Clear Creek "Men hang out their sign indicative of their respective trades: Shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe, jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth. But up in the mountains of New Hampshire, God almighty has hung out a sign to show that there, he makes men." -Daniel Webster, famed American statesman and scholar "If I jump in the cold water I won't get Hepatitis B." Stripping down to boxers and sox, for a second I believed him. Shivering on a ledge covered by a sheet of ice and fresh dusting of snow, something didn’t feel right. ...
Today was a very good day. Last night? Apprehensive. But today, ah, today was the introduction to a world I’ve never known. We’ve all been to Nowhere. It might have been in the middle of Seattle or Saskatchewan. It might have been at a Zen monastery, a no-man’s-land border outpost, or a bungalow in a nameless beach town. You may have found Nowhere on a sultry summer night in Paris when you’d spent your last euro and had no place to sleep; or on a midnight jeep safari in the Botswana bush after you’d blown your last spare tire, with your campsite a distant pinprick of light; or in the comforting cocoon of an all-night train compartment, sharing soul-secrets with a total stranger. Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It’s not on any map, but you know it when you’re there. This time it has taken, as it usually does, a tremendous amount of energy and an open mind to get to Nowhere. This time, Nowhere is Mae Sot, Thailand. I tend to prefer the places that Lonely Plan...
When a person rolls into town on an iron donkey people ask questions. We must look like a couple of lost gypsies. Buggy (unaffectionate bike name) has a massive yellow bag mounted on a single axle trailer with a broken rear fender that rubs on the wheel. Kitchen equiptment and other essential crap hang off in all directions. We must look lost, but we seem to be making a lot of friends this way. Rodrigo is a guide here in Pucon. He popped out as soon as our wheels stopped rolling and offered a place to pitch the tent. Yesterday he took us up a dirt road towards volcano Villarica. We crossed three ridges and swooped up through several different glacial fed rivers before ditching the bikes and hiking up to a waterfall. Rigo is full of life and knowledge. He´s a guide on the volcano and super fit local adventure buddy. We are tentatively planning to race the Ironman Pucon 70.3 here on the 16th. The town is nestled between a massive lake and subtropic mountains. We´ll be...
Comments