as usual....

As usual, I have taken my sweet time updating the blog now that i'm back.  I cant imagine that there is anyone out there who still checks this thing at all regularily, but here goes anyway.  

I am back.  I had a splendid time.  many adventures.  Many mis-adventures.  Everything in-between.  

This computer will not accept my camera for some reason, so no pictures. Je suis desolee.

I am in Bourges. Later today I will be heading south to Provence via train. I have been having a great time, although the last few days have been rainy and cold. My picnic lunches have ben excellent; goat cheese from the region, wine from the region, and fresh bread from the gazzilion bakeries. All that, supplemented by ocasional additions, like duck patte, marinated mushrooms from a deli, and of course, fresh pastries. I should get to the train station, bu tnext time I can get on acomputer I'll get some pictures up! Thanks for reading!

Okay, so now that I am on a computer that doesn't cost 2€ every half hour for me to use, I have time to upload more and actually write a bit. The cityscape in the previous post was Venice, It's a picture from a couple weeks ago. On to these pictures. the top one is just a beautiful tree lined two lane highway that I biked down today. The trees are much bigger than they look; think taller than the really big elms in Minneapolis. The second picture is my beater bicycle one a bridge over the Loire, in front of some Little town whose name I can't recall. The Loire is a beautiful river, and the surrounding land is fantastic in it's diversity. There are pastures with cows and sheep, fields of vegetables, vineyards of course, and then there are the caves. The caves are from when they quarried the limestone for all the castles in the region. Peasants then lived in them, and most of them now are used for maturing wine or growing mushrooms. they might also be used for cheese making, but I'm not sure. One top of all this, there is also plenty of woods. The whole Loire Valley is a great patchwork of fields and towns and hamlets and woods and marshlands.

The Third and fourth pictures are from Mont St. Michel, in Normandy. I was in Normandy from the 12th to the 18th, biking from Caen to the D-Day beaches, to Mont St Michel. It's a wonderful area, just rather rainy. That last picture is from Point Du Hoc in Normandy, a famous site in the D-Day history. The picture is of a German gun emplacement bunker.

I am in Saumur, on the Loire River! My hundred euro replacement bike has been holding up great, although it looks and often sounds like it should have stopped working miles ago. I cannot put pictures onto the blog from this computer, but they are coming soon. It is much harder to get acces to the interent here than in rural minnesota. I have ben living of great cheese, excellent bread, and abundant pastries(the staple of my touring diet). Even though I have been on the Loire River for a fez days, I am about to enter the "LoireValley" which is the area famous for castles. The freelance camping is easy as pie here, now that I've gotten a feel for it. Anybody know anything About custums at the airport? What is allowed abd what is not? What happens if I get caught twith a piece of prohibited cheese or a bottle of wine? Do they even check? I should get back on the road, but within the next few days I'll get some pictures up. Thanks for reading.

well, I don't have long to post, because I am paying for every minute I spend on the internet, and the interent place I am in is closing soon.

My bike was stolen. Off a train, just outside Florence. It wasn't my touring bike, luckily, but it was still a bik eI hac put a lot of work into.

I am lookin gfor ideas. I am thinking that i will just buy a cheep clunker in a used bike shop in paris or another city. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Part of travelling is problems that arise. This is only a small obstacle. Thanks for reading.

Went to the Vatican yesterday, and took a few pictures. Most of it was indoors though, so there aren't a lot of pics. I also took a nice little bike bike ride in the big park in Rome, and there are a few pics from that as well.

Pictures!

We went on a tour of some of the old stuff today. I didn't end up taking all that many pictures, but here are a few. Thanks for reading.

I'm in Rome! Italy! I'm not going to write too much tonight, as I'm osrta running on not very much sleep. It's 8:30 here, and I just got back with the fam from dinner. I hadn't had areal meal since Tuesday, so a real meal, (in this case an excellent real meal) was much appreciated by mind and body. Explored the city a bit today on foot, intend to do more tomorrow, perhaps a bit by bicycle. The bike, by the way, made it just fine (i brought my trusty folding bike in a box). The fender took a prety big hit somewhere along the way, but better that than a wheel (or somethiung else important) getting wacked. Anyway, the bike will be a sort of secondary thing for a while, at least while we're in Rome. I'm so tired. Good night yall. spread the word; the blog is back. Thanks for reading.

You know what would be reeeaaally nice? Spring.

For whoever still checks the blog every once in a while, here's an update followed with a proposition. OOOYA!

Not a whole lot is happening here in Minneapolis. That's not a bad thing though. While I sorta kill time until late march(when the next big adventure starts), I get to slowly pick away at a few projects that have been stewing in my cranium for a while now.

I'm completely revamping the Motobecane folding bike, building a rear wheel with a three speed hub like the original bike had, getting tires that aren't riping at the seams, and getting the frame repainted by a pro. It should be a reliable bike now (for a change!), a nice semi-collapsible ride that will most likely be my steel steed in Europe.

A bike trailer is another project. I think it will a single wheel type, like the B.O.B Yak trailer(there's a link), except mine will be a little longer, wider, less pretty, and if all goes well, will cost about 10 bucks.

The proposition:
I am hoping to go on several short, 2-3 day bike camping trip this summer. Bike out to a campground, spend the night or maybe two, then return to the cities. I would love for people, anybody really, to join me on these little sojourns. Part of the idea of the short trip length would be to enable friends of different cycling experience to come along. These will be short enough distances that even your ancient single speed, coaster-brake cruiser will get you there. Here's where the trailer comes in. Most people don't have the saddle bags/panniers for touring, and biking with a backpack is not really that great. So . . . throw all your junk on the trailer! Food, drink, clothes, sleeping bags, whatever! I think it will be fun folks. People interested?

I participated in a little ice race last weekend, and had a blast. I may have gotten third in my heat. I say 'may' because I thought I was, like, fifth, but the website, like, totally says I was, like, third. Who knows? Anyhoo, it was a whole big bundle of fun. My folks took a couple pictures, and I threw um up for ya.

Okay, so I've been back in Minneapolis for a while now. Since December 15, actually. I have been a bad friend to a few important folks, as I've been terrible at getting back in touch with some people very close o my heart. So although I've been literally back in Minneapolis, I am now back. Whatever that means.

I found it pretty difficult to update the blog towards the end of the bike trip, and at this point I'm not sure I feel up to playing catch up. I'll summarize the end for anyone who wants to know. I got on a Greyhound bus in St. George Utah, and rode the dirty dog back to Minneapolis through three days of ridiculous snowstorms. Ended the trip just in time, I guess. Total mileage was something like 2000 miles of cycling.

I am not currently on the road, but I plan on keeping the blog reasonably current from now on.

Hanksville, Utah

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I finally got my thanksgiving meal today at the 'Blondie's restaurant in Hanksville. When I got into town yesterday just after dark everything, including all three gas station/convenience stores were closed. It was raining and I was very cold, so I sought shelter in the 24-hour Post Office PO box Lobby. I ended up laying out my sleeping bag and spending the night there. It was heated, and didn't open until 8ish the next morning. I got up packed my sleeping bag long before they opened, so they were none the wiser. All in all I think of it as a great success; I now have one more place in my arsenal of options for where tospend the night besides my tent.

One story I've been meaning to put up for a while is my stay with the Wheelers just outside Moab. Barb Wheeler was a friend of my Mom back in highschool. i didn't know until just about a week before arriving that they are bike tourers. They arre currently planning what sounds like an amazing six-month bike tour in France. they have toured southeast asia, other parts of europe, and all over the place here in the U.S..
I was served a great stir fry and salad upon my arrrival, and I greatly appreciated the fresh greens(something I never get on the road). that was toped off with a dozen or so great fresh-made oatmeal cookies.
We stayed up for a while talking about my trip and their trips, and bicle touring in general. I slept great that night. I awoke to fresh coffee and a bounty of delicious waffles, topped with butter, apples, blueberries, and syrup. They were the sivze of dinnerplates, and I hade at least seven. During and after breakfast we talked about my upcoming route, and I got lots of great advice on places to go and how to get htere. Eventually i got my junk together and got back on the road, loaded with a bag of apples, cookies, a couple quick dinners, and other goodies.

My most recent new-peopl e-meeting experience was yeasterday. I was freezing; feet were at that blissful stage near complete numbness, and my hands were almost hter, resideing in the less comfortable constant burning stage. I pulled into a rest stop and took refuge in the outhous bathroom. that didn't work; it was unheated and unpleasant. I sat under a picnic shelter and ate peanut butter and jelly with a spoon because I was out of bread. I was still freezing, and it was still raining. There was aan RV parked at the stop, and I made up my mind to ask if I could come in for just a minute to warm up. Just as I started to approach the RV a women came out and asked if I wanted to come in warm up. "Don't laugh," she said,"but we're having pie."
Over two and a half hours I got back on the road, full (well, not full) of pie, oranges, cheese, carrots, tea, and a sandwich, and plenty warm. I am so bad with names, I have already forgotten the women's name. I gave them the blog address, so if they read this, she can remind me. The man's name was Cal. They were fantastically generous, and also really interesting. We talked solidly about all sorts of things for the near three hours I hung out in their RV, which cal was in the process of converting to ethanol compatable. They eventually invited me to stay and have thanksgiving dinner with them. I thought about it, but then decided to press on. I had that occasional reoccuring mileage fever; I felt like I was ready to devour some mileage, and I was ready to spend a coupl ehopurs biking in the rain. Beside that, I envisiond Alavish and large dinner at a restaurant in Hanksville. I would get a meal, then a malt, and a piece of pie, maybe two. Of course, I ended up spooning more peanut butter and jell and sleeping in a post office.
I feel I've made up for it though, as I had a great huge breakfast along with a whole carton of eggnog I bought at the grocery store. I think I'm goin gto go back to "Blondie's" and get a malt and some more food later. My appetite is currently larger than my stomach, so it's gonna take two meals to satisfy the build up to my thanksgiving feast(courtesy, by the way, of my Aunt Julie, who sent me money for a thanksgiving meal).

Goodness gracious this is a lot of typing! Look at me go! Whooo! Okay, I scrolled up and it actually isn't that much.

Two nights ago I stayed under an awning of a closed ranger station in the town of "Hite". I put Hite in quotations because it's really the new Hite. The original town of Hite is under water. When they built Glenn Canyon Damn, and created lake powell, they did so knowing that Hite would be flooded. Edward Abbey got to me as a kid, so I'm naturally inclined to hate Glenn Canyon Damn and mourne the loss of Glenn Canyon. Lake Powell, however, which is what has filled Glenn Canyone, is beautiful. I will not however, that if the bit of the canyon that is still above water is any indication of the beauty and grandeur of the old Glen Canyon, Lake Powell a sorry trade. I reccommed, by the way, 'The Monkey Wrench Gang', a hilarious and fun fiction novel by Edward Abbey. I have actually spent the last several days on a road he fough tagainst tooth and nail. Highway 95, or Utah's "Bicentennial Highway," was a gravel road until about 1973. To say abbey was strongly against paving this road does not do justice. This road is supposedly one of the places that inspired "The Monkey Wrench Gang."

Weeellllll, I think that's all for now. This chair is really uncomfortable, and it's making my neck sore. As always, thanks for reading.

more, but this time, mostly words.

Okay. Once again, I am at a computer in a public Library, making the other patrons endure my what I assume is a less-than-enjoyable odor. I sit here, after procrastinating by posting pictures first, preparing to attack another helpless and unsuspecting keyboard, spewing a stream of semi coherent blather onto the already massacred creation that is our beloved interweb.

I am in Montecello, Utah. Last time I wrote I was in Palisade. The route is as follows.
Nov/13 - Palisade to just east of the Utah border in open range cattle country
Nov/14 - Utah border to Moab and then north to Arches National Park, crashed near Balanced Rock.
Nov/15 - moved to Arches Campground
Nov/16 - stayed in Arches, took a hike
Nov/17 - left Arches and went to the Wheeler residence four miles south of Moab
Nov/18 - Moab to near Newspaper Rock State Park
Nov/19 - Got to Canyonlands, Camped at the campground
Nov/20 - Stayed in Canyonlands, hiked
Nov/22 - Stayed in Canyonlands, hiked
Nov/23 - left Canyonlands camground and pedaled to Manti-LaSal National Forest Campground
Nov/ 24 - left National Forest and descended to Montecello

Tentative route; Montecello to Grand Gulch Primitive Area near Blanding, There onto a gas station near the Glenn Canyon crossing, there to Hanksville, and then on to Capitol Reef National Park. Then.....

i arrived today in Montecello and headed immediately for the Post office. There I was reunited with my wallet. Hewever, they had not yet received the other package I was expecting; a package from my Aunt in Baltimore. The package should be here tomorrow, so I made it a short day and decided to update the blog (as I checked my voicemail today for the first time in a week i recieved a message telling me that the blog was in serious need of attention).

My stay in Canyonlands National Park was incredible. I was surrounded with astounding and breathtaking scenery, and managed to meet a couple great human beings while there as well. Tracy and her husband (I'm awful with names and his has slipped my mind) operate The Needles Outpost, a gas station/grocery/souvinir shop/restaurant located just outside the park boundary. It's the only place to get anything gas or food related besides Montecello, which is the closest town to The Needles District of Canyonlands and is 50 miles from the park. Tracy gave me great deals on a bunch of food items, and rounded everything down at the cash register. 4.99 became 4, 2.99 became 2, etc. This was in addition to making a couple items half off. Sunday was their last day open for the season, and I stopped in on my way out of the Park, hoping to buy a couple of the Outpost's homemade muffins. I left with a loaf of bread, a package of instant stroganoff, a new brown bandanna, and two muffins. The price on the loaf of bread said 4.2- something, Tracy said the muffins were a dollar apiece, and yet my bill was a flat five dollars. Thanks Tracy.

The other folks i met in the park was a family staying in the Campground next to me. I don't know how many people were in the group, but they had two modest trailors pulled by reasonable cars. Not once, but twice, they offered me fresh fruit and ended up giving me a bag of fresh fruit plus other goodies.

I need a break form the computer. I may get a chance to get back on before I leave Monticello, or I may not. Thanks for reading.

more...

From the top; the road into Canyonlands; a picture from a hike in the park(Big Spring Canyon), sunset in the park, and two pictures from the road within Canyonlands National park.