Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Dirty Laundry

Sept 4th
- Bought some Patagonia clothing
- Rode 38.6 miles to do laundry
- Lost my journal & money. Did find it again!
- Sore as hell from climbing yesterday

Pretty short entry. I wonder who else has had the experience to ride close to 40 miles on a bike to do laundry? How can Denali Park headquarters and the small town set up around it NOT have somewhere to do laundry? The good news though, was that we got to ride in shorts today and without all our gear. That 40 miles felt like not that much.

Despite the short entry above, I've got a lot to say about this day. I took the liberty to not share one of my journal bullet points today. Why? Well, on this day I wrote a name down in my journal for the bike company I would one day own and operate. The name is good and fitting. I've got quite a bit more time before I retire and start this company, but I'm saving this name. Enough said.

Additionally, John and I had one more day before entering the park on our week long biking & hiking trip. After spending the morning doing laundry, we ended up both buying a couple of Patagonia tops on end of season closeout. Everyone kept warning us of snow. Even though we rode in shorts today, we knew the warnings were real so we purchased some extra warmth.

That night we ended up cleaning up and riding into town for pizza. Yep, we ate out for the first time in almost 2 weeks. I did not write the name down, but I think it was Lynx Pizza or something like that. It had come recommended in one of the Alaska guide books I had read. We had a few beers and ate good, warm food. The next week would find us eating nothing but rice, beans and oatmeal.

We ended up riding home in complete darkness. Wouldn't you know it, John hit a giant pothole on the side of the road and put a giant dent in his rim and really messed up his rear wheel. It was late and we had no way of fixing it in complete darkness so we rode back to the campground and just went to sleep.

John was pretty upset. I would be too. Tomorrow we embark on our journey and we aren't sure that our equipment can handle it.

2 comments:

Guitar Ted said...

Uggh! Potholes in the dark. I know the sickly feeling of doing that! Fortunately for me, I wasn't out in the middle of nowhere, but only about three miles from where I grew up. I was coming back on my 10 speed, (yes......a real ten speed!) and whacked the front wheel, experienced a true endo/face plant for the first time, and had to walk it home in the dark. Emabarassed, but none the worse for wear. Good thing I didn't smack my noggin! It was 1980, and I hadn't heard of such devices yet!

Guitar Ted said...

Devices as in "helmets", sorry!