FLASK Trip Update:
April 22:
75 miles to Rose Hill (?). 8-6. Spent too much time in Columbia looking for postcards, which I didn't find. The solar charger'sz not charging even though I try to keep it reasoably oriented to the sun all day. Nice time in McComb: stopped to say Hi to the fire department & gave them the blog address, had really good italian mango ice at a little mom & pop stand, then finally found postcards at a super friendly little shop in a beautiful little town called Summit. Took the wrong highway out of town (98 instead of 54) so when I asked an old man in his front yard where Percy Quinn State Park was ... well. I had a flat on the rear tire I nursed for awhile & finally replaced. Finally stopped at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church & camped in the grass lot. I had an unbelievable, fulfilling, happy evening as I stepped into & stayed with the realization that I was on the big adventure of my life. The little anxiety I was feeling about not being in a park & how that feels like a kind of failure ... disappeared. I stayed in the moment as I stretched & it was physically & spiritually FANTASTIC! Stayed loose while cooking & eating dinner in a splayed seated posture - though I managed to let the pot fall off the stove twice! I was really connected to the moment as I relaxed in Dead Man falling asleep & felt a strong sense of the universe & how I was part of it's atomic fabric. Cool & seriously awesome.
April 23:
71 miles. 8-730. Rode 10 miles to Bude this morning & met Tim, a nurse, on my way into a neat little bakery/eatery. We sat down together & chatted for probably 2 hours. His wife's suffering with cancer but he was a remarkable guy: fun, nice, thoughtful, interesting, & helpful. I didn't make time in Natchez to see Longwood ( an antebellum home) or Natchez Under the Hill (a bar) he'd recommended because I just felt it best that I keep moving given the time. Two more rear flats today - it's the damn 1" tubes that the LOSERS at Steve's Bike Shop in Panama City sold me. They're splitting at the seam when not underinflated. When I ask for 1 1/4" tubes, THAT'S WHAT I WANT! I was sad to leave MS - everyone there was soo friendly. It was cool to cross the Mississippi River, though, & so far the folks in Louisiana are nice, too. Camped behind a rundown Baptist church so need to get up early so I'm well gone before they start getting ready for Easter service. Another very good stretch & the hip's doing fantastic on the trip. It feels better than it has in probably a year. Wrist is fine but I've developed some ass pimples that don't feel so great (I need to clean & swap my riding shorts every day). I would like to be home while Rae's winding down & celebrating school (really & truly) but this adventure is really fun & I'm stoked to be doing it, in it, & living it.
April 24:
75 miles to Gum Springs CG in the Kasatchie NF. 8-6. Happy Easter. 3 flats before I could even get on the road. Those a-holes at The Bike Shop are on my s%#$ list. Breakfast was good even though it was at a gas station in Jonesville, LA - ham & cheese omelette, though the folks there weren't overly friendly. 2 more flats leaving there, then nursing a semi-flat, then two more for a total of 7 today. Stopped in Jena's Autozone (yea! Open on Easter!) & got tube patch with regular patches & rubber cement. Of course, I didn't get any more flats after just pumping up the tire some more! Hahaha! I ripped of big chunks of mileage on the saddle this afternoon. Instead of the typical 5-7 mile rest period I did 22, 16, & 12 stretches. Ass is numbing, wrist is fine, palms hurt in the morning but were fine all afternoon. Stayed on 84 out of Winfield at 5:30 & rode easily to Gum Springs CG in Kisatchie NF. Beautiful campground with water at my site & great view through pines of a nice lake, in which I cleaned up both myself & the days clothes. I know I'll sleep better - I've been so sticky the last few nights it's actually uncomfortable, which must be pretty bad because I typically shower less than one per week (if I can get away with it. i.e. if Rae's not around). Bugs forcing me to sleep in the tent again. Too bad because otherwise it's just gorgeous out - light breeze, low clouds, whispering pines. Mmmmm ... outdoors. The desire to see & be with Rae is overwhelming some times & often I get weepy; especially if I'm listening to music.
April 25:
94 miles to Shreveport. 7-530. I thought I saw a bobcat today, making its way into some tall roadside grass. Good breakfast in Clarence, LA, at a donut shop opened just last week by some lovely Cambodians. My ass is covered in a rash but feels fine. Palms hurt but I think I just need to keep my left grip adjusted properly - I'm worried about locking it down until I know what position's best. Terrific tailwind nearly all day so made it to River City Cycling, where they comp'd me 2 tubes (they're probably too big but that's probably better than the too thin tubes I have) & told me about the tornadoes forecast for tonight. I've hunkered down at a crappy Days Inn, showered (wow, was I dirty), cleaned clothes, got some Newcastle, & had beef tips & rice for dinner. I'd rather not stay tomorrow, even though I'm figuring out that I'm days ahead of schedule so will definitely hang with Freddie B in Sherman, TX, this weekend.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Oh, Honey!
After two weeks of traveling, Wes and I were hanging out for what was supposed to be a chill evening in Prescott with his cousin Zach.
"Quinn, what kind of honey is this?" Zach hollered from the kitchen with a chuckle. I turned my gaze, his hands were caked with a dull yellow colored goo stringing like glue between both fingers and palms. It was everywhere, and it was hardening! (photos to come) His laughter stopped when he barely could pry his hands away from one another.
Zach was just mixing honey with some spices for a yummy chicken dinner, or so we thought. When the honey started quickly rising in the mixing bowl, Zach chose to pour it into the sink instead of over the chicken. The mixture continued to rise and thicken, so he shoved his hands in the mix to assist removal. What was this mystery item that was so cleverly masked in a squeeze bottle on a shelf next to brown sugar and coffee in the van?
More on that in a minute.
The two weeks prior were filled with much family, driving and desert landscape. It started with a last minute trip to Lubbock, Texas to visit with Wesley's immediate family.
After a weekend of baseball, soccer games and wonderful company, we made our way back to the Phoenix area. Ops, and a quick stop to see the largest pistachio. These people make lovely flavored pistachios, and an okay pistachio wine.
One night to unpack, re-pack and we were off again to Red Rocks, Las Vegas. This time we were taking the VW van for a tour! What a spoiled way of traveling...bed, fridge, stove, even stocked with a little coffee, honey, and pinto beans!!! The weather was stellar, as well as the company! Some friends from Canada were down for a week at a "conference." Another group of friends was also down from Colorado Springs. It was great climbing with everyone, jokes and laughter abound!
After six stellar days of climbing, Wes and I made our way back to Arizona. Some time before seeing Zach in Prescott, we stopped off in Jerome. A cute steep hillside town with wine tasting, many motorcyclists, and old mine history. A well known musician established a winery and tasting room that we both wanted to check out. The wine was great, but the service by one of the gals was a bit snobby.
Back to the honey, I mean expanding foam. Yes, expanding foam!!
After spending the rest of the evening manually picking at, pouring various chemicals on, and a making use of a car scrapper on Zach's hands, we finally saw skin just before midnight. Poor guy. Crusty pieces of curry flavored expanding foam were on his hands for days!
Poor sink. Wes reached down the disposal and pulled out a Nerf football sized chunk of foam. We tried to help put the kitchen back together, Wes working on the drain clog, me putting away the various products we poured on Zach in attempt to slough the stuff off. We left the next morning, feeling terrible. We thought we were just offering him honey!!!
Arriving early in the morning back in Phoenix, I had just enough time to pack up all of my belongings. The loaded corolla headed out that same day to spend a few days in New Mexico with a good friend who happens to be working on a job in Albuquerque for the next few months! A warm goodbye hug to Rae and Wes sent me off on another leg of the journey.
Douglas and I climbed just outside of town on Friday, and then headed up to El Rito on Saturday.
El Rito is just north of Santa Fe. The climbing is on oddly composed conglomerate rock piled in small spires along a hill side. You grab onto large river stones cemented together, or the holes where stones used to be. Douglas ran into an old expedition buddy at the cliff, so over a drizzly campfire dinner that evening we made new friends and told stories. I woke up a bit chilled but motivated to finish the snowy drive to Estes Park. I arrived yesterday to lovely snowy conditions. It feels good to be back to one of my favorite places in the world!!!!
"Quinn, what kind of honey is this?" Zach hollered from the kitchen with a chuckle. I turned my gaze, his hands were caked with a dull yellow colored goo stringing like glue between both fingers and palms. It was everywhere, and it was hardening! (photos to come) His laughter stopped when he barely could pry his hands away from one another.
Zach was just mixing honey with some spices for a yummy chicken dinner, or so we thought. When the honey started quickly rising in the mixing bowl, Zach chose to pour it into the sink instead of over the chicken. The mixture continued to rise and thicken, so he shoved his hands in the mix to assist removal. What was this mystery item that was so cleverly masked in a squeeze bottle on a shelf next to brown sugar and coffee in the van?
More on that in a minute.
The two weeks prior were filled with much family, driving and desert landscape. It started with a last minute trip to Lubbock, Texas to visit with Wesley's immediate family.
After a weekend of baseball, soccer games and wonderful company, we made our way back to the Phoenix area. Ops, and a quick stop to see the largest pistachio. These people make lovely flavored pistachios, and an okay pistachio wine.
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| Wes squeezing on Cloud Tower |
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| Last Pitch Cloud Tower |
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| Eric avoiding the water hazard at the base of a climb |
 |
| View from the tasting room in Jerome. Sedona in distance. |
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| Disgruntle customers |
Back to the honey, I mean expanding foam. Yes, expanding foam!!
After spending the rest of the evening manually picking at, pouring various chemicals on, and a making use of a car scrapper on Zach's hands, we finally saw skin just before midnight. Poor guy. Crusty pieces of curry flavored expanding foam were on his hands for days!
Poor sink. Wes reached down the disposal and pulled out a Nerf football sized chunk of foam. We tried to help put the kitchen back together, Wes working on the drain clog, me putting away the various products we poured on Zach in attempt to slough the stuff off. We left the next morning, feeling terrible. We thought we were just offering him honey!!!
 |
| Barbie doll shoved in hole? |
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| Douglas hiking to the cliffs! |
Douglas and I climbed just outside of town on Friday, and then headed up to El Rito on Saturday.
El Rito is just north of Santa Fe. The climbing is on oddly composed conglomerate rock piled in small spires along a hill side. You grab onto large river stones cemented together, or the holes where stones used to be. Douglas ran into an old expedition buddy at the cliff, so over a drizzly campfire dinner that evening we made new friends and told stories. I woke up a bit chilled but motivated to finish the snowy drive to Estes Park. I arrived yesterday to lovely snowy conditions. It feels good to be back to one of my favorite places in the world!!!!
 |
| Karla and Astro with snowball cling-age. |
Friday, April 22, 2011
Florida into Mississippi
FLASK Daily Trip Notes:
April 18
69 miles to Fort Walton. Flat, flat, flat. Awoke with dry sinuses & aches. Sad goodbye with Judi & Michelle. I met very enthusiastic Will & his gal, Soul, at Win Dixie - super nice. Got water socks & pots at Bass Pro Shop (boo! - though some of the staff wanted the blog address!), then got cold medicine & Tasty Bites at Publix. Sore ass but wrist & legs are OK . Nice view with herons playing & feeding at Liza city park - nice folks out running, walking, & one mom holding up an unstable kid on a bike. Beautiful , fat, yellow moon on the horizon above the simmering water at 830. Missing Rae & wondering why I don't pay for camping - free is nice but the worry about getting rolled or rousted is not conducive to sleeping. Plus there's not much to do til bedtime when you're trying to keep a low profile. Dalton (homeless) showed up in a wheelchair around midnight - talking, snuffling, coughing, & peeing - & I gave him $4 in the morning.
April 19:
83 miles to Loxley, AL. Warm, humid, & mostly cloudy. Very tired at mid-day again, despite good tailwind most of the day. My ass is sore, wrists are fine, legs are tired (I took a video - that I don't yet know how to post from my smartphone - of end-of-day calf spasms), & heart is heavy as I'm really missing Rae. AL is hillier than FL but pretty in the rural areas, & the people are friendly. Too many gnats at the Loxley Municipal Park but it's very nice. Typical 2nd day blues so now very glad I didn't push the extra 14 miles to ($30 camping!) Meaher State Park. I'm starting a state roadkill list since AL has armidillos & turtles, & FL didn't. Saw a Rastafarian Texan touring back from Crestview,FL, on a crappy bike loaded with garbage sacks of stuff mostly on his handlebars. He was walking when I first saw him but he made it to the gas station I was resting at just before the wreck.
April 20:
83 miles to Benndale. I was rousted by Loxley police at 11:30 last night so moved behind a nearby Antique store in a grassy clearing. i got a little off track on Hwy 98 Truck Route & went through Prichard - very run down but everyone was friendly. Tight shoulder with a curb was annoying for quite awhile. Some toothless hicks in Lucedale grocery parking lot had great beta on Fairley Bridge Rec Area & Pascuagula the river but river road was muddy & FBRA was too far, so got stuck in Benndale. I found a nice park, though the mosquitos were horrid so I put up the tent. I idled on a bridge above a very scenic bayou & saw a snake swimming & a snapping turtle feeding! Palms are sore - need to rotate bars down to see if that helps. Ass is better & wrist is fine (I had the brace off all day, too!). Better attitude, though quite tired (palms, mostly) in late afternoon. Fig Newtons make me fart like mad.
April 20:
79 miles to Columbia,MS. 8-6.
What a day! I made it to Wiggins by 10 for a fast food breakfast with free wifi but the food & coffee were not so good. Sccenic ride on some very backcountry highways (49 & 13). Just before Lumberton Scott was waiting by the side of the road (I need to remember to take pictures of folks I meet!) to see where I was heading & tell me he'd backed over his mountain bike recently. He offered me a place to stay, too - nice. Then at the Lumberton grocery store a whole passel of folks came out as I was loading the panniers because the clerk got on the store intercom to tell everyone in there what I was doing. One girl asked if I was nervous sleeping out at night & suggested I should be! It was sprinkling & thundering as I pulled into Barkerville (?) & I sat under the local store awning with a bunch of friendly hicks killing an hour while it rained. When I got into Columbia a fellow directed me to a city park off the highways & I decided to roll into the nearby fire station to see if I could finagle permission to sleep in the park to avoid the late night rousting scenario. Wow! Great choice! Cpt. Jeff, Jonathon, & Neil of Columbia Fire Station #2 Shift C were awesome! Cpt. called the night shift police captain then they offered me a shower, which I gladly took. Still waiting for the police captain to come by, we chatted for two hours, they got on the blog, we friended each other on Facebook, & they fed me fish, french fries, fried pickles, & sweet tea! Cpt. Pearly showed up & was skeptical about letting me stay in the park until Shift C told her I was legit - "See, look here, he's got a blog about it & come look at his bike!" Whew - approved! As I'm packing up to go Neil insisted I take a fireman shirt & $20. Mike, a B Shift fireman who'd just rolled in on his motorbike then gave me his fire station cap & another $20 "representin' Shift B for 'Bad.'" Wow! Did I say these guys were awesome! So the Columbia MS Station #2 Fire Dept is now an official sponsor of Team F-Bomb & $10 will go to St. Jude's Hospital. For good measure & to check up on me, Neil & Jonathon came by the park before they closed the station gates & to swap some more stories. Awesome ... I love Mississippi!
April 18
69 miles to Fort Walton. Flat, flat, flat. Awoke with dry sinuses & aches. Sad goodbye with Judi & Michelle. I met very enthusiastic Will & his gal, Soul, at Win Dixie - super nice. Got water socks & pots at Bass Pro Shop (boo! - though some of the staff wanted the blog address!), then got cold medicine & Tasty Bites at Publix. Sore ass but wrist & legs are OK . Nice view with herons playing & feeding at Liza city park - nice folks out running, walking, & one mom holding up an unstable kid on a bike. Beautiful , fat, yellow moon on the horizon above the simmering water at 830. Missing Rae & wondering why I don't pay for camping - free is nice but the worry about getting rolled or rousted is not conducive to sleeping. Plus there's not much to do til bedtime when you're trying to keep a low profile. Dalton (homeless) showed up in a wheelchair around midnight - talking, snuffling, coughing, & peeing - & I gave him $4 in the morning.
April 19:
83 miles to Loxley, AL. Warm, humid, & mostly cloudy. Very tired at mid-day again, despite good tailwind most of the day. My ass is sore, wrists are fine, legs are tired (I took a video - that I don't yet know how to post from my smartphone - of end-of-day calf spasms), & heart is heavy as I'm really missing Rae. AL is hillier than FL but pretty in the rural areas, & the people are friendly. Too many gnats at the Loxley Municipal Park but it's very nice. Typical 2nd day blues so now very glad I didn't push the extra 14 miles to ($30 camping!) Meaher State Park. I'm starting a state roadkill list since AL has armidillos & turtles, & FL didn't. Saw a Rastafarian Texan touring back from Crestview,FL, on a crappy bike loaded with garbage sacks of stuff mostly on his handlebars. He was walking when I first saw him but he made it to the gas station I was resting at just before the wreck.
April 20:
83 miles to Benndale. I was rousted by Loxley police at 11:30 last night so moved behind a nearby Antique store in a grassy clearing. i got a little off track on Hwy 98 Truck Route & went through Prichard - very run down but everyone was friendly. Tight shoulder with a curb was annoying for quite awhile. Some toothless hicks in Lucedale grocery parking lot had great beta on Fairley Bridge Rec Area & Pascuagula the river but river road was muddy & FBRA was too far, so got stuck in Benndale. I found a nice park, though the mosquitos were horrid so I put up the tent. I idled on a bridge above a very scenic bayou & saw a snake swimming & a snapping turtle feeding! Palms are sore - need to rotate bars down to see if that helps. Ass is better & wrist is fine (I had the brace off all day, too!). Better attitude, though quite tired (palms, mostly) in late afternoon. Fig Newtons make me fart like mad.
April 20:
79 miles to Columbia,MS. 8-6.
What a day! I made it to Wiggins by 10 for a fast food breakfast with free wifi but the food & coffee were not so good. Sccenic ride on some very backcountry highways (49 & 13). Just before Lumberton Scott was waiting by the side of the road (I need to remember to take pictures of folks I meet!) to see where I was heading & tell me he'd backed over his mountain bike recently. He offered me a place to stay, too - nice. Then at the Lumberton grocery store a whole passel of folks came out as I was loading the panniers because the clerk got on the store intercom to tell everyone in there what I was doing. One girl asked if I was nervous sleeping out at night & suggested I should be! It was sprinkling & thundering as I pulled into Barkerville (?) & I sat under the local store awning with a bunch of friendly hicks killing an hour while it rained. When I got into Columbia a fellow directed me to a city park off the highways & I decided to roll into the nearby fire station to see if I could finagle permission to sleep in the park to avoid the late night rousting scenario. Wow! Great choice! Cpt. Jeff, Jonathon, & Neil of Columbia Fire Station #2 Shift C were awesome! Cpt. called the night shift police captain then they offered me a shower, which I gladly took. Still waiting for the police captain to come by, we chatted for two hours, they got on the blog, we friended each other on Facebook, & they fed me fish, french fries, fried pickles, & sweet tea! Cpt. Pearly showed up & was skeptical about letting me stay in the park until Shift C told her I was legit - "See, look here, he's got a blog about it & come look at his bike!" Whew - approved! As I'm packing up to go Neil insisted I take a fireman shirt & $20. Mike, a B Shift fireman who'd just rolled in on his motorbike then gave me his fire station cap & another $20 "representin' Shift B for 'Bad.'" Wow! Did I say these guys were awesome! So the Columbia MS Station #2 Fire Dept is now an official sponsor of Team F-Bomb & $10 will go to St. Jude's Hospital. For good measure & to check up on me, Neil & Jonathon came by the park before they closed the station gates & to swap some more stories. Awesome ... I love Mississippi!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Leaving Florida
After a great week with my sister, Judi, and her wonderful family, I'm starting the ride tomorrow. We had all kinds of fun: baton recital, soccer, ROTC drill team, beach sand castles, dolphin spotting in the new family boat, crawfish and shrimp eating, ... whew! I'll leave Panama City in the morning and, hopefully, make Colorado May 10 for the train ride to Phoenix. It might be hard for me to update this blog on the ride, so look for Facebook status updates - or track my exact location on Google Latitude, OK?
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Ready! Aim! Ride!
We had some fun Tuesday night with one of our sponsors, Angela of Deschutes Brewery, in Old Town Tempe. Quite a few too many Mirror Mirror (9% alchohol) and Abyss (11%) [pints meant that I didn't get nearly enough done Wednesday. Thankfully I finished it all today. Finished the headset installation with the retrofitted brakes and new bar end shifters. Repaired and installed the front rack. Tuned the disc brake rotors. Packed bags. Tore down the bike and boxed it for train shipment. Packed Cirque gear in the van and changed the oil. Whew! I'll miss Rae terribly and whenever we start talking about the trip we move quickly from excitement to tears. I'm sure you all know I'm the luckiest man on earth. Train to Florida tomorrow night! Yeehaw! Ready! Aim! Ride!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Should I be worried?
It's just a few more days til I get on a train to see my sister and niece in Florida. Preparation for the trip has been going well and the list of remaining things to do is dwindling. The van's in as good a state of repair as it's ever been - though I still need to find out why the temperature gage isn't working and re-center the steering wheel (both too easy to worry about). We've finalized our Cirque preparations: food list, camp list, gear list, ... check, check, check. 
We had a nice outdoor training /refresh session on jumaring, aiding, and rescue recently. Gear is all sorted and ready to be packed into the van. Permits have been applied for. I'm so psyched that everyone in the house is getting tired of my whoops of delight. But they're excited, too. We all re-read the Fifty Classics description of the Lotus Flower Tower and look at pictures of the Cirque - all day long. Super psyched!
Unfortunately, I still don't have my bike together. I decided to change the handlebar set-up to something that will be a lot more comfortable for my damaged wrist but there've been a few complications. The handlebars and stem sizes don't match and the shim hasn't shown up yet and I managed to break a bolt in the stem, which I'll hopefully extract and re-tap today. I also feel like it'd be good to re-inforce the bottom of the trailer. Its sidewalls disintegrated in the AZ heat last year and I'm worried that the bottom will during the trip. I'm thinking of screwing on some leftover showerboard as a skid plate - sounds cool, huh?!
We had a nice outdoor training /refresh session on jumaring, aiding, and rescue recently. Gear is all sorted and ready to be packed into the van. Permits have been applied for. I'm so psyched that everyone in the house is getting tired of my whoops of delight. But they're excited, too. We all re-read the Fifty Classics description of the Lotus Flower Tower and look at pictures of the Cirque - all day long. Super psyched! 
Unfortunately, I still don't have my bike together. I decided to change the handlebar set-up to something that will be a lot more comfortable for my damaged wrist but there've been a few complications. The handlebars and stem sizes don't match and the shim hasn't shown up yet and I managed to break a bolt in the stem, which I'll hopefully extract and re-tap today. I also feel like it'd be good to re-inforce the bottom of the trailer. Its sidewalls disintegrated in the AZ heat last year and I'm worried that the bottom will during the trip. I'm thinking of screwing on some leftover showerboard as a skid plate - sounds cool, huh?!On the food front, we tricked Quinn into cooking last night while we watched Butler get whooped by UConn in the worst championship performance I've ever seen. She made some super-yummy pasta and banana bread. I'd made chocolate chip cookies in the morning and plan to try a bold new recipe today: oatmeal scotchie cheesecake cookie bars!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
"Earful of Beerfools"
-A day in the life of Monkey Business Mayhem-
-A day in the life of Monkey Business Mayhem-There are two very distinct yet equally annoying reasons why I wear earplugs at work. For the last five months while living in Southern Arizona, the rock-climbing guide work hasn't quite been paying the bills, much less helped to save for an international climbing excursion. For supplemental income I've been going down to Tucson to work for Nimbus Brewing Company and Taphouse.
Which brings me to earplug reason number one; Upon walking into the factory-sized storage and bottling section of Nimbus, one is often greeted by the obstreperous blaring of Ranchero music. As Chewy(Hesus) and Franky(Francisco) grease the bottling machine, the music seems to grease their joints as they move along and sing to the beats of tuba and accordion.
Earplug reason number two; The greasy, aforementioned machine -- yeah, it needs grease. It hails from a soda bottling line circa 1956. Without grease, it wails high-pitched sound waves worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. And although the bottling machine is incessantly screaching at us, it seems to be providing something of a tutorial as well. For someone as mechanically disinclined as myself, it's been a great learning process; watching a machine fly apart, get creatively repaired, and then fly apart once again in a new and interesting way. It eventually puts out the cases and pallets of beer before they go off to the distributor. As rewarding as it is to crack a cold one after a hard day of work, I venture to say that drinking your work is even more rewarding.
When the Ranchera has become too much and the bottling ends, I remove the earplugs and strike up conversations with employees and patrons. Part-time street musicians, part-time vagabonds, full-time drinkers, and just about everything in-between. More days than not, in chatting with folks there, I think to myself, "is this a dream or am I truly hearing these words? I was recently sharing travel stories with a nutty Cajun, and out of his mouth came, "...Oh yeah, I remember the worst sunburn of my life. My buddy rented an island in Belize for a month. One afternoon I was laying in the sand of the foot-deep water for hours, rolling on thirty-seven hits of ecstasy and looking up to the sky when I felt claws all over my chest. I looked down to see a whole string of land crabs were crawling right over me. One of them had a can of Guinness Sausages and it wouldn't let me have them." -and so on and so forth, preposterous storytelling from desert rats and eccentrics.
As stimulating as the sounds at Nimbus can be, they leave me yearning for the crisp sounds waiting for us amongst alpine plateaus and massive granite towers.
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