "Start Box." You could usually fit four guys across the front of your box, and the final three on the team just behind. Sometimes, you'd be looking down a line of guys 200 strong. Starting fast was imperative.
I always hated the start. There was always an instant red-line...going as fast as you can and putting yourself in oxygen debt isn't very appealing when you have 5 or 6 hilly miles to go. The most important thing was the ability to come out of that gutted feeling and find your rhythm. The absolute key to all distance running is finding rhythm...if you are out of rhythm, say, due to injury or just lack of mental focus, you are pretty much toast. You will find yourself in pain, and the pain will eventually consume you. I have always been a fast starter in spite of myself. Prior to every race, I would tell myself to take it easy off the line, settle in, and make my move later in the race. Inevitably, I would find myself at the front of the race, sometimes that was a good thing, but many times it simply meant I would be getting passed for the remainder of the race! I came out of the gate at a race my freshman year and found myself in the top five after the first kilometer. I looked at those in front of me, and was horrified to see that Bob Kennedy (a future Olympian running for Indiana University) was not there, even though I knew he was at the race. I was palpably relieved when somebody else asked "Where's Bob?," and another Indiana runner assured us that he would be by...he was simply using this race as a training exercise. Sure enough, before we hit the second kilometer, he passed us like we were going backwards. I was happy to finish in the top twenty.
Cross country can be a lot more brutal than it would appear from an outside perspective. There are flying elbows at the start looking to connect with a chest or a face, sharp metal spikes on the bottom of shoes that shred shins readily (I still have a TON of scars), and there's the infamous turn-flag grab and rebound. I was the victim of the latter by one of my own teammates in a race...the flag sprang back and nailed me between the eyes. All of this, plus the battle against what could occasionally be some seriously difficult terrain. I tended to prefer the more difficult courses....lots of hills and turns were advantageous to a short guy like me. Most races were held on golf courses, which could range from desktop flat at University of Illinois, to extremely "rolling" like Southern Indiana University. Indiana University had its own dedicated cross country course, which was really nice, and quite challenging. Oh...and then there was the weather. We trained in all conditions (my personal record extremes are a head index of 114 and a wind chill of -63), so we would be prepared to race in all conditions. From blistering heat and choking dust to freezing rain and sloppy mud, we did it all. And somehow, we did it with speed.
Pain
At some point in the race, ALMOST without exception, you would begin to feel pain. Sure, there are a couple races I can remember when it all felt so easy...like I was floating...but the vast majority were spent in a constant mental battle against physical limits. I had been trained to embrace the pain and use it to gauge my performance. I knew the pain level that was actually GOOD to be at, and I knew all to well when that pain began to be debilitating. I could tell what my pace was usually within 5 seconds per mile, just by how I was feeling. The delicate balance between pushing yourself and pacing yourself was a constant game of chess contested between body and mind. From the outside, running doesn't seem very cerebral. Inside the mind of a distance athlete is a constant brain battle. Checking breathing. Checking stride. Adjusting for terrain. Looking for teammates. Pass this guy or draft off him for a while? Power up a hill. Stride out on a downhill. Attack a turn. And that nagging thought that never, ever goes away...will I have enough left in the tank to finish strong?
When I was physically well, I was a strong mental runner. I found it easy to convince my legs and lungs to perform at a high level. I was always breaking down a race flag by flag...running from corner to corner and attacking turns like I would have in my days as a soccer player. I made it fun. I talked to my competitors, both to relax myself, and as a psychological weapon against them (How can that guy be talking when I can't even breathe?) I waved to my parents if they were at a race, I looked forward to hills, and when the finish came, although I didn't have the strongest kick in the world, I would generally push myself WELL into the red zone...feeling the pain burning my lungs and crushing my legs...and making the eventual stop at the finish line feel so very good. At those times, pain was my friend.
Then there were the bad times. The times when the pain literally overwhelmed me. My particular cross to bear was my fractured vertebrae. The pain in my lower back would literally leave me crumpled on the ground. It would be as if someone had stuck a corkscrew in my back and was just winding it tighter and tighter...it would prevent me from even breathing normally. It was as if all of energy would be sucked into the spasming muscles around my sacroiliac joint, and eventually, I could not even stand upright, much less push myself to run sub-5 minute pace. The physical pain would bring about a rapid and unforgiving flood of mental pain, and that would generally spell the end for me. It was too much. I met my limits time and time again...like an engine hitting a rev limiter, and it left me as a ragged husk of myself repeatedly. Perseverance faded to struggle. Struggle gave way to frustration. Frustration rapidly ate away at confidence. I was left with nothing. Pain had won.
The Finish Line
By the time I had finished my senior year cross country season, I was mentally burned out. Constantly dealing with my back issues (which remain with me to this day) had broken me down to questioning what had previously been unassailable....my love for the sport. I needed to take a step away from the competitive drive that had left me raw and bloody for want of my prior physical state. I was hurt, and after well over a year of trying everything, I knew my career as a competitive athlete was over. This realization, painful though it was, also happened to contribute to an epiphany of sorts: I didn't HAVE to do this. Call it maturation, call it coming to my senses, call it a sudden onset of sanity...but I made peace with the finish line and came away from years of pain (both good and bad) with an indefatigable source of pride in what I had accomplished.
Running has helped me grow as a person in innumerable and immeasurable ways, and putting the thoughts of that process down has been somewhat cathartic. Of late, I have strayed from putting one foot in front of the other in favor of cranking out miles on two wheels, but always the drive and purity of athleticism that is running flows through my veins....probably why I enjoy the singlespeed mountain bike so much.
So...I started to run again. I'm not fast, nor do I portend to be fast. I run to enjoy myself. I run to BE myself.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Snapshot
I don't want to say I have a photographic memory, but I tend to have the ability to pull random specificity from poignant moments in my life. Sometimes it acts on a trigger...usually a song that was playing at the time. It happened to me today, thanks to the 1980s Alternative playlist on Pandora. Here's the story:
It was the fall of 1992, and I was fully enveloped in the chaos and utter unpredictability of life away from home, on my own, on a college campus. Trauma is usually used with a negative connotation, but any situation, be it differently good or differently bad, can certainly cause mental trauma. I was really trying to get my feet under me after being presented with the traumatic situation that pretty much involved creating a persona that would be, ostensibly, the New me. It happens to everyone that either goes away to school, moves to a new neighborhood, changes jobs, starts a relationship, etc...you find that you suddenly have an opportunity to be something slightly different than you were in the past. I am sure some people who undergo a complete reinvention that is far away from who they really are tend to have some difficulty, but I'd like to think I stuck close to the tenets that had defined myself for my 18 years. But I digress.
The single most negatively traumatic situation I was dealing with was the separation from my girlfriend. Even though my rational mind would intervene with the proverbial "cold water" interpretation of my feelings as mere youthful infatuation, I was fairly convinced that I was in love with her. Even though that did in fact happen to be the case (considering over 20 years later I'm still in this situation), I was not in a position to really call it love...not at that age. One of the things that defined me was the aching pain of separation from the girl I had dated for a year and three months. I found that the telephone was not only an inadequate source of relief from this pain...but it created even more pain...in the wallet. I blew through my allotted $100 in phone bill in the first two weeks...learning the cruelty that was the toll call. We were in the same area code, so a long distance plan would not work...it was not until after we graduated that this would change, most likely a change that was conceived and propagated by someone whose paycheck was greatly supplemented by a love-sick teenaged me. I wanted/needed to see her.
Three weeks of school went by...and the day came that she was coming to visit. She had hooked a ride from a friend at Purdue that was visiting Ball State for the weekend. It was a Friday night. I was literally a nervous wreck all day. I had given her directions to my dorm, and she had told me she was to arrive around 6 pm. After eating dinner, I could do nothing but wait. After secluding myself in my dorm room for as long as I could stand, I emerged into the common area of the dorm. A group of my friends were hanging around there, and, as I recall, all of them asked me when my girlfriend was coming. I most likely responded with a countdown to the very minute. 6 came and went, and I began to worry. I began to pace at 6:15. I could no longer converse by 6:30...I felt ready to explode. I needed to get away from everyone that seemed to be staring at me...wondering where my girlfriend was. It was a case of anticipation like I've rarely experienced, hence the reason its so burned into my memory.
7 pm found me sitting in front of the dorm on a bench, fervently searching every car door that opened for the sign of her head. I was comforted at one point by a girl I'd met the week before...I guess my anguish was pretty apparent? When 7:30 came, I was beside myself. I remember no longer being able to sit still. I alternated between scanning the road in front of the dorm and the ground between my feet. There was nothing else.
Then, the door to the dorm opened behind me. I turned to see who it was...and it was her. She was accompanied by one of my friends, having accidentally used the back door of the building, and that friend knew exactly who she was and where I was. I levitated off the bench. Here's where the memory part comes in. Her long brown/blonde tresses fell in waves over her shoulders. She was wearing a black and white striped top and a pair of black jean shorts. Past that point, everything is pretty blurry. I introduced her to a bunch of my new friends, there were smiles all around, and I took her back to my room. Then, clarity. And the reason behind this diatribe.
We were together, and my heart felt like it would burst. We hugged. We kissed. And then I (as I had previously planned), I asked her to dance. The song was Close To Me by The Cure. I held her tight, and when I looked into her eyes, she was crying. I didn't know it was possible for a person to miss another more than I had missed her, but, apparently she had missed me as well.
Hearing the song again today made me think how well I have done in keeping her Close To Me ever since.
It was the fall of 1992, and I was fully enveloped in the chaos and utter unpredictability of life away from home, on my own, on a college campus. Trauma is usually used with a negative connotation, but any situation, be it differently good or differently bad, can certainly cause mental trauma. I was really trying to get my feet under me after being presented with the traumatic situation that pretty much involved creating a persona that would be, ostensibly, the New me. It happens to everyone that either goes away to school, moves to a new neighborhood, changes jobs, starts a relationship, etc...you find that you suddenly have an opportunity to be something slightly different than you were in the past. I am sure some people who undergo a complete reinvention that is far away from who they really are tend to have some difficulty, but I'd like to think I stuck close to the tenets that had defined myself for my 18 years. But I digress.
The single most negatively traumatic situation I was dealing with was the separation from my girlfriend. Even though my rational mind would intervene with the proverbial "cold water" interpretation of my feelings as mere youthful infatuation, I was fairly convinced that I was in love with her. Even though that did in fact happen to be the case (considering over 20 years later I'm still in this situation), I was not in a position to really call it love...not at that age. One of the things that defined me was the aching pain of separation from the girl I had dated for a year and three months. I found that the telephone was not only an inadequate source of relief from this pain...but it created even more pain...in the wallet. I blew through my allotted $100 in phone bill in the first two weeks...learning the cruelty that was the toll call. We were in the same area code, so a long distance plan would not work...it was not until after we graduated that this would change, most likely a change that was conceived and propagated by someone whose paycheck was greatly supplemented by a love-sick teenaged me. I wanted/needed to see her.
Three weeks of school went by...and the day came that she was coming to visit. She had hooked a ride from a friend at Purdue that was visiting Ball State for the weekend. It was a Friday night. I was literally a nervous wreck all day. I had given her directions to my dorm, and she had told me she was to arrive around 6 pm. After eating dinner, I could do nothing but wait. After secluding myself in my dorm room for as long as I could stand, I emerged into the common area of the dorm. A group of my friends were hanging around there, and, as I recall, all of them asked me when my girlfriend was coming. I most likely responded with a countdown to the very minute. 6 came and went, and I began to worry. I began to pace at 6:15. I could no longer converse by 6:30...I felt ready to explode. I needed to get away from everyone that seemed to be staring at me...wondering where my girlfriend was. It was a case of anticipation like I've rarely experienced, hence the reason its so burned into my memory.
7 pm found me sitting in front of the dorm on a bench, fervently searching every car door that opened for the sign of her head. I was comforted at one point by a girl I'd met the week before...I guess my anguish was pretty apparent? When 7:30 came, I was beside myself. I remember no longer being able to sit still. I alternated between scanning the road in front of the dorm and the ground between my feet. There was nothing else.
Then, the door to the dorm opened behind me. I turned to see who it was...and it was her. She was accompanied by one of my friends, having accidentally used the back door of the building, and that friend knew exactly who she was and where I was. I levitated off the bench. Here's where the memory part comes in. Her long brown/blonde tresses fell in waves over her shoulders. She was wearing a black and white striped top and a pair of black jean shorts. Past that point, everything is pretty blurry. I introduced her to a bunch of my new friends, there were smiles all around, and I took her back to my room. Then, clarity. And the reason behind this diatribe.
We were together, and my heart felt like it would burst. We hugged. We kissed. And then I (as I had previously planned), I asked her to dance. The song was Close To Me by The Cure. I held her tight, and when I looked into her eyes, she was crying. I didn't know it was possible for a person to miss another more than I had missed her, but, apparently she had missed me as well.
Hearing the song again today made me think how well I have done in keeping her Close To Me ever since.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Sommer Winter trip...
When you have the last name Sommer, it can be difficult to define or explain exactly why my love for most things winter is so pervasive. It wasn't always that way...there were a few years between my last snowmobiling experience with my dad and his friends and my first trip downhill on a snowboard when I literally had NOTHING to do during the winter. It really screwed with me mentally....so much so that Michelle used to refer to it as Winter Depression. As previously referenced, snowboarding changed all of that, and became all-consuming for a long while, until Michelle decided she wanted to try snowmobiling. Her enthusiasm for that particular endeavor has led to the rekindling of my own desire to ride, and in the 5 or so years since we started sledding, we have owned seven snowmobiles.
We Sommers have a problem with winter...we tend to enjoy it a lot. Mother Nature was very kind to us in our initial years as snowmobilers...plenty of white stuff to go around even before Christmas, and plenty of options as to where to ride each weekend. That has NOT been the case recently, when we have been forced to chase the snow and alter our schedules to take advantage of the white gold between meltdowns. This year, we were chomping at the bit to get our annual Christmas - New Year's trip planned and carried out without dealing with a fickle Ma Nature....so early December found us planning a trip to Baraga, Michigan to meet with our friends Bill and Lisa from Pennsylvania for a couple days, then finishing off the week on Lake Gogebic, MI with our boating friends for an awesome New Year celebration. Unfortunately, Old Man Winter is apparently asleep at the wheel once again, and da Yoop had NO snow for us to play on...we were left with a dilemma similar to that of the previous year (one which had a similar scenario). Last year, we packed up the truck and headed west to Colorado...but this year, the snow situation out there wasn't looking very good either. Our Pennsylvania friends made the definitive move to cancel on Michigan and head to their old stomping grounds, St. Zenon, Quebec, Canada. In a move calculated largely upon desperation, and fueled in a lesser capacity by desire to try something new....I took the plunge and decided we would commit to going with them. Instead of driving 16 hours west, we would be driving 15 hours east. No problem.
After a hectic couple of days leading up to Christmas filled with the usual familial holiday cheer, we were ready to roll. The truck was packed and in the driveway as we departed to our final family functions on Christmas day. Our desire to get rolling early was stoked by the approaching winter storm that was going to be following us to the north and east. One thing about travelling to winter activities....you always want the winter to be there WHEN you arrive, and to leave you alone in the TO and FROM stages of the trip! Well, we got home at about 10:30 Christmas night, and I set my alarm for 3:15am. I was not wanting to roll into a foreign country in a blizzard for multiple hours, and getting up that early was an easy sacrifice to make. We were rolling by 4am, and by shortly after 8, we had made it to Detroit. The border crossing was not difficult, although the female officer was less than friendly. I will admit to telling her I had one case of beer when in actuality, it was two cases of beer, a gallon of rum, two bottles of wine, a bottle of Rum Chata, and some Baileys. We were taking NO chances with our thirst after a day of hard riding.
We continued to the east, an ominous line of dark clouds to our south, and a telephonic data blackout due to the lack of an international package meaning we had to rely on the merits of the AM radio dial to tell us what we were in for weather wise. We made Toronto in about seven hours, and the radio was telling us that the Winter Storm Warning would kick in at about 4 pm ( 4pm eastern, we left at 5am eastern). That gave us about a 3 hour cushion...a bit too close for comfort yet. While passing through Toronto, we came upon the Canadian National Holiday of Boxing Day. Apparently, it is a day of shopping, much like the day after our Thanksgiving, and there was LITERALLY a 5 mile backup in both directions of the off-ramp for a major local mall. It was CRAZY. Fortunately, it didn't affect the fast lane, and we kept going.
A stiff 30 mph headwind kept our gas mileage at around 11, so stops for fuel were a bit more frequent than I would have liked. Still, we were ahead of the weather and things were looking good, so we pushed our second tank of fuel all the way into Quebec, where we suddenly found ourselves in the lingual minority...big time. I had known that Quebec was a French-speaking area of Canada with a serious bent towards independence, but I guess I didn't really figure on English being almost entirely absent. Yet...here we were, looking at a menu in a fast food restaurant at a truck stop...deciding what to eat by looking at pictures and feeling very thankful that the girl behind the counter spoke decent English...our knowledge of French being exactly NIL. Also...I found out that Capital One will cut you off if your card starts reeling up charges in another country...a quick phone call from my parents established that fact and the card was usable again shortly afterwards. Merci.
The third large city we encountered was Montreal, and we successfully navigated the French road signs until we found ourselves headed north for the final leg of the trip. It was right around then, 10+ hours into the drive, that we first encountered what would be considered ridable snow. That amount rapidly increased as we continued north, and by the time we were off the highway and into the area around St. Zenon, the snow was COPIOUS. As in...there were FEET of it. The roads were mercifully clear as we climbed and twisted into the low mountains of the area, and the picturesque cottages along the route looked like they had been plucked out of a snow globe. It was surreal.
FINALLY, 15 hours after the inception of the drive, we pulled into our destination. Le Auberge de Cabanon is a rustic lodge and restaurant that is only arrived at with a 5 mile drive down what I am sure is a dirt road in the summer, and was dressed as a icy washboard for the winter. We checked in, met our PA friends, and they helped Michelle unload the truck and bring our stuff to the room as I unloaded the sleds and got them into the locked corral where they would spend each evening. Theft was a concern in the past, so La Cabanon not only locks the sleds away in the evening, but also the parking lot where the trailers and tow rigs were situated. Very smart. I had to park about 4 rows back, the lot being almost entirely full of two and four-place sled trailers. Clearly, we had come to the right place.
The next day dawned with a grey menace in the sky, but with a fiery hot desire to RIDE in our bellies. Our group consisted of 10 people, our friend's Bill and Lisa, Michelle and I, two newlywed couples Josh and Maree and Will and Amy, and hardcore sledders Justin and Steve. Snow was already falling as we hit the trail (this was the storm I had been outrunning, it was a bit slower than forecast), and it continued all day long. Visibility was an issue, as the falling snow and snow dust kicked up by the riders in front kept one searching for a clear line of sight, but that didn't slow the group down by much. We were running 60-70 mph on the straights and having a GREAT time. The trails were spectacular...rolling, twisting, smooth ribbons cutting a path through an endless array of pine and birch trees. Everything I saw flashing past my goggles was amazing...we had hit snowmobile paydirt. Right away, I knew it was worth the drive.
The subsequent days were much the same, with the temps getting gradually colder and the snow tapering off after adding another 6 to 8 inches of white fluffiness to the area. Day two saw the roughest trails of the trip, most likely as the result of the fresh snow and the large amount of traffic...which was entirely relative...a large amount of traffic in Quebec is still empty trails compared to what we are used to. We rode across a hydroelectric dam, alongside a beautiful river, up and down scores of mountains, through picturesque villages, over a one-lane suspension bridge, and across a somewhat questionably frozen lake (we were assured it was solid...the slushy parts said otherwise!). The towns of St. Donay and St. Michelle felt like they were transplanted from the French Alps. Justin and Steve took turns getting stuck in the powder of an abandoned ski hill. We raced through a national park, and had fun doing husband v. wife grudge match drag races on the lake back at La Cabanon. We ate at La Glaciere, Le Pub, Repos and Hector's...the latter being named after the owners 2 year old son who was present for our meal and waved goodbye to us as we rode away. The people we encounterd were VERY friendly, and very patient with a bunch of non-French speakers...repetition was the key to our understanding! We only got lost once, and that was due to poorly marked trails, but it did result in a bit of consternation, as being lost in an area where you don't speak the native tongue at night in the freezing cold with less than 1/2 tank of gas can be...well...bothersome. The hot tub and some cocktails welcomed us back each night, and by the end of the five days, my body was actually feeling pretty good.
We racked up just shy of 850 miles, with about 75 of them in the "bumpy" category. The rest was borderline heavenly. Our sleds all ran flawlessly, and, as a group, we moved very well together...nobody lagged behind, and, more importantly, nobody got lost! Our skill in speaking French did not progress nearly as well, especially with regard to Michelle saying goodbye. She could not get her mouth to properly say "Au revoir," which was a source of much hilarity. "Adieu" seemed to suit her much better.
Our final night was New Year's Eve, but after a 160 mile day, we gave ourselves a pass an had our own countdown at like 10 pm...another contributing factor being that the PA folks were rolling for home at 5am, with us following by 7 (6 our time). We bade our friends "adieu," packed for our early morning departure, and went to sleep. The next morning we chased the sun across the sky heading west for 15 more hours of driving, awake, but dreaming of the wonders we had just experienced.
We Sommers have a problem with winter...we tend to enjoy it a lot. Mother Nature was very kind to us in our initial years as snowmobilers...plenty of white stuff to go around even before Christmas, and plenty of options as to where to ride each weekend. That has NOT been the case recently, when we have been forced to chase the snow and alter our schedules to take advantage of the white gold between meltdowns. This year, we were chomping at the bit to get our annual Christmas - New Year's trip planned and carried out without dealing with a fickle Ma Nature....so early December found us planning a trip to Baraga, Michigan to meet with our friends Bill and Lisa from Pennsylvania for a couple days, then finishing off the week on Lake Gogebic, MI with our boating friends for an awesome New Year celebration. Unfortunately, Old Man Winter is apparently asleep at the wheel once again, and da Yoop had NO snow for us to play on...we were left with a dilemma similar to that of the previous year (one which had a similar scenario). Last year, we packed up the truck and headed west to Colorado...but this year, the snow situation out there wasn't looking very good either. Our Pennsylvania friends made the definitive move to cancel on Michigan and head to their old stomping grounds, St. Zenon, Quebec, Canada. In a move calculated largely upon desperation, and fueled in a lesser capacity by desire to try something new....I took the plunge and decided we would commit to going with them. Instead of driving 16 hours west, we would be driving 15 hours east. No problem.
After a hectic couple of days leading up to Christmas filled with the usual familial holiday cheer, we were ready to roll. The truck was packed and in the driveway as we departed to our final family functions on Christmas day. Our desire to get rolling early was stoked by the approaching winter storm that was going to be following us to the north and east. One thing about travelling to winter activities....you always want the winter to be there WHEN you arrive, and to leave you alone in the TO and FROM stages of the trip! Well, we got home at about 10:30 Christmas night, and I set my alarm for 3:15am. I was not wanting to roll into a foreign country in a blizzard for multiple hours, and getting up that early was an easy sacrifice to make. We were rolling by 4am, and by shortly after 8, we had made it to Detroit. The border crossing was not difficult, although the female officer was less than friendly. I will admit to telling her I had one case of beer when in actuality, it was two cases of beer, a gallon of rum, two bottles of wine, a bottle of Rum Chata, and some Baileys. We were taking NO chances with our thirst after a day of hard riding.
We continued to the east, an ominous line of dark clouds to our south, and a telephonic data blackout due to the lack of an international package meaning we had to rely on the merits of the AM radio dial to tell us what we were in for weather wise. We made Toronto in about seven hours, and the radio was telling us that the Winter Storm Warning would kick in at about 4 pm ( 4pm eastern, we left at 5am eastern). That gave us about a 3 hour cushion...a bit too close for comfort yet. While passing through Toronto, we came upon the Canadian National Holiday of Boxing Day. Apparently, it is a day of shopping, much like the day after our Thanksgiving, and there was LITERALLY a 5 mile backup in both directions of the off-ramp for a major local mall. It was CRAZY. Fortunately, it didn't affect the fast lane, and we kept going.
A stiff 30 mph headwind kept our gas mileage at around 11, so stops for fuel were a bit more frequent than I would have liked. Still, we were ahead of the weather and things were looking good, so we pushed our second tank of fuel all the way into Quebec, where we suddenly found ourselves in the lingual minority...big time. I had known that Quebec was a French-speaking area of Canada with a serious bent towards independence, but I guess I didn't really figure on English being almost entirely absent. Yet...here we were, looking at a menu in a fast food restaurant at a truck stop...deciding what to eat by looking at pictures and feeling very thankful that the girl behind the counter spoke decent English...our knowledge of French being exactly NIL. Also...I found out that Capital One will cut you off if your card starts reeling up charges in another country...a quick phone call from my parents established that fact and the card was usable again shortly afterwards. Merci.
The third large city we encountered was Montreal, and we successfully navigated the French road signs until we found ourselves headed north for the final leg of the trip. It was right around then, 10+ hours into the drive, that we first encountered what would be considered ridable snow. That amount rapidly increased as we continued north, and by the time we were off the highway and into the area around St. Zenon, the snow was COPIOUS. As in...there were FEET of it. The roads were mercifully clear as we climbed and twisted into the low mountains of the area, and the picturesque cottages along the route looked like they had been plucked out of a snow globe. It was surreal.
FINALLY, 15 hours after the inception of the drive, we pulled into our destination. Le Auberge de Cabanon is a rustic lodge and restaurant that is only arrived at with a 5 mile drive down what I am sure is a dirt road in the summer, and was dressed as a icy washboard for the winter. We checked in, met our PA friends, and they helped Michelle unload the truck and bring our stuff to the room as I unloaded the sleds and got them into the locked corral where they would spend each evening. Theft was a concern in the past, so La Cabanon not only locks the sleds away in the evening, but also the parking lot where the trailers and tow rigs were situated. Very smart. I had to park about 4 rows back, the lot being almost entirely full of two and four-place sled trailers. Clearly, we had come to the right place.
The next day dawned with a grey menace in the sky, but with a fiery hot desire to RIDE in our bellies. Our group consisted of 10 people, our friend's Bill and Lisa, Michelle and I, two newlywed couples Josh and Maree and Will and Amy, and hardcore sledders Justin and Steve. Snow was already falling as we hit the trail (this was the storm I had been outrunning, it was a bit slower than forecast), and it continued all day long. Visibility was an issue, as the falling snow and snow dust kicked up by the riders in front kept one searching for a clear line of sight, but that didn't slow the group down by much. We were running 60-70 mph on the straights and having a GREAT time. The trails were spectacular...rolling, twisting, smooth ribbons cutting a path through an endless array of pine and birch trees. Everything I saw flashing past my goggles was amazing...we had hit snowmobile paydirt. Right away, I knew it was worth the drive.
The subsequent days were much the same, with the temps getting gradually colder and the snow tapering off after adding another 6 to 8 inches of white fluffiness to the area. Day two saw the roughest trails of the trip, most likely as the result of the fresh snow and the large amount of traffic...which was entirely relative...a large amount of traffic in Quebec is still empty trails compared to what we are used to. We rode across a hydroelectric dam, alongside a beautiful river, up and down scores of mountains, through picturesque villages, over a one-lane suspension bridge, and across a somewhat questionably frozen lake (we were assured it was solid...the slushy parts said otherwise!). The towns of St. Donay and St. Michelle felt like they were transplanted from the French Alps. Justin and Steve took turns getting stuck in the powder of an abandoned ski hill. We raced through a national park, and had fun doing husband v. wife grudge match drag races on the lake back at La Cabanon. We ate at La Glaciere, Le Pub, Repos and Hector's...the latter being named after the owners 2 year old son who was present for our meal and waved goodbye to us as we rode away. The people we encounterd were VERY friendly, and very patient with a bunch of non-French speakers...repetition was the key to our understanding! We only got lost once, and that was due to poorly marked trails, but it did result in a bit of consternation, as being lost in an area where you don't speak the native tongue at night in the freezing cold with less than 1/2 tank of gas can be...well...bothersome. The hot tub and some cocktails welcomed us back each night, and by the end of the five days, my body was actually feeling pretty good.
We racked up just shy of 850 miles, with about 75 of them in the "bumpy" category. The rest was borderline heavenly. Our sleds all ran flawlessly, and, as a group, we moved very well together...nobody lagged behind, and, more importantly, nobody got lost! Our skill in speaking French did not progress nearly as well, especially with regard to Michelle saying goodbye. She could not get her mouth to properly say "Au revoir," which was a source of much hilarity. "Adieu" seemed to suit her much better.
Our final night was New Year's Eve, but after a 160 mile day, we gave ourselves a pass an had our own countdown at like 10 pm...another contributing factor being that the PA folks were rolling for home at 5am, with us following by 7 (6 our time). We bade our friends "adieu," packed for our early morning departure, and went to sleep. The next morning we chased the sun across the sky heading west for 15 more hours of driving, awake, but dreaming of the wonders we had just experienced.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
You can't spell CATHARSIS without Cat...
One year ago tonight was a terrible one. On this particular night, our cat Mojo lay dying in our bed. She had not eaten in many days, she was frail and gaunt, and could barely breathe. She had taken her final steps two days before...since then she had been too weak to move. I lay with my hands on her all night, feeling her muscles tense up every once in a while, and giving her a reassuring squeeze to let her know I was still there. Tonight, one year later, I still miss her, and feel the need to eulogize her...even in the face of potential ridicule that some would point my way for feeling so strongly about a pet, much less a cat. Some will empathize, some will think I'm an over-sensitive wussbag...c'est la vie.
It was the winter of 1999...Valentine's Day weekend to be precise...and Michelle and I had been married for about 8 months. We were living in our townhouse in Tinley Park with our cat Twiggy, a former stray that I had found in West Lafayette, IN and Michelle had subsequently adopted as her own. Most cats seem to pick one human as THEIR PERSON, and Twig had Michelle...she merely tolerated me. Twiggy also seemed to have trouble finding her litter box at times, and Michelle read somewhere that she might be getting lonely when we go to work, resulting in her misbehavior. It was this thinking that got Michelle motivated towards the idea of getting another cat to keep Twiggy company.
Now, as I said, it was Valentine's Day...our first as a married couple...so I had planned a weekend getaway to a local resort for some fine dining and swimming and other resort-like activities. Michelle had other plans....she had found kittens. Apparently, she was more than just a little fixated on the idea of getting another cat, it was going to happen, weekend getaway notwithstanding. So, it was with some reluctance that I had to cancel my romantic plans, and found myself a passenger in my wife's car heading over to a local Animal Shelter. I wasn't totally bummed, because I could not deny that having a new kitten in the house might be fun. Michelle informs me on the way over to see the kittens that she even has a name already picked out: Mojo. I was more in favor of deciding on a name AFTER we had seen/met the kitten, but Mojo DID seem like a good name...
Well, there were three kittens at the shelter, and after undergoing an interview process and background check, we were allowed to meet one of them. They were all from the same litter, and since there were two boys and a girl and we only wanted one, we were put into a room and the little girl was brought in to see us. Unlike her brothers, who were white and black, she was a true calico..mostly white, with orange and grey markings. She had a little orange patch around her nose, short, stubby legs, and a ringed grey tail that was longer than the rest of her body. She came right to me, and that was it...I was going to be her person.
I had never had a pet before. We had a cat, Macaroni, when I was growing up, but she was pretty much oblivious to any person in the world with the exception of my mom. She remained that way for 20 years, too...never gave anyone else in the family a bit of care, but she loved my mom. Past that, I had a fish for awhile, Otto, but he was never much for expressiveness, either...not that I expected much from a fish (I'm crazy, but not THAT crazy). Well, when the volunteer at the Shelter brought Mojo out to me after they had given her a bath and a blow dry, I took her in my hand and tucked her into the folds of my hoodie, and I knew this was my pet. She fell asleep in my arms instantly.
When we got home, we attempted to introduce Mojo to Twiggy. Even after following the carefully researched ideas on how to get an older cat to accept a newer kitten (rubbing the scent of the old cat on the new cat...really?)...it was apparent that things were NOT going to go smoothly. I have never since seen a mixture of fear and hatred on the face of an animal as I saw on Twiggy that day! She was mortified. Mojo took no notice at all. As soon as we let her out of her cat-carrier, she took over the house. She was so small, she actually ran UNDER a stunned Twiggy, which did not help things. In order to ease the transition, we confined Mojo to the spare bedroom initially, and I went in there to keep her company. She climbed all over me as I read books, and played fetch with me. Then, she would inevitably curl into a little ball and fall asleep next to me. Gradually, we let her have the run of the house, and she immediately began to terrorize Twiggy...something that continued for the remainder of the Twig's life. Our initial idea of getting Twiggy a "friend" rapidly became nothing more than a running joke...they clearly had no love for each other...ever. Poor Twiggy.
Mojo rapidly became like my shadow. As hard as Michelle tried to get her to like her, she would run to me every time I came into the room. She would stare at me from across the room when I was reading or watching TV. She would follow me up and down stairs. She would play fetch with me, and play soccer with me. She grew up, but she didn't get much bigger. She still had stumpy legs, made even more conspicuous by her incongruously large tail. She LOVED to play, and was a serious attention-hog. She would get jealous of Michelle, and liked to sleep between us in bed at night. She was also a little brat. If we were gone for a weekend, it would be a solid day after we returned before she would deign to grace me with her presence and accept my apologies for leaving.
Then, when she was three years old, she got sick. It started with repeated vomiting, then loss of appetite, and after a few days, I took her to see a vet. An x-ray showed that she had eaten a piece of ribbon, and it was lodged in her intestine. I was given some laxative to feed her, which she lapped right up, and she returned to normal shortly afterwards. I brought her back to the vet for a follow-up visit, and while showing me the x-rays, the doctor pointed out that she had some abnormalities in her kidneys. One kidney was shriveled and useless, and the other was extra large, indicating that at some point in her young life, she had probably contracted a uterine infection, which had done the damage. The prognosis was not good. The doctor gave her 3 years to live.
We went to another vet closer to home for a second opinion, and he agreed with the initial diagnosis. He also offered a way to extend Mojo's life: a diet of renal-friendly soft food, and treatments involving sub-cutaneous fluids. No sweat on the former...just needed to purchase the food. The latter, however, was more than a little intimidating. Basically, it involved what looked like an IV setup, bag, hose and NEEDLE...only instead of hitting a vein with the needle, all you had to do was get it under the skin. Riiiiiiiiiight. Sticking a cat with a needle. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
When it came time for the first "treatment," Michelle said she wanted to help. So, she grabbed Mojo, and the three of us crammed into a small bathroom where I had the bag hanging. It took me a couple tries to get the needle in, and Michelle freaked out right away...even worse than the cat. She left, and it was up to me. I struggled, but for some reason, Mojo let me do it, rather than leaving me a bloody carved-up mess as I had thought.
For the next NINE years, I gave Mojo treatments. First once per week, then twice, then every other day, and finally, near the end, EVERY day. I can't say it was always easy. There were times when I left bloody. There were times when she decided she would NOT be having it and muscled away from me. There were times when I had to stab her more than once with the needle. There were times when the needle went all the way through the fold of skin I had grabbed. She hissed at me, growled at me, and yowled like a wild beast...but she NEVER, EVER, EVER bit me. And most of the time, she just calmed down and let me be her doctor. At times, I even sang her the song "Doctor Worm" by They Might Be Giants to calm her down. This really must have tested her patience, because I suck at singing.
Last year around Thanksgiving, Mojo started to slow down. She didn't play as much, and was hardly eating anything. I knew it was the beginning of the end. All those years of sitting and letting fluids drip had given me a lot of time to think about just how the end would come, and none of those thoughts were terribly appealing. We had stopped taking her to the vet for two reasons: One, we pretty much knew her condition was irreversible and deteriorating and that we were doing all we could for her, and Two, she absolutely HATED the vet. He had a very distinct deep voice, and even the sound of him talking in the other room started her growling. She became a DEMON when he came into the room, and actually bit one of the nurses one visit. We made an early choice to make things as easy as possible for her, and since the vet was uber-stressful, we just kept her home. Soon, it became obvious that the reason she would not eat was because her teeth hurt...the result of years of eating the soft food she needed for her kidneys. Ironic, but not unforeseen. The food that helped her stay alive, also contributed to her demise. Alone, I shed my first tears as the prospect of losing my friend became real.
Her condition improved slightly when we changed up her food...we figured taking away the healthy stuff at this point would not make much difference. When she stopped eating that, it was on to deli meat....ham and turkey had always been favorite treats, and whenever I made my lunch, she was right there to get her bite. That lasted a couple days, and then she just stopped eating altogether. We did what we could...hand feeding her, attempting to force-feed her (if you can avoid doing this in your life, I recommend it...who would have thought a dying cat could be so strong?). She spent her days on a couch in our living room, often not moving an inch from when we left her in the morning. Eventually, jumping onto the couch became an impossibility, and she found repose in one of her seasonally traditional favorite spots...under the Christmas tree.
I stopped giving her treatment when she stopped eating, the idea was to make things as comfortable as possible for her, and we were beyond the point of it helping, anyway. In the final week, she could no longer make it up the stairs to our bedroom, and when we went to bed, she would cry. I set up camp with a pillow and a blanket, and slept on the living room floor with her cuddled in my chest. Her final steps were taken as I lay down in front of the tree one evening...she came right to me, rammed her head into my chest, and lay down.
That next day, Michelle stayed home from school to be with her, keeping her company and grading papers all day. At night, we watched a movie with Mojo on a pillow between us...at one point, she was sleeping so soundly we thought she was gone. We brought her to bed with us on the same pillow, and I kept vigil over her all night...I don't think I slept at all.
We had decided that the next day would be the end, and I stayed home from work to be with her. I held her in my lap and thought about all the times I had I had envisioned the end. I remembered all the times we had played outside in the yard (her all-time favorite thing), I remembered her kills (she was a great hunter, claiming a pigeon, a sparrow, several cicadas, and earthworm, thousands of houseflies and two chipmunks among her victims, even though her outdoor activity was mostly "supervised" and she was mostly white...not too stealthy). I remembered how proud I was to have been able to treat her and keep her alive, and how happy I was that she seemed to know it. I remembered how I was never out of her sight, and how much she loved cuddling with me. I remembered how she had fallen asleep in my arms on that first day. I remembered how great it felt that Mojo had adopted me as her person.
She passed away in my arms. I am not sure what was worse, listening to her last heartbeat and her last breath, or telling Michelle that she was gone when she came home from school 20 minutes later. I do know that I will always remember my first pet, and I will always love her. I do know that tomorrow we will be celebrating the first birthday of our new kittens Sonny and Rico, and giving them an extra treat and cuddle in honor of their predecessor. I miss my Mojo.
It was the winter of 1999...Valentine's Day weekend to be precise...and Michelle and I had been married for about 8 months. We were living in our townhouse in Tinley Park with our cat Twiggy, a former stray that I had found in West Lafayette, IN and Michelle had subsequently adopted as her own. Most cats seem to pick one human as THEIR PERSON, and Twig had Michelle...she merely tolerated me. Twiggy also seemed to have trouble finding her litter box at times, and Michelle read somewhere that she might be getting lonely when we go to work, resulting in her misbehavior. It was this thinking that got Michelle motivated towards the idea of getting another cat to keep Twiggy company.
Now, as I said, it was Valentine's Day...our first as a married couple...so I had planned a weekend getaway to a local resort for some fine dining and swimming and other resort-like activities. Michelle had other plans....she had found kittens. Apparently, she was more than just a little fixated on the idea of getting another cat, it was going to happen, weekend getaway notwithstanding. So, it was with some reluctance that I had to cancel my romantic plans, and found myself a passenger in my wife's car heading over to a local Animal Shelter. I wasn't totally bummed, because I could not deny that having a new kitten in the house might be fun. Michelle informs me on the way over to see the kittens that she even has a name already picked out: Mojo. I was more in favor of deciding on a name AFTER we had seen/met the kitten, but Mojo DID seem like a good name...
Well, there were three kittens at the shelter, and after undergoing an interview process and background check, we were allowed to meet one of them. They were all from the same litter, and since there were two boys and a girl and we only wanted one, we were put into a room and the little girl was brought in to see us. Unlike her brothers, who were white and black, she was a true calico..mostly white, with orange and grey markings. She had a little orange patch around her nose, short, stubby legs, and a ringed grey tail that was longer than the rest of her body. She came right to me, and that was it...I was going to be her person.
I had never had a pet before. We had a cat, Macaroni, when I was growing up, but she was pretty much oblivious to any person in the world with the exception of my mom. She remained that way for 20 years, too...never gave anyone else in the family a bit of care, but she loved my mom. Past that, I had a fish for awhile, Otto, but he was never much for expressiveness, either...not that I expected much from a fish (I'm crazy, but not THAT crazy). Well, when the volunteer at the Shelter brought Mojo out to me after they had given her a bath and a blow dry, I took her in my hand and tucked her into the folds of my hoodie, and I knew this was my pet. She fell asleep in my arms instantly.
When we got home, we attempted to introduce Mojo to Twiggy. Even after following the carefully researched ideas on how to get an older cat to accept a newer kitten (rubbing the scent of the old cat on the new cat...really?)...it was apparent that things were NOT going to go smoothly. I have never since seen a mixture of fear and hatred on the face of an animal as I saw on Twiggy that day! She was mortified. Mojo took no notice at all. As soon as we let her out of her cat-carrier, she took over the house. She was so small, she actually ran UNDER a stunned Twiggy, which did not help things. In order to ease the transition, we confined Mojo to the spare bedroom initially, and I went in there to keep her company. She climbed all over me as I read books, and played fetch with me. Then, she would inevitably curl into a little ball and fall asleep next to me. Gradually, we let her have the run of the house, and she immediately began to terrorize Twiggy...something that continued for the remainder of the Twig's life. Our initial idea of getting Twiggy a "friend" rapidly became nothing more than a running joke...they clearly had no love for each other...ever. Poor Twiggy.
Mojo rapidly became like my shadow. As hard as Michelle tried to get her to like her, she would run to me every time I came into the room. She would stare at me from across the room when I was reading or watching TV. She would follow me up and down stairs. She would play fetch with me, and play soccer with me. She grew up, but she didn't get much bigger. She still had stumpy legs, made even more conspicuous by her incongruously large tail. She LOVED to play, and was a serious attention-hog. She would get jealous of Michelle, and liked to sleep between us in bed at night. She was also a little brat. If we were gone for a weekend, it would be a solid day after we returned before she would deign to grace me with her presence and accept my apologies for leaving.
Then, when she was three years old, she got sick. It started with repeated vomiting, then loss of appetite, and after a few days, I took her to see a vet. An x-ray showed that she had eaten a piece of ribbon, and it was lodged in her intestine. I was given some laxative to feed her, which she lapped right up, and she returned to normal shortly afterwards. I brought her back to the vet for a follow-up visit, and while showing me the x-rays, the doctor pointed out that she had some abnormalities in her kidneys. One kidney was shriveled and useless, and the other was extra large, indicating that at some point in her young life, she had probably contracted a uterine infection, which had done the damage. The prognosis was not good. The doctor gave her 3 years to live.
We went to another vet closer to home for a second opinion, and he agreed with the initial diagnosis. He also offered a way to extend Mojo's life: a diet of renal-friendly soft food, and treatments involving sub-cutaneous fluids. No sweat on the former...just needed to purchase the food. The latter, however, was more than a little intimidating. Basically, it involved what looked like an IV setup, bag, hose and NEEDLE...only instead of hitting a vein with the needle, all you had to do was get it under the skin. Riiiiiiiiiight. Sticking a cat with a needle. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
When it came time for the first "treatment," Michelle said she wanted to help. So, she grabbed Mojo, and the three of us crammed into a small bathroom where I had the bag hanging. It took me a couple tries to get the needle in, and Michelle freaked out right away...even worse than the cat. She left, and it was up to me. I struggled, but for some reason, Mojo let me do it, rather than leaving me a bloody carved-up mess as I had thought.
For the next NINE years, I gave Mojo treatments. First once per week, then twice, then every other day, and finally, near the end, EVERY day. I can't say it was always easy. There were times when I left bloody. There were times when she decided she would NOT be having it and muscled away from me. There were times when I had to stab her more than once with the needle. There were times when the needle went all the way through the fold of skin I had grabbed. She hissed at me, growled at me, and yowled like a wild beast...but she NEVER, EVER, EVER bit me. And most of the time, she just calmed down and let me be her doctor. At times, I even sang her the song "Doctor Worm" by They Might Be Giants to calm her down. This really must have tested her patience, because I suck at singing.
Last year around Thanksgiving, Mojo started to slow down. She didn't play as much, and was hardly eating anything. I knew it was the beginning of the end. All those years of sitting and letting fluids drip had given me a lot of time to think about just how the end would come, and none of those thoughts were terribly appealing. We had stopped taking her to the vet for two reasons: One, we pretty much knew her condition was irreversible and deteriorating and that we were doing all we could for her, and Two, she absolutely HATED the vet. He had a very distinct deep voice, and even the sound of him talking in the other room started her growling. She became a DEMON when he came into the room, and actually bit one of the nurses one visit. We made an early choice to make things as easy as possible for her, and since the vet was uber-stressful, we just kept her home. Soon, it became obvious that the reason she would not eat was because her teeth hurt...the result of years of eating the soft food she needed for her kidneys. Ironic, but not unforeseen. The food that helped her stay alive, also contributed to her demise. Alone, I shed my first tears as the prospect of losing my friend became real.
Her condition improved slightly when we changed up her food...we figured taking away the healthy stuff at this point would not make much difference. When she stopped eating that, it was on to deli meat....ham and turkey had always been favorite treats, and whenever I made my lunch, she was right there to get her bite. That lasted a couple days, and then she just stopped eating altogether. We did what we could...hand feeding her, attempting to force-feed her (if you can avoid doing this in your life, I recommend it...who would have thought a dying cat could be so strong?). She spent her days on a couch in our living room, often not moving an inch from when we left her in the morning. Eventually, jumping onto the couch became an impossibility, and she found repose in one of her seasonally traditional favorite spots...under the Christmas tree.
I stopped giving her treatment when she stopped eating, the idea was to make things as comfortable as possible for her, and we were beyond the point of it helping, anyway. In the final week, she could no longer make it up the stairs to our bedroom, and when we went to bed, she would cry. I set up camp with a pillow and a blanket, and slept on the living room floor with her cuddled in my chest. Her final steps were taken as I lay down in front of the tree one evening...she came right to me, rammed her head into my chest, and lay down.
That next day, Michelle stayed home from school to be with her, keeping her company and grading papers all day. At night, we watched a movie with Mojo on a pillow between us...at one point, she was sleeping so soundly we thought she was gone. We brought her to bed with us on the same pillow, and I kept vigil over her all night...I don't think I slept at all.
We had decided that the next day would be the end, and I stayed home from work to be with her. I held her in my lap and thought about all the times I had I had envisioned the end. I remembered all the times we had played outside in the yard (her all-time favorite thing), I remembered her kills (she was a great hunter, claiming a pigeon, a sparrow, several cicadas, and earthworm, thousands of houseflies and two chipmunks among her victims, even though her outdoor activity was mostly "supervised" and she was mostly white...not too stealthy). I remembered how proud I was to have been able to treat her and keep her alive, and how happy I was that she seemed to know it. I remembered how I was never out of her sight, and how much she loved cuddling with me. I remembered how she had fallen asleep in my arms on that first day. I remembered how great it felt that Mojo had adopted me as her person.
She passed away in my arms. I am not sure what was worse, listening to her last heartbeat and her last breath, or telling Michelle that she was gone when she came home from school 20 minutes later. I do know that I will always remember my first pet, and I will always love her. I do know that tomorrow we will be celebrating the first birthday of our new kittens Sonny and Rico, and giving them an extra treat and cuddle in honor of their predecessor. I miss my Mojo.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Key West - Part III - The Final Chapter
The Return to Miami, Impressions of the Boat, and Random Musings!
When we last left off, our stay in Key West was pretty much wrapped up. We awoke Monday morning with thoughts of home on our mind. I was thinking about the movie "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," as we would be boating 165 miles, catching a plane 1200 miles to Chicago, and driving home from O'hare Airport. If everything went according to schedule, we would be leaving Key West at 10am Eastern Time, and arriving at home at approximately 1am Central Standard Time. A long day to be sure.
Pat and crew showed up from their fancy digs on Sunset Key with a laughably expensive itemized bill, including a "Valet Fee" for an island with no cars! We gassed up and hooked up with Laszlo Lukacs and his crew in another 37 Active Thunder, and pointed bows north..into the wind. Yes folks, there had been a steady wind out of the north all weekend, with seas forecast to be 5-7 feet, we were hoping for the best. With that forecast, I was happy to leave the driving duties to Pat. Leaving Key West, the waves were not bad at all, but as we progressed northward towards Marathon, they grew and grew. Add to that the fun we had with the occasional rain shower, and it was an interesting ride to be sure. We were passed by a 40 Skater JUST before things really turned ugly. The seas were tossed washing-machine style, probably a solid 3 foot with occasional 5 foot holes. The Skater never left our horizon, and slowly but surely came back to us, even though we were only running about 45 mph....my guess is the difference in comfort between standing and sitting in that water was what motivated the Skater captain to take it easy on his crew. Pat expertly guided the boat...dodging crab traps and bigger holes the entire way, and losing Laszlo in the process (he wisely went at his own pace). We stopped for lunch at the Tiki Bar at Marathon, then I climbed behind the wheel for inside run (no waves!). After very nearly running out of gas, we splashed some more in the tank ($5.20/gallon!!!!) and continued on to Miami.
Upon arrival in our destination city, Pat made an executive decision to head out to the Atlantic rather than idle through downtown Miami to return to the trailer at Haulover. I was driving, and he turned to me with a smile and said "You should probably let me drive. In about five minutes, you will wish you did anyway." I deferred and gave him the wheel. It turned out, he was wrong. It was only about THREE minutes until we hit the nastiest water we had seen the entire trip. Pat did his best to keep us dry, but it was somewhat in vain. The waves were solid 5 footers, with an occasional ocean roller towering overhead. We could only run about 30 mph, but, once again, Mr. Active Thunder safely guided us through the melee, and after a LONG 15 minutes or so, we shot through the Haulover Inlet and back to the waiting truck and trailer....our aquatic adventure concluded.
After briefly considering pulling the entire rig up to the departure gate at Ft. Lauderdale International, we went back to Active Thunder central, changed clothes, said our repeated "thank yous" and goodbyes, and headed to the airport. Our flight was only slightly delayed, and we crossed the threshold of our homestead right on time....1am...exhausted, but very, very happy.
The BOAT
Now its my turn to attempt to justify my journalism degree and create a short review of our newly purchased floating hunk of fiberglass fun. Many have asked "How did you like the boat?" or "Was the boat everything you thought it would be?" My answers have been more definitive than any others that I could give with regard to this entire adventure...YES...I LOVE THE BOAT. Granted, proper journalism would maintain an objective perspective, and I can hardly be considered an objective source since I had just spent a couple dollars on the actual PURCHASE. However, I am allowed to say that the boat was nice as I had expected, and more. We ran it through water that, unless we are somehow caught in a majorly unavoidable situation, I hope to NEVER have to deal with...and the boat handled it with aplomb. This greatly helps my confidence as an owner and a driver, knowing that it will get me and my crew home safely, even in the nastiness. Then, there was the cabin. One of the main reasons we wanted to get a larger boat was for a more spacious cabin, and that of the Active Thunder has few competitors. We jumped right in and slept on the boat three nights in a row, and it was AMAZING. An actual usable head (bathroom for the landlubber) with hot and cold running water, a nice stereo, refrigerator, microwave, flat-screen TV/DVD, and air conditioning...it was like going from a pop-up camper to a Class A motorhome. Michelle had some doubts about the boat, but they were allayed with much haste and she likes it as much as I do. Success. Yet another thanks to Pat and Active Thunder. What an amazing product.
Random Musings
-One should avoid travel with me if at all possible. Of the 6 flights back and forth to Florida since July, 5 of them were delayed in some way. Weather, damage to plane, and even a pilot that didn't show up...travel with Mike generally sucks.
-Boating in Florida is NOT for me. Seeing salt spray on the boat makes me very unhappy...but salt spray is always there! I wash my boats too much as it is...I would go insane in Florida.
-Channel markers are to be taken seriously. If they are not, severe consequences will occur. Pay attention to your navigator(s). I had at least three navigators as all times.
-Duval Street is the most fun single street I have ever been on.
-Key West is a very strange mixture of extreme wealth and hippies that couldn't care less about money.
-I will most likely never spend that much money in fuel in one weekend again.
-Powerboaters don't do anything "small." A 37 foot boat that goes 85 miles per hour ostensibly should not be the smallest and slowest boat on any run...but it was damn close on this one!
-EVERY frozen and/or tropical drink should be ordered with a "floater." A shot of Bacardi 151 in a test tube on top! It is also very important to MIX said rum into the drink before consuming!
-Boating is really a great way to see the Keys
-Bicycles are a great way to see Key West
and, finally,
-You can do a lot with a dollar in Key West
When we last left off, our stay in Key West was pretty much wrapped up. We awoke Monday morning with thoughts of home on our mind. I was thinking about the movie "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," as we would be boating 165 miles, catching a plane 1200 miles to Chicago, and driving home from O'hare Airport. If everything went according to schedule, we would be leaving Key West at 10am Eastern Time, and arriving at home at approximately 1am Central Standard Time. A long day to be sure.
Pat and crew showed up from their fancy digs on Sunset Key with a laughably expensive itemized bill, including a "Valet Fee" for an island with no cars! We gassed up and hooked up with Laszlo Lukacs and his crew in another 37 Active Thunder, and pointed bows north..into the wind. Yes folks, there had been a steady wind out of the north all weekend, with seas forecast to be 5-7 feet, we were hoping for the best. With that forecast, I was happy to leave the driving duties to Pat. Leaving Key West, the waves were not bad at all, but as we progressed northward towards Marathon, they grew and grew. Add to that the fun we had with the occasional rain shower, and it was an interesting ride to be sure. We were passed by a 40 Skater JUST before things really turned ugly. The seas were tossed washing-machine style, probably a solid 3 foot with occasional 5 foot holes. The Skater never left our horizon, and slowly but surely came back to us, even though we were only running about 45 mph....my guess is the difference in comfort between standing and sitting in that water was what motivated the Skater captain to take it easy on his crew. Pat expertly guided the boat...dodging crab traps and bigger holes the entire way, and losing Laszlo in the process (he wisely went at his own pace). We stopped for lunch at the Tiki Bar at Marathon, then I climbed behind the wheel for inside run (no waves!). After very nearly running out of gas, we splashed some more in the tank ($5.20/gallon!!!!) and continued on to Miami.
Upon arrival in our destination city, Pat made an executive decision to head out to the Atlantic rather than idle through downtown Miami to return to the trailer at Haulover. I was driving, and he turned to me with a smile and said "You should probably let me drive. In about five minutes, you will wish you did anyway." I deferred and gave him the wheel. It turned out, he was wrong. It was only about THREE minutes until we hit the nastiest water we had seen the entire trip. Pat did his best to keep us dry, but it was somewhat in vain. The waves were solid 5 footers, with an occasional ocean roller towering overhead. We could only run about 30 mph, but, once again, Mr. Active Thunder safely guided us through the melee, and after a LONG 15 minutes or so, we shot through the Haulover Inlet and back to the waiting truck and trailer....our aquatic adventure concluded.
After briefly considering pulling the entire rig up to the departure gate at Ft. Lauderdale International, we went back to Active Thunder central, changed clothes, said our repeated "thank yous" and goodbyes, and headed to the airport. Our flight was only slightly delayed, and we crossed the threshold of our homestead right on time....1am...exhausted, but very, very happy.
The BOAT
Now its my turn to attempt to justify my journalism degree and create a short review of our newly purchased floating hunk of fiberglass fun. Many have asked "How did you like the boat?" or "Was the boat everything you thought it would be?" My answers have been more definitive than any others that I could give with regard to this entire adventure...YES...I LOVE THE BOAT. Granted, proper journalism would maintain an objective perspective, and I can hardly be considered an objective source since I had just spent a couple dollars on the actual PURCHASE. However, I am allowed to say that the boat was nice as I had expected, and more. We ran it through water that, unless we are somehow caught in a majorly unavoidable situation, I hope to NEVER have to deal with...and the boat handled it with aplomb. This greatly helps my confidence as an owner and a driver, knowing that it will get me and my crew home safely, even in the nastiness. Then, there was the cabin. One of the main reasons we wanted to get a larger boat was for a more spacious cabin, and that of the Active Thunder has few competitors. We jumped right in and slept on the boat three nights in a row, and it was AMAZING. An actual usable head (bathroom for the landlubber) with hot and cold running water, a nice stereo, refrigerator, microwave, flat-screen TV/DVD, and air conditioning...it was like going from a pop-up camper to a Class A motorhome. Michelle had some doubts about the boat, but they were allayed with much haste and she likes it as much as I do. Success. Yet another thanks to Pat and Active Thunder. What an amazing product.
Random Musings
-One should avoid travel with me if at all possible. Of the 6 flights back and forth to Florida since July, 5 of them were delayed in some way. Weather, damage to plane, and even a pilot that didn't show up...travel with Mike generally sucks.
-Boating in Florida is NOT for me. Seeing salt spray on the boat makes me very unhappy...but salt spray is always there! I wash my boats too much as it is...I would go insane in Florida.
-Channel markers are to be taken seriously. If they are not, severe consequences will occur. Pay attention to your navigator(s). I had at least three navigators as all times.
-Duval Street is the most fun single street I have ever been on.
-Key West is a very strange mixture of extreme wealth and hippies that couldn't care less about money.
-I will most likely never spend that much money in fuel in one weekend again.
-Powerboaters don't do anything "small." A 37 foot boat that goes 85 miles per hour ostensibly should not be the smallest and slowest boat on any run...but it was damn close on this one!
-EVERY frozen and/or tropical drink should be ordered with a "floater." A shot of Bacardi 151 in a test tube on top! It is also very important to MIX said rum into the drink before consuming!
-Boating is really a great way to see the Keys
-Bicycles are a great way to see Key West
and, finally,
-You can do a lot with a dollar in Key West
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Key West Poker Run - Part II
I awoke Saturday morning with a fuzzy notion of what had happened the night before. I say this mostly because I was still in awe of where exactly I was, but it also had something to do with the rum. Friday night we had cleaned up and grabbed a cab to Duval St. for the boat parade. No...the boats were not actually parading, all of the race teams had them lined up and the street was closed off for blocks with thousands of people craning necks at scantily clad women dancing on boats, gawking at monster pieces of fiberglass, and catching beads raining down from above. We met up with some of our oldest boating friends from Chicago, Jimmy and Ginny Vos and their friends, people that were there at the very beginning of our boating lifestyle, which put a very nice perspective on our dream trip. It helped that they are really fun people, and that they had been making this trip for over 20 years! Within minutes of them leaving, we hooked up with ANOTHER pair we'd become friends with over the years, Bob and Heidi Mathers from Boyne City, Michigan. We had a couple cocktails with them and wandered the streets a bit, and when they called it a night, we ended up right back with the Chicago folks again. Its a strange small world, this offshore boating community...and full of some of the nicest people I've ever met. We finished off the night by checking out the Poker Run village around the Galleon, where many of the big dogs were parked. I have seen a lot of horsepower before, but NOTHING has compared to this. Millions of dollars in fiberglass, carbon fiber, and gleaming metal glowing with LED accents...it was breathtaking.
Anyway, Michelle was still enjoying the comforts of our luxury accommodations, so I did my usual morning-on-the-boat activity...I quick-waxed everything above the rubrail (I had sent down a bottle of wax and some towels the week before!). When I finished, I took a walk around our marina to check out our neighbors. On my finger pier, we had the aforementioned MTI and Outerlimits, along with a 45 Sonic, a 37 Hustler Talon, a 34 Hustler Cheetah, a 38 Cigarette Flatdeck, and a 28 Skater...with twin 300 hp outboards. One pier over, there was a Statement! V, a 39 Cigarette Top Gun Unlimited, two 38 Cigarette Top Guns, a 41 Apache catamaran, and a 52 Outerlimits. These are boats that have paint jobs that cost more than my first boat. It was like a tiny slice of Mike heaven. We also had the fortunate position of being in the marina with the best launch ramp, so Michelle's wake-up call on Saturday morning was the sound of Bill Pyburn's 190 mph Skater "Pure Platinum" roaring to life.
Our crew was a little late getting rolling on Saturday, as a reservation snafu wound up with them staying on Sunset Key, so they were at the mercy of the ferry over to Cayo Hueso. Plus, it was cloudy and windy, so we were hesitant to embark upon the day's journey over to Boca Grande, an deserted strip of sandy beach about 15 miles away. Eventually, the sun came out, our crew arrived, and we were off, tailing a 42 Cigarette and being tailed by a helicopter taking pics and video of us. By the time we got there, all of the protected spots on the beach were taken. We attempted to beach the boat, but the waves kept us bouncing off the bottom, so Pat pulled the plug and Mike and I jumped in the water to drag the boat off to deeper water. While we were engaged in this activity, there was a shout from onboard the boat, directing our attention to a large, shadowy figure swimming out way....or should I say MY way. Now...I am paranoid of all ocean creatures...I have seen Jaws and I know what's down there and what they can do... I saw the figure and immediately recognised it as a stingray, and despite the fact that everyone says they are gentle creatures and wouldn't harm you, I can assure you that having one swimming towards you when you are waist deep is disconcerting. I maintained my composure, and forced myself to fight my instinct of launching out of the water and into the boat...you know...for the sake of my dignity and all that. We do not have such things in Lake Michigan. Pat had procured a couple pounds of stone crab, and his friends in the Cigarette had steaks...our intention was a nice barbecue on the beach. Mother Nature had other plans, however, and the constant wind and waves prevented our anchors from taking hold, and after about an hour of indecision, we finally gave up and headed back, disappointed....and very hungry. We broke out the stone crab back at the marina, with the Florida natives firing the stuff down like it was candy. I tasted some, but my menial penchant for trying new foods took over, and I had some Doritoes and beer to sate my hunger. I cleaned the boat again as well. After a while, the crew took off back to Sunset Key, and Michelle and I cleaned up for the Poker Run dinner....and broke out the rum.
We took a cab over to Duval Street, and made our way over to the Conch Republic, where, upon entering we found that the video playing on the huge outdoor screen was of US. Way cool! We finally got our Poker Run swag....a nice duffel bag, shirts, hats, and a bunch of beer coozies, and drew our cards...a pair of 5s...typical. We left the bag in a safe place, and rolled into dinner, quickly finding out that we knew NOBODY there. So, we had a couple drinks and ate our food...and the worst thing EVER began to happen: we got tired. This was SATURDAY NIGHT AT KEY WEST...we had to rally! We walked a couple laps around the area, and finally settled in to a spot at the bar and ordered up a couple rum'n'cokes. And just like that, right when the night was about to go south...the people next to us struck up a conversation. Boom. We were back in the game. I've said it a million times....I am amazed at how nice the people in the offshore boating community are in general. We talked to these people for twenty minutes and they invited us over to their house on the Gulf Coast in the spring! Crazy! In the meantime, our Chicago friend Trent had shown up and sent a couple shots our way....momentum was picking up! After that, a quick trip around the bar found us in the company of Jim Porter and Kirk Jurinek, more Chicago boaters enjoying their annual pilgrimage to Key West. We ended up sticking with them and moving on to Hogsbreath Saloon (which makes a MEAN Sailor Jerry and Coke...you have to SIP them!). Kirk then decided that we, as Key West newbies, really needed to experience exactly what the place was all about, We were whisked away in a cab... and deposited back at the marina by another cab at 3:30 am. The interim period represented by ellipses in that sentence is best left to the reader's imagination...but it was awesome.
Sunday morning, I was up at 7:30 am...and I felt GREAT. Now, I generally have the ability to drink a LOT in an evening and function well on very little sleep...the hangover hits a couple hours into the day. Not this time. I was a little shaky, and pounded a bunch of Gatorade and a breakfast burrito to be on the safe side, but I suffered no ill effects. I credit drinking good rum. Michelle was running a little rough when she was finally roused out of bed by the Turbine Express boat, Pure Platinum and Jim Lee's 46 Skater "Freedom US 1" rolling to the launch ramp. By repeating the mantra, "I will NOT lose this day" many, many times, she was able to get herself going...I was impressed with her mental fortitude. Plus, she wanted to take the boat out to watch the races. We fired up the engines and embarked upon our first solo journey, carefully following the navigational markers out of the marina and into the bay...right on to the race course itself. We had heard that they close the entrance to our marina during the races, and knew we had just over an hour before that happened, so we decided to go for a little blast. Only...I didn't know WHERE to go! I followed the route we had used when we came into Key West, only to find 4 foot rollers out past the end of the island. Not wishing to beat ourselves or the boat, I turned back around and ran past the gathering crowds of Mallory Square. We were then pretty much out of "known" real estate...with shallow spots and shoals lurking everywhere and a nervous captain at the helm...not very fun. The wind was still blowing pretty good, so I doubted our anchor would hold should we decide to watch the races out there. Plan B would be to ask a larger cruiser if we could just toss them a line and swing off their anchor...but I was feeling a bit shy and didn't want to impose on anyone...so we literally idled up and down the spectator fleet four times! We passed one cruiser twice, and both times, a woman on board waved at us happily...so I figured...that is the person I will ask to tie to. So I did. She answered, but neither Michelle nor I could understand a WORD of what she said...she was clearing hitting the sauce early! I gave up and headed back to the marina, figuring it'd be less stressful to watch from land, anyway. I snuck the boat between the MTI, a Cigarette, and a concrete pole for my first docking success...and I was happy.
We rented bikes across the street from our marina, and pedaled down to Mallory Square, catching the middle of the second race from a small beach before moving on to the main seawall for the conclusion and interim period before the final race. We stood in the crowd that grew to 5 deep as the Superboat Unlimited class hit the water, and enjoyed the thrill of watching and hearing them thunder past 50 feet away at speeds approaching 150 mph. There is NOTHING like it...it gives you goosebumps. After the first couple laps, we decided to move to another vantage point, and jumped on the bikes again, heading over to Ft. Zachary Taylor at the end of the island. The water was much rougher over there, as it had been in the morning, so our view from atop the fort was pretty thrilling, as we watched the boats getting some serious air and then mashing the throttles down for the front stretch. Pretty cool, I must say. The bicycles proved to be a most excellent decision, as the traffic jam leaving the fort and beach area after the race was quite large...and we just pedaled right by. We had called our Chicago friends to see if they wanted to come and check out the new boat, and by the time we had ridden back to the marina and gotten an ice cream cone, they were stepping out of a cab with a bottle of champagne to toast the new ride. We took them out for a sunset ride, and it was not lost upon me how awesome it was to be enjoying the company of these people who had been so instrumental in the foundation of my boating life so many years ago. Another dream come true.
We finished off the day with another bike ride down to Duval Street, and a nice dinner by ourselves, reminiscing about the events that had led to this trip, and also lamenting the fact that we had to go home tomorrow.
Anyway, Michelle was still enjoying the comforts of our luxury accommodations, so I did my usual morning-on-the-boat activity...I quick-waxed everything above the rubrail (I had sent down a bottle of wax and some towels the week before!). When I finished, I took a walk around our marina to check out our neighbors. On my finger pier, we had the aforementioned MTI and Outerlimits, along with a 45 Sonic, a 37 Hustler Talon, a 34 Hustler Cheetah, a 38 Cigarette Flatdeck, and a 28 Skater...with twin 300 hp outboards. One pier over, there was a Statement! V, a 39 Cigarette Top Gun Unlimited, two 38 Cigarette Top Guns, a 41 Apache catamaran, and a 52 Outerlimits. These are boats that have paint jobs that cost more than my first boat. It was like a tiny slice of Mike heaven. We also had the fortunate position of being in the marina with the best launch ramp, so Michelle's wake-up call on Saturday morning was the sound of Bill Pyburn's 190 mph Skater "Pure Platinum" roaring to life.
Our crew was a little late getting rolling on Saturday, as a reservation snafu wound up with them staying on Sunset Key, so they were at the mercy of the ferry over to Cayo Hueso. Plus, it was cloudy and windy, so we were hesitant to embark upon the day's journey over to Boca Grande, an deserted strip of sandy beach about 15 miles away. Eventually, the sun came out, our crew arrived, and we were off, tailing a 42 Cigarette and being tailed by a helicopter taking pics and video of us. By the time we got there, all of the protected spots on the beach were taken. We attempted to beach the boat, but the waves kept us bouncing off the bottom, so Pat pulled the plug and Mike and I jumped in the water to drag the boat off to deeper water. While we were engaged in this activity, there was a shout from onboard the boat, directing our attention to a large, shadowy figure swimming out way....or should I say MY way. Now...I am paranoid of all ocean creatures...I have seen Jaws and I know what's down there and what they can do... I saw the figure and immediately recognised it as a stingray, and despite the fact that everyone says they are gentle creatures and wouldn't harm you, I can assure you that having one swimming towards you when you are waist deep is disconcerting. I maintained my composure, and forced myself to fight my instinct of launching out of the water and into the boat...you know...for the sake of my dignity and all that. We do not have such things in Lake Michigan. Pat had procured a couple pounds of stone crab, and his friends in the Cigarette had steaks...our intention was a nice barbecue on the beach. Mother Nature had other plans, however, and the constant wind and waves prevented our anchors from taking hold, and after about an hour of indecision, we finally gave up and headed back, disappointed....and very hungry. We broke out the stone crab back at the marina, with the Florida natives firing the stuff down like it was candy. I tasted some, but my menial penchant for trying new foods took over, and I had some Doritoes and beer to sate my hunger. I cleaned the boat again as well. After a while, the crew took off back to Sunset Key, and Michelle and I cleaned up for the Poker Run dinner....and broke out the rum.
We took a cab over to Duval Street, and made our way over to the Conch Republic, where, upon entering we found that the video playing on the huge outdoor screen was of US. Way cool! We finally got our Poker Run swag....a nice duffel bag, shirts, hats, and a bunch of beer coozies, and drew our cards...a pair of 5s...typical. We left the bag in a safe place, and rolled into dinner, quickly finding out that we knew NOBODY there. So, we had a couple drinks and ate our food...and the worst thing EVER began to happen: we got tired. This was SATURDAY NIGHT AT KEY WEST...we had to rally! We walked a couple laps around the area, and finally settled in to a spot at the bar and ordered up a couple rum'n'cokes. And just like that, right when the night was about to go south...the people next to us struck up a conversation. Boom. We were back in the game. I've said it a million times....I am amazed at how nice the people in the offshore boating community are in general. We talked to these people for twenty minutes and they invited us over to their house on the Gulf Coast in the spring! Crazy! In the meantime, our Chicago friend Trent had shown up and sent a couple shots our way....momentum was picking up! After that, a quick trip around the bar found us in the company of Jim Porter and Kirk Jurinek, more Chicago boaters enjoying their annual pilgrimage to Key West. We ended up sticking with them and moving on to Hogsbreath Saloon (which makes a MEAN Sailor Jerry and Coke...you have to SIP them!). Kirk then decided that we, as Key West newbies, really needed to experience exactly what the place was all about, We were whisked away in a cab... and deposited back at the marina by another cab at 3:30 am. The interim period represented by ellipses in that sentence is best left to the reader's imagination...but it was awesome.
Sunday morning, I was up at 7:30 am...and I felt GREAT. Now, I generally have the ability to drink a LOT in an evening and function well on very little sleep...the hangover hits a couple hours into the day. Not this time. I was a little shaky, and pounded a bunch of Gatorade and a breakfast burrito to be on the safe side, but I suffered no ill effects. I credit drinking good rum. Michelle was running a little rough when she was finally roused out of bed by the Turbine Express boat, Pure Platinum and Jim Lee's 46 Skater "Freedom US 1" rolling to the launch ramp. By repeating the mantra, "I will NOT lose this day" many, many times, she was able to get herself going...I was impressed with her mental fortitude. Plus, she wanted to take the boat out to watch the races. We fired up the engines and embarked upon our first solo journey, carefully following the navigational markers out of the marina and into the bay...right on to the race course itself. We had heard that they close the entrance to our marina during the races, and knew we had just over an hour before that happened, so we decided to go for a little blast. Only...I didn't know WHERE to go! I followed the route we had used when we came into Key West, only to find 4 foot rollers out past the end of the island. Not wishing to beat ourselves or the boat, I turned back around and ran past the gathering crowds of Mallory Square. We were then pretty much out of "known" real estate...with shallow spots and shoals lurking everywhere and a nervous captain at the helm...not very fun. The wind was still blowing pretty good, so I doubted our anchor would hold should we decide to watch the races out there. Plan B would be to ask a larger cruiser if we could just toss them a line and swing off their anchor...but I was feeling a bit shy and didn't want to impose on anyone...so we literally idled up and down the spectator fleet four times! We passed one cruiser twice, and both times, a woman on board waved at us happily...so I figured...that is the person I will ask to tie to. So I did. She answered, but neither Michelle nor I could understand a WORD of what she said...she was clearing hitting the sauce early! I gave up and headed back to the marina, figuring it'd be less stressful to watch from land, anyway. I snuck the boat between the MTI, a Cigarette, and a concrete pole for my first docking success...and I was happy.
We rented bikes across the street from our marina, and pedaled down to Mallory Square, catching the middle of the second race from a small beach before moving on to the main seawall for the conclusion and interim period before the final race. We stood in the crowd that grew to 5 deep as the Superboat Unlimited class hit the water, and enjoyed the thrill of watching and hearing them thunder past 50 feet away at speeds approaching 150 mph. There is NOTHING like it...it gives you goosebumps. After the first couple laps, we decided to move to another vantage point, and jumped on the bikes again, heading over to Ft. Zachary Taylor at the end of the island. The water was much rougher over there, as it had been in the morning, so our view from atop the fort was pretty thrilling, as we watched the boats getting some serious air and then mashing the throttles down for the front stretch. Pretty cool, I must say. The bicycles proved to be a most excellent decision, as the traffic jam leaving the fort and beach area after the race was quite large...and we just pedaled right by. We had called our Chicago friends to see if they wanted to come and check out the new boat, and by the time we had ridden back to the marina and gotten an ice cream cone, they were stepping out of a cab with a bottle of champagne to toast the new ride. We took them out for a sunset ride, and it was not lost upon me how awesome it was to be enjoying the company of these people who had been so instrumental in the foundation of my boating life so many years ago. Another dream come true.
We finished off the day with another bike ride down to Duval Street, and a nice dinner by ourselves, reminiscing about the events that had led to this trip, and also lamenting the fact that we had to go home tomorrow.
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