Paddling to Canada/etc

So I made it back from my 6-day canoe trip through the boundary waters with molly. We paddled all the way to Canada. Beautiful weather, short portages, plenty of food, it was great. I will put up some pictures when I get back to a proper internet connection.

I am headed back to California for a while now, a little burnt out on traveling. Should be home Wednesday night. Looking forward to a Gordo burrito and my bicycle and all my little buddies and the climbing gym and Yosemite and highway 395 and all of the other things that make that place home.

Also I want to say congratulations to our friend Alice, who placed 3rd in the triathlon she just finished, and got a shiny medal. Now you just need a tough nickname to intimidate your opponents, and you will win the next one for sure. Anyway, good job Alice.


PS - DONNIE DONT YOU EVER CROSS ME, I AM NOT AFRAID TO USE THIS:

Not getting lost/Iowa

I'm in Iowa now, staying with a couple friends from high school. I guess there isn't that much to say about Iowa. There are bars and college kids and its humid and flat. I played a bunch of pool, and watched Cal get trounced by a worthy opponent in Maryland.

I am officially done with the train portion of this trip. It was a safe, at times comfortable, at times uncomfortable, slow way to get around. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I don't have to do it anymore.

The balance of my time in Wyoming with Chicory and Cliff was great! We hung around the house, went jogging, drank whiskey, made lots of good food, drove Cliff nuts playing the same dang song over and over, and didn't get lost at all. I had some skinny blond cowgirl buy me a beer at Mulligan's bar downtown. They also demanded that I advertise their place when I am on TV at the world series of poker. The lady had a good idea I was going to make it, even though I don't play tournaments. Oh well. With a face like this, I can understand.

Me and Chic (I hate how "Chicory and I" sounds, even though I know its correct, sorry) did go on another hike, but this one was above the treeline and had a more defined trail, so we managed not to get lost. We also brought enough food, water and clothing to invade Russia during the dead of winter. We got up to about 12,000 feet at the summit of Medicine Bow Peak. It was gorgeous and the weather was good etc etc. Laramie was really fun, I miss hanging out with Chic and Cliff already. Who is going to save me when I get lost in the Boundary Waters? Its a long way for Cliff to get there, I might get eaten by mosquitos/mooses/trout/cannibals or whatever else is lurking in woods.

If you are thinking about going to visit Chicory and Cliff, you should - its beautiful there:

Also, they give great presents (even though they are really awkward about giving them). I got the styling hat I am wearing in the above photograph, along with a hip-flask. This flask is the only reason I survived the 4-hour-late screaming child/redneck laden train wreck (metaphor) of a train trip from Denver, CO to Mt. Pleasant, IA (euphemism).

Anyway I am off to Minnesota on Monday morning to go canoeing for a while, then maybe on a road trip with Molly for a couple days to where Bob Dylan was born and some other places. She is in charge.

I've been on the road for over a month now, and I am so grateful to all the people that have gone out of their way to accommodate me. Seeing old friends has certainly been the main thing keeping me going out here. Well, that and the fact that there is someone sleeping in my bed back home, so I have nowhere else to go really.

The stars are beautiful in Wyoming.

They are amazing. The moon was only a crescent, and it went down soon after the sun. It may be the prettiest night sky I've ever seen. I got to stare at the stars for hours and hours. This is mainly because my friend Chicory and I got lost on what was supposed to be an hour and a half walk. Looking back now at google maps, when it got too dark for us to continue on the unknown trail, we were 500 feet from the stream crossing that would have got us back to the car in 30 minuts. Her husband Cliff, who is a total badass and a search and rescue expert, finally found us at about 3AM, and led us out of the wilderness.

We treated this hike way too casually. I mean, come on, it's 4.5 miles. Also, the guidebook said it was a good trail for "timid" hikers. But it turns out that the area is criss-crossed with trails that all look exactly the same. We didn't have a compass or a good map, we didn't have a headlamp or any light other than Chicory's cellphone. We didn't have a first aid kit, and we only had one fleece jacket each. And we didn't really pay attention to where we were going, we were just chatting and walking around. At the start of the hike, Chicory was a little apprehensive because we got a ridiculously late start - around 6pm. But I told her with overbearing confidence that we would be fine on a little 4.5 mile loop, and I would lead her out and back. Wow did I fail to live up to the expectations I set.

Once it got dark, we knew we weren't going to get out on our own that night. So we called Cliff, Chicory's husband, and told him that we were going to wait until morning and hike out then. He is way too tough to let us freeze to death, though, and drove out to find us and lead us to safety. He somehow did this by texting us on the cellphone, and honking his car horn at us for hours, while we were supposed to text back to him what direction and how far away he seemed. This is a difficult thing to deduce, but somehow he made it work. We stayed warm by doing a million jumping jacks and running in place. It probably got down to the low 30's that night. Right before 3AM Cliff came chugging down a hill with two giant flashlights and a backpack full of warm clothes. There was a decent sized creek between us still, but he found a beaver dam that we could walk over, and we followed him the hell out of there.

Welcome to Wyoming. The stars are beautiful.

Chicago recap

I am in Ft. Collins now, with a couple friends. Alexa picked me up from the Denver train station, and we spent the night at Jeff's house on the way to Laramie, Wyoming, where she will drop me off. Spent last night getting drunk and playing ping pong with Jeff. Was a good time. I don't have to tell you who won.

I had a great time in Chicago. My old friend Lucinda let me stay in her apartment for the whole week, down in Hyde Park near the University of Chicago. Appartenly its a sketchy neighborhood, but I never really noticed. There were lots of police cars I guess. Obama's house is a few blocks away, as is Louis Farrakhan's. Lucinda says there are always two nation of islam police cars out front of Farrakhan's house, and there sure were every time I passed the place.

My favorite thing about Chicago is that it is totally flat. You can ride your bike everywhere. I borrowed a bike and rode it all over the city: along the lakefront trail, all the way up to Wrigley Field, and all around the town in a big Critical Mass ride.

I had no idea that chicago was a beach town. I think they import sand for their beaches, and I know they import the palm trees. The beaches are really nice, except for the overbearing lifeguards. You can only swim out maybe 60 feet into the lake, or they start yelling at you. And even that far out, the lake is only 4 feet deep, which makes swimming kinda ridiculous. Ben would like swimming there, though. What does it mean when a lifeguard puts both hands up in the air? Oh, and the water is pleasantly tepid this time of year.

I feel like a proper American now that I've seen a baseball game at Wrigley Field. It is a gorgeous park. There is no Jumbo-tron, which makes it a way better experience in my opinion. No dot races, no "which hat is hiding the ball" game, you just watch baseball. The crowd knew when to cheer, and knew when to do the wave (never, obviously). The one thing they didn't know about was when to stop drinking. I almost got into a fight with a guy that looked like a hybrid of Jean Claude VanDamme and Chuck Norris. I thought he called me a really nasty name, but it
turns out he was just making fun of my socks. So I decided to let it slide. And I didn't want to get killed. Oh, also this is what I got when I asked for a vegetarian sandwich at a pub in Wrigleyville:

If you can't identify all the ingredients IN the sandwich, here is the list: bread, sauerkraut, american cheese, tomatoes, french fries. I didn't really enjoy the food in Chicago, but I think I went to the wrong places.

On the last Friday of every month, thousands of bicyclists descend on downtown Chicago for a ride called Critical Mass. They have these rides all over the country, and they are really popular in the Bay Area. I'd never done it before, but I decided to join Lucinda and her friends for the ride. It was a lot of fun, I'm going to start going on the rides back in Berkeley. They are police-authorized, and go all over the town for probably 10 miles or so. It is supposed to raise awareness of bicycling as an alternative to driving. It does so by fucking up traffic real bad.
People caught trying to cross a street where the ride goes have to wait for probably 20 minutes while all the bikes file past at a modest speed. It is mind boggling how many people participate.

Chicago was really fun. Lucinda is quite active, so she made me get off my ass for the first time on my vacation and exercise, which I enjoyed. I am looking forward to going back.

Also, Lucinda has one of the best cats ever - Turtle is her name. If you could only use one word to describe this cat, it would be fluffy. If you could use two words, they would be fluffy and docile. If you could use three words, the third word would not be turtle-like.

The train ride from Chicago to Denver was relatively uneventful. More idyllic American countryside, but mostly just flat, with one big river.

OK I'm off to Laramie to hang out with Chicory and Cliff. I think I am the first friend to visit them in Wyoming since they moved from Berkeley. I better get a damn good prize.