Mostly Good Influence

Great day of riding 320 miles ( motorcycle) into the great White Mountains of New Hampshire.  I left the house at 9:30 AM  and figured I had to put down 150 miles  if I were to make lunch with my  infamous Appalachian Trail friend, and increasingly famous Vermont trail angel,  Bad Influence.  I didn’t think we’d do much standing around:

We didn’t.

I was there earlier than BI.  had already bought myself a pair of hiking shorts for the new season.  I wanted another pair of Pearl Izumi’s, like I had for most of the AT thru hike last year.  They would have made it all the way, but I tore a huge rip in the ass end exiting the outhouse at the Secret Shelter, in New York.  I ended up stitching it back together with dental floss and a needle, but it was basically reduced to a dirty rag by Vermont, so I threw it away. Actually, my wife STRONGLY suggested I throw them out.

I called out to  BI  as I was exiting the Dunkin’ Donuts with a turbo cup o’ Joe.  We went back to  the bikes. I wanted a photo commemorating the event.    I asked a wiry guy with no shirt who was walking across the lot if he would mind  taking our picture.

“No way, man, I don’t do nothin’ with cameras. But my old lady will take it for ya.”

Then I recognized him from being right in front of me in line at the Dunkin’.

” Hey, aren’t you the guy who just asked for 15 sugars and 10 milks in your coffee ?”  I asked him.

“Yup, he said, that’s me !”

So here are two badasses: Uncle Tom on the left with his 1996 BMW R1100RT , and BI on the right with  his big black 1998 Harley Road King.

BI and me have similar, simple needs.  Coffee, and the nearest food available.  To our thinking, its all good.  We hoofed it over to the 99 Restaurant right next door.  We had sandwiches, fries, beer and caught up on all the old and some of the new news.  It took us all of 5 minutes to be back in a great zone.  Mojo working today.

     We had planned to make this lunch together, each  some 150 miles apart, as an excuse to ride our motorcycles and to hang out a bit, so we mopped up the table and rode North for a while.  Soon,   I saw huge snowfields up above treeline in the Presidential Range straight ahead.

     BI and I stopped at the edge of a parking lot where Rt. 302 goes left and RT. 16 winds straight up through PInkham Notch.  We sat by a bridge near a  river a while,  before we each went our separate ways: Bad Influence back to the greening hills of central Vermont, and me to the Lincolnville, Maine hills and shores.  It was peaceful watching the water flowing by, and the discarded cans and paraphenalia at our feet signaled that this has been a traditional party spot for more than one gathering.

     As I fired up the big twin and threaded my way uphill and north, I soon realized that I was riding directly toward Mt. Washington.  How did I recognize it?  Well, how about the half dozen communication towers, the bowling ball shape of the summit, and black sooty smoke belching out of the Cog Railway, coal-fired,  steam-engined locomotive.  It was thrilling to see it again like this, now against the snow.  I enountered no cars on the road at all.  The temperature was dropping, but up ahead  was a huge number of cars  lined the sides of Rt. 16 and filled all the lots at Pinkham Notch.  Then it hit me.  These guys are all skiing or snowboarding down Tuckerman’s Ravine!  It’s free, but you have to hike up for every run.  Sheesh!

 

As I passed the AMC’s Pinkham Notch site, I realized the AT crossed right here,  where last August, I  went vertical , over 3,000 feet of ascent, into The Wildcats, A-E , a series of successive peaks that were a bitch to get up  and over.

     I remember the day well. It was a Sunday, August 15th.  It was grey, looked like rain, and I had just spent a Nearo (not quite a whole day of mostly doing nothing)  at my sister-in-law’s near Conway, NH.  The wind was fierce, and cold, even with me climbing steadily and under significant exertion levels.  I was alone, and remembered that  it was a tough day for me.  It sure was.  I looked up my Trailjournals.com entry for that day and this is all that I had written ( I had fewer than five days out of six month’s backpacking where I ended up too tired or cold to write) :

” 305.9 miles to go to Katahdin.  Too late and much too cold up here to write.  Will hope for easier end time tomorrow - Uncle Tom “

    But today I was tearing right on by these big guys, with  the throttle rolling  all too smoothly and effortlessly. It was glorious.  I had The Soundtrack thumping inside the speakers I had installed in the interior of my motorcycle helmet  I still saw no cars at all all the way up to Route 2, where I turned right , made short work of Gorham, NH , and headed back into Northern Maine.  I also crossed  the AT a few miles west of Gorham, where it heads into Maine , just two days later.  As I went by the Trail again outside of Gorham, NH ,  I felt my heart skip like the needle on a record player. I now know why people who thru-hike return to one of those parking lots someday to shell out , some of them, what ends up being thousands of dollars worth of burgers, hot dogs, and cold drinks to the current pilgrims of  The Big Walk.  

      I tried to take Rt 113 south back over Evans Notch, but was blockd by  a gate across the road halfway up.  Still snowed in. They don’t plow here in winter.

Soon I was in Bethel, ME, home of the record breaking

World’s Largest Snow Woman.   It shrunk just a bit, and at the record breaking moment, was 122 feet tall!

     It was a couple of more hours on increasingly cold riding before I finally made it home before 6 PM.  The thermometer outside my house was at 48 degees when I got here.  I was chilled to the core.   I  fire up the wood, and hung out some 6 feet away from it the rest of the evening, reading about Thoreau’s own illuminating trip to Mount Katadhin.

Another successful pilgrimage at The Church of Two Wheels.

I

Blackflies

are BAACK! Big time.

I was recently out in the woods with one of the infamous biking Bubbas, Craig, this week and part of me now looks like a human pincushion.

We actually headed for higher ground, choosing a ride up the trails to the top of Mount Pleasant. Record rains from a week ago and the residual water from this year’s almost record snow pack have left the woods exceedingly wet for this time of year, with standing water in abundance throughout the forest. Small streams and creeks are full. Water is running everywhere.

As a precaution, I wore my Rocky waterproof socks over my regular socks. I’d never use them hiking, but they work well in conditions when I am biking through streams or walking my bike through mud pits.

Lately, I have been ramping up my exercise program in preparation for at least a week of backpacking later this month, in Virginia and Maine. I have left the gym and have shifted to taking walks in the Camden Hills State Park and my own Uncle Tom trail here up to the top of Moody Mountain . A couple of days ago, I even fit both biking and hiking into one day, doing a 75 minute biking loop on some big hills circling Moody Mountain, then later talking a walk up to the top of Bald Rock Mountain, about a 3.5 mile round trip.

Biking is hard around here. Steep stuff no matter where you go , and although I was regularly taking a Spinning class at the YMCA, once you start grinding through the mud, over the uneven rocks, and fight to keep your balance on a real trail, it is tough! So sweat, humidity, and a 6 PM start up Mt. Pleasant combined to be perfect conditions for black fly attacks.

Craig dosed himself with some sort of insect repellent before we left , but I declined. Truth is, I haven’t had to spray myself with any repellent for at least three years now. Ever since I have traveled in the wilds of Labrador, and have encountered the mother of all black fly and mosquito clouds, the insects around here don’t seem so bad. Except for today.

I literally could not stop and rest for more than 10 seconds before a thick cloud of black flies attacked me. They bit me on my bare legs, they got in my hair, they liked the eyeballs. I swallowed at least one of them a half dozen times on the ride, coughing ‘em up when I could.

Nevertheless, we had a great time out there. It was Craig’s maiden voyage out on the rocky trails this year. Mine too. He has been sidelined for over a year due to a mountain bike crash in November 2007 that resulted in a Type 3 shoulder separation. He required serious surgery to reattach several tendons back to the bone. I was on that ride with him too, when I first passed him as he sat stunned on the side of a really rocky descent where he was thrown off his bike and his shoulder hit an immovable object on the ground.

After a bit of looking around this evening , we found the exact spot where he hit, and agreed that we would start the ritual of pissing on the big gnarly knob of a root that projected sideways from the edge of the trail.

“Here’s to ya, root!” It’s pretty crazy stuff that we do out here in the woods.

Just after we were back rolling down through the rocks, Craig came right up to a rocky ledge that extended across the washed out road. It had a clear two foot drop-off below it before we would launch off through wet, leaf covered, lumpy bowling balls again. Craig was setting up to shoot off it.

“ Craig, don’t do it! I will be shot by Angela if you happen to rack yourself up again! We are almost done, and all kinds of bad stuff usually happens to us at the end of a ride, or the end of the day when we are tired.”

We agreed that we were still rusty, that we were still dialing in suspension settings, and settling in our new brake pads. Craig agreed to take the side loop into the woods to bypass this section, this time.

That’s the thing about being a biking Bubba. We are in it for the long haul. The idea is to have a good time, fall off into the mud sometimes, walk through black pools of unfathomable water and slime, and come back to do it again, three times a week. Year after year, season after season, day or night, doesn’t matter. We even have headlights.

We’ll be back to visit with Mr. Root Knob.

Even with these black flies.

Mr. T , the tic man..

“Tics are parasites- They live by feeding on the blood of others: birds, mammals, and reptiles. They remain attached to the host for several days while feeding , attached by their strong mouth parts. Some species pass on diseases, such as Lyme disease, as they feed. size 1/16-1/8 “ long, # species 650.”

For while this weekend, I adopted the role of and advocated for Mr. T, a tiny tic.

For two weekends a year, Maine Coast Men hosts The Gathering. A typical weekend is very informal. MCM’s is in a remote wooded area on a river with enclosed bunk houses and gathering rooms. It begins with a Friday night potluck and a voluntary “check in.” Saturdays offer workshops which are conducted by other members who volunteer. In the past their have been workshops about anger, living single, relationships with fathers and sons, spirituality, co dependency, homophobia, racism, singing, and so on. No one has to attend anything but usually over the weekend those who gather engage with each other and feel support and comradeship. Saturday night is a “variety” show with stories, music, singing, and improvising. The hope is that men return to their homes with renewed energy, insight, or connections with others as they move through the next 6 months, where many first time participants become returnees.
The next one will be Oct. 17-19, 2008 here in Lincolnville, ME. If you want to attend, check the web site linked above and download an application form. I’ll be there, and have signed up to cook Saturday night’s supper .

This year, the theme was “ Connecting With the Earth” and the highlight this time was the Saturday afternoon Council of All Beings. At the opening circle, we were encouraged to be receptive to some type of connection or contact with a being, animal, bird, etc. that we would then represent in the Council. I love this type of non linear cognitive process, and was thrilled that I might have some type of visit from a life form that might need my help.

At first, I thought I might have connected with a Downy Woodpecker that presented itself to me as I walked out the door of my cabin on my way to breakfast in the morning. But, Mr. woodpecker was eventually displaced by the tic that I uncovered that alerted itself to me after I felt it crawling up my leg.

One important and engaging activity that remained in place throughout Saturday was an ongoing mask-making workshop, where a huge collection of art materials was available for our use. I had no initial picture of what a tic would look like, but eventually worked it up, using a color tic photograph that I located in a nature book that I found down in the Nature Center at the camp. I grafted on some sharp teeth, and used sticks dipped in red paint as the mouth parts. I glued on some big blood drips.

How do you convince someone about the value of a parasite that sucks your blood and passes on Lyme disease?
I knew at least a dozen Appalachian Trail thru-hikers who contracted Lyme disease last year . They succumbed to various levels of sickness and fatigue. I myself was paranoid about tic bites, and faithfully wore knee high gaiters periodically dosed with a tick repellent spray containing 0.5 percent permethrin. I only had to remove three of them from my legs, none doing me any apparent harm.

The idea of a blood sucking parasite opened up to me the larger issue of the sometimes parasitic-like existence of forces that are not supporting our life. Things that might fall into this category might be television viewing, drugs, alcohol, commercial advertisements foisted on us by income fattening merchants. In this form, tics are real life reminders that we must be constantly vigilant about those influences that might actually burrow into our flesh and suck the life out of us.
For me, the more that I am out in the woods, walking on some sort of trail, the safer I am. The tics that I might meet there are far less likely to suck the life out of me than the tics I might not be able to recognize when they are masked.

You Name It, Exercise helps It ..

Great article in the 4/29/08 New York Times with the above title written by Jane Brody. (Hit the link in the last sentence to get the full article.) The article not only covers the protective role of exercise in the ability to lower the risk of a litany of diseases but discusses the body’s ability to battle the effects of disease.

“It’s crazy not to do it.”

OK, but what about the chance component of contracting diseases? Chance plays a role in the body’s struggles, and may be linked to genetics. Just yesterday I received an email from an acquaintance’s wife that he had suddenly died from a brain tumor, living just two months after receiving his diagnosis. Tom was 56 years old, and the healthiest person most of us knew.

As long as we are in the area of health, what about all this talk about drinking lots of water? I became intruigued about the folk wisdom around trying to drink two to three quarts of water a day, for health, on my AT thru hike. Watching the guys who were not carrying much water, and who would drink when they hit water sources, got me thinking. Then I read  this ariticle I saw in the Times:  Put the Water Bottle Down.    The article is the usual , well-researched work, required of the Times.   They failed to find any scientific evidence that 8 glasses of water daily were a requirement for the  needs  of an otherwise healthy person.

Back at the Church of two Wheels

It has started again.  Another clump of big outdoor pursuits is resurrected.  The two wheeled kind.  In the last 24 hours, I have taken two tough bicycle rides, and then fired up one of my motorcycles and  taken a short ride to picnic with some old friends.

I was up to my neighbor Andy’s on Saturday, buying a discount case of beer when he asked me if I wanted to ride bikes with him that afternoon.  Andy has a brewry, “Andrew’s“  right in the old barn.

“Sure” , I said, but then Andy told me that he had been riding all winter long in his house, on  a machine that allows him to ride his bike inside ( wind trainer).  That meant he was in shape. I really wasn’t .  We rode  hard 75 minutes over the back streets of Lincolnville and Belmont, ME later that day.  I took my road bike, which took a while for me to get ready, as the chain was screwed up and I had to work on it for about a half hour to get it right.  Pretty greasy and dirty.  Andy had a computer on his bike and at the end of the ride, he told me we were able to maintain a 17.8 MPH pace, which was shockingly good for such a hilly ride.  I wasn’t much good for the rest of the evening, was spent, and went to bed at 8:30 that night.

The next morning I got out the bike again , and rode to Camden to pick up the Maine  Sunday Telegram and the New York Times, my favorite papers.  It was an 18 mile round trip, over lots of hills.  It wasn’t too bad.

Then at noon, I fired up my Kawasaki KLR 650 motorcycle and met my friend Steve for our annual Great Northern BMW Riders to ride to our annual picnic.  We have been a club for 25 years now, and do this the last Sunday in April every year since the early 1980’s.

Spring is here, and I call it my rededication to one of my religious affiliations, The Church of Two Wheels.

April 25 and I’m Springing Ahead

Today I received a postcard from my sister in law , V8.

On the front was a ” ‘Life Is Good’ at Uncle Johhny’s” photo.

Johnny’s is a constellation of little cabins, camping sites, dorm style beds, and outfitter’s store on the banks of the Nolichucky River in Erwin, TN. v8 and my wife, Auntie Mame have already hiked north 338 miles from Springer Mountain, GA. They did well at Uncle Johnny’s.

April is usually a tough time for me. Most people love spring. I don’t, really. I get a sort of sinking feeling in my stomach. It comes from all that spring represents. I grew up on a farm, and no matter how hard it was to deal with the cold and dark of winter, that was a time to cut back, to retreat. Once the ground greened up, there was plenty of work to do, and then it was time to deal with humidity, sweat, and the feeling that nothing was ever really done. Sort of a dread thing.

The sinking feeling comes back to me every April , no matter what , but this year it is better.

I had a great time in Austin, Texas last week. I think the constant sunshine and living outside did me good. I appreciate the time that The Captain

and Louis ( Richard Wizard) spent with me bicycling

, swimming, eating Texas barbeque and hanging out.

Here is a photo of me sinking my hands into the automatic hand degreaser at Rudy’s Barbeque in Austin:

Yesterday I firmed up travel plans to head down to Damscus, VA for a week in May to attend a 25,000 person backpacker bash/party in celebration of the Appalachian Trail, even fitting in time to hike for 3 or 4 days with my wife, who is thru-hiking the AT this season. She passes through Damascus next Tuesday, so I’ll rent a car in Roanoke, VA and find her somewhere out there and we’ll backtrack to Trail Days.

I got a call last night from the Old Buzzard, who was at Newfound Gap, North Carolina, smack dab in the middle of Great Smokies National park. I met the Buzzard on the Trail in New Hampshire last year, and this year he is on the AT, kicking ass on his march forward. He called to thank me for helping him with trip preparation this past winter.

Today, I received confirmation for a reserved campsite for 6 people at Katahdin Stream Campground for Aug. 5, when one of my friends from last year’s AT thru-hike, has invited a few of us up there for three days of backpacking as part of her birthday celebration. We’ll climb up to the top of Mt. Katahdin on Aug. 5. What could be better?  Here is a 2006 photo of Auntie Mame coming up over the Gateway on Katahdin.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

I called General Tso today at 1-800-BIKEMAN to ask him if her remembered last April 25. He knew exactly where we were.

“Yeah, we were at Uncle Johnny’s. We fixed up bicycles that afternoon.”

When I expressed surprise that he instantly was able to match the date with our location, Tso told me that he was able to do that every day.

” I am still on the Trail everyday, man,” he replied.

We talked a bit, and agreed to set aside the Memorial Day weekend next month to do a three day hike of the 42 mile Grafton Loop Trail up around the Grafton Notch area. I just e-mailed Rangoon to invite him as well. Here is a part of it:

In the immortal words of Lifetraveler

“Life is good, today.”

Austin makes it

easy to enjoy life.  I was down there for a week, returning this past Sunday.

A string of 70 degree  blue sky days, and crisp clear nights held us closely.

Music, Mexican and barbeque foods, and  mountain biking out of the city on real trails with The Captain and Louis, my friends and part of MEGATEX from my 2007 Appalachian Trail thru-hike.
I saw a stunning concert by Bruce Springsteen in Houston. It involved  near 6 hours of driving, though. Traveling through the Texas countryside was part of the preparation for Springsteen’s unique take on our present, past, and future life here in the US of A.

Prominent in his set list were two tunes that have ascended to the Uncle Tom 2008 hiking Playlist: “Long Walk Home” and “Radio Nowhere”. For my money, these two tunes capture the raw experience of staggering around the Amercan experience right now, all that is honorable about it as well as the “No way, this is wrong!” storehouse of distress.

Sent from my iPod

Newspapers can offer lessons in frugality

Newspapers can offer lessons in frugality, but you have to be sharp enough to sift through the pancaked fluff to get there.
How about “How To Survive in New York on 99 Cents”"?

The author made dinners for a week from ingredients purchased from $.99 stores, culminating in such a meal prepared for friends. Rice, beans , nuts, and candy abound. Little Debbie products rule the dessert section, nonwithstanding the author’s (Henry Alford) description of the Oatmeal Creme Pie as one “whose velvety filing so perfectly captures an imagined marriage between butter-cream frosting and Noxema.”
The recipe for the popular pea soup was appreciated . There are “incredible values” that can be found in Dollar Stores, and “One man’s penny is another man’s dollar.”

Sent from my iPod

Spending Money = Patriotism ????

The 4/8/08 Bangor Daily News editorial, “Early retirement is unpatriotic”, is a sorry excuse for a tenable position.

The first time I started to slog through it, I verified the date, and part of me still believes that it had been submitted as a satirical piece to run as an April Fools’ day literary joke. The editors must have put it in the wrong pile! The author lists reasons why it is both selfish and unpatriotic to retire at 55, or even 65! The reasons do not even merit detailed listing, but involve further amassing personal wealth, increasing billions in additional tax revenue, and slaving away a few more grueling years as we do our share to shore up this suckhole of an economy.

I formally retired at 52. I thought that offering up my position would open up a good paying job for someone else, get them up and spending. I have seen too many men die before they were able to really live their retirement dreams. My father was one of those men. If one buys this author’s reasoning, we may well need to sign over a death warrant to our children, as we pass our credit card and mortgage payments on to them. Those of us who have somehow have avoided buying that plasma screen TV are now unpatriotic Americans. I’ll try to spend more money, and not cripple the rest of America.

Where is the voice of Thoreau? We need some help here!

Whatever happened just taking care of food, shelter, and clothing?

Who is up for a real lavish traverse of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2010? We might be able to fuel some real appreciable economic growth if a big enough bunch of us each throws $6,000 into the suckhole.

A Cold Rainy Day

It’s funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day
Its funny,
That rainy day
Is here
-Frank Sinatra

Sitting this morning

On the Trailways bus,

winding our way

Down to Boston’s Logan Airport

In the early morning rain.
I lay my head down
and gaze out the window,
soaking in the misty woods.

Time flips back a year
and I am now walking
on a high exploding flowering
ridge in North Carolina,
on that cold
day when I backpacked
Eighteen miles in the rain.
That day
Is now a shimmering memory,
all the hurt gone.