On weekends and bike maintenance...

Sorry i'm late again, but, i figured i'd best give a report of what i did with myself while liz was off having shenanigans with the fam last weekend.....


Of course, in all of my running around last weekend, i didn't have a camera, so, all of the pictures in this post have all been jacked from Brian's Flickr page, and you can read his version of the hike we did on Saturday over at his blog. (Careful, as i've been saying for years, Brian is a born and near perfect engineer, and as such writes even his jovial reports of outdoor meanderings in the very direct, non-flowery tone of a technical paper.) (It's the weekend, Bri! Relax!)

Ditching work in the mid afternoon on Friday, i flew down to Estes Park to meet Gerg, Christina, Brian and Sarah at the very last reservable camping spot in Rocky Mountain. When they arrived on Friday night, hamburgers and cans of Labbat Blue abounded, and we sat around the fire and told some lies about how cool we all were back in college.


The morning came, and we bound up our gear and shoved it all in the car in our quest to get up to the Mt Chopin trailhead before all of the parking had disappeared. As we were leaving though, i saw the most Ah-mazing thing that i have ever seen at a campground -- certainly the most American thing i've ever seen. The gentlemen who had arrived the night before around 10:30 in the adjacent camping site with his Gigantic RV had arisen sometime around 7:30, and came bounding out of the spring-driven door of his rolling McMansion gripping a drip coffee maker in his right hand, and set it down on the picnic table.

I stood there watching this development, with my own morning coffee in my own right hand (created with the french press for our awesome JetBoil) wondering how he was planning on plugging the end of that coffee maker into the firepit and somehow coax freshly made Java out of it with sheer willpower and moxie alone. But, of course, he had a plan, and after slipping back into his RV briefly, he came back out with a wonderfully shiny 5 hp diesel generator. He sat it down, started it up, plugged in his coffeemaker, and sat back in his camping(!) chair and awaited his bounty. I couldn't believe it. Incredible. Half a gallon of gas for a few cups of brew.

So, after doing my best to shake this now permanently-grafted image in my head, we head to the trail head that eventually led us up to the top of Mt Chiquita (13,060 ft). Gerg and Christina are newly transplanted Coloradoans, so the 8 mile round trip hike that took us into the early afternoon turned out to be the perfect length, challenge, and gave us some wonderful views.

Oh, and i met a yellow-bellied Marmot!


On the way out of the park, we ran into the, oh, 3 or 4 Bajillion people at the top of the park at the Alpine Visitors Center, held hostage by out of state license plates and single-lane construction. Ugh. Upon escaping, we headed to Estes for some pizza and distributed hugs goodbye, and i found my way back home.

Sunday morning i packed the climbing bag, and with brewed coffee once again clasped in my right hand headed up to Veaduwoo, Wyoming to meet DylAnn & Markate at the Nautilis to get some routes in. I managed to do a fairly decent lead up the pinchy 5.10a Stand And Deliver, and then follow the group up Ted's Trot, a big, gutsy 5.7 offwidth crack. As the rain began to fall, we headed back to the cars and moved back south to prepare for the upcoming workweek.

The top of Chiquita

I spent Monday and Tuesday, though, oddly enough - back in Wyoming, 20 miles south of Rawlins, where we're installing an 80 foot meteorological tower. We dug a big hole which will eventually be the new home to 16 yards of concrete, and assembled the big tower which i will eventually be shimmy-ing up to install some sensors. Wednesday was a fairly plain workday, though, so this morning i decided to mix it up by losing my front bike tire as i left the curb on my commute - and safely landing directly on my face.

Wait, did i say safely? I meant incredibly painfully.

Luckily, liz is home this week, and after picking myself up and walking the remaining 300 foot to the office, she picked me up and we took a trip to the ER. I got three stitches in the new gash above my upper lip, and managed to remove most of my goatee by way of the pavement, in order to replace it with a pretty large piece of gauze. I'd post a picture, but, um, it wasn't pretty. Kinda the opposite.

That said, I'm ok, mostly annoyed, and looking quite Marv-like with these bandages on my face. First time i've ever gotten stitches, though. So i suppose i can cross that one off the life accomplishment list. Phew.