KC, despite a new fancy bike that has yet to be ridden, flaked. That left me and Alex (on Raj's bike) to hit the trail. It was colder and windier than Weather.com had us expect, but it wasn't too bad. The fork pump for Raj's bike (my old Stumpy that I sold him) broke, leaving the fork empty and bottoming out on any little thing. That meant a harsh, twitchy ride for Alex, who took the opportunity for a dirt bath on more than one occasion. No injuries, and we finished in under an hour.

I rode Beau's bike to try and troubleshoot a problem with it, but it worked fine the whole time. Definitely had some leg and lung burn at various points. Gotta do this more often....

As for the trail, the first steep singletrack climb seemed more washed out. That made it steeper and the exposed rocks were more of a challenge. I managed to make it, but it was definitely harder. The culvert downhill also seemed a little more washed out and challenging, but not as different as the climb. The trail is pretty overgrown, thanks to the recent rains. Overall, it's still in pretty nice shape and the singletrack is fab.

Yeah, you have to register. But if you do, NYT has a pretty good overall article on TiVo.

It’s mostly about Moab’s push to rejuvenate itself by building new trails, now that tourism has competition from Fruita, et. al. Good stuff. I didn’t know about the new beginner-level route, or I’d probably have taken Val there instead of Klondike Bluffs. I’m sure it’ll be on the maps by the next trip.

Day Twelve (4/9/03)

Fruita rocks! We went to the local bike shop, bought a map and asked for a good "Intro to Fruita" ride, keeping Val's skills in mind. He suggested Rustler's Loop, simply stating if that was too hard, we were in the wrong place. Happily, it was not too hard, but seemed just right. It had a little bit of everything and a lot of singletrack. Easy enough for Val, pretty and interesting enough for me. Now that I've had the opportunity to do some recon, a real bike trip to Fruita is a must-do.

Not knowing how hard the rest of Fruita would be, we decided to move on to Moab, about an hour-and-a-half from Fruita. We threw up a tent at the Moab KOA, our first camping of the trip. Weather in Moab was beautiful: mid-70s during the day and blue skies. We got in mid-afternoon, and after lunch at the Moab Brewery, made the pilgrimage to Delicate Arch at Arches National Park.

The night was chilly, but liveable.

Day Thirteen (4/10/03)

After breakfast at a new place called Breakfast at Tiffany's (pretty good), I took Val out for the beginner's rite of Moab passage: Klondike Bluffs. As we prepared for the ride at the trailhead, Val pointed out a leggy blonde pedaling around the area. She was on this super expensive bike (a brand-new red Specialized S-Works Epic and decked out in the latest garb, but didn't seem too sure of herself. We started our way up the trail.

Val wasn't happy about this trail like she had been in Fruita, but wouldn't turn around when I suggested a retreat. Almost to the top, she decided to find shelter from the sun while I finished. I came back down after climbing the last bit of the trail, and met up with her and three other women who had just ridden to the point where Val had camped out. Turns out that the group of women had sent their "men-folk" on ahead unencumbered, and they were slowly catching up.

The women were interested in the details of the rest of the trail, so I told them about it. One of the women was the blonde with the expensive bike from the beginning. Her name was Marina. She had a thick accent and not-great English. Turns out that she's an MTB newbie (no shock there), and her fiancee had bought her the bike, and he had the same one. Ginger was the group's spiritual leader—younger and easily the strongest biker in the bunch. Caroline was the oldest (and apparently Ginger's mother).

Luckily Val decided that the girl power thing was just enough to get her to finish to the top of the ride, so I turned around and joined them on the way back up.

We caught up with the men in their group and hiked to the Klondike Bluffs (no bikes allowed) after reaching the top of the MTB trail. For those who know the ride, they've put a metal rack up there to lock your bike to, instead of just leaning it on the tree. The day was nice, and the views were great. We chit-chatted with a new couple who took our picture after Marina and co. decided to hike further out onto the Bluffs. The new couple were from Minnesota, and we spent a half-hour or so there before heading back. Val hadn't believed me that the way back down was much easier than the way up, but agreed later that it was.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant I had never eaten at before (La Hacienda, attached to the Inca Inn that I've stayed at in the past), which was OK, but not great. After dinner drinks at Eddie McStiff's, followed by pool and pseudo-gambling. McStiff's had this new thing upstairs where there was a craps table and a blackjack table, but it wasn't really gambling, since Utah law prohibits it. Basically, you pay $10 for $100 worth of chips and they teach you to play. I had been telling Val that I wanted to re-learn to play craps before we go to Vegas, so this was a fun way to do it. All-in-all, a good evening.

Day Fourteen (4/11/03)

We decided to head home, given that Moab was too intense a riding venue for Val, and we were both ready to get home anyway. Looking at a map, it always seemed to me that Highway 50 was a smaller road, but a more direct Reno-Moab route, so I decided that we should go home that way. Bottom line: more direct, but not really faster, and way more high-maintenance and fewer places to stop if needed. Its nickname is "The Lonliest Road in America," and it felt like it. Highway 80 will remain the route of choice for me in the future. We made it all the way home, leaving about 9:30 AM Mountain Time and arriving in Castro Valley at midnight Pacific Time.

Trip Summary

Total Mileage: 4750 Miles

States Visited: 8 (NV, UT, WY, SD, IA, NE, MO, CO)

National Parks and Monuments: 4 (Jewel Cave, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands, Arches)

MTB Rides: 3

Day Ten (4/7/03)

Well, not quite snowed in, but there's certainly a lot of snow and ice, and conditions are pretty nasty. Val wanted to spend some more time with the fam, so we decided to stay an extra day. Mostly hanging around. Val and her mom went to do some thrift store shopping, while her dad and I watched the war on CNN. Later, Val and I walked to a used book store, and she got mad at me for pelting her with snowballs. (Hey, no snow for me growing up! >:)

We all went for dinner at a steak buffet in Council Bluffs (across the Missouri River, which puts it in Iowa, but it's only a 10 minute drive). The steaks weren't big, but they were pretty good, cooked to order, fast, and you get as many returns as you like. I ate 3, which apparently is more than most people that go with Val's family. ;)

Day Eleven (4/8/03)

Driving day. We left Omaha (and Val's crying mom) in the late morning and started for Colorado. I drove the first leg, which was a few hundred miles from Omaha to just outside Denver, CO. We had originally planned to stop in Denver, but it was early and we felt good. So, we pressed on and arrived here at mountain bike mecca, Fruita, CO. There's a nice, cheap motel called Balanced Rock that has the best room we've stayed in yet, for $35. The big bike shop is close at hand. We'll investigate the riding here tomorrow. We plan to ride here tomorrow, and either stay one more night here, or move to Moab, (<150 miles away) for riding the next day. It all depends on if I want to have a day of rest at home before going back to work next Mon. We'll see. It's good to be in a warm place with mountain bikes atop every car! :D

Day Eight

I forgot to mention the change in weather over the last few days. It's been beautiful the entire trip up until now. Omaha tied record highs, with an 86 degree day when we went biking. It turned cold the next day, and is now snowing. It's the most amazing and dramatic switch in weather I've seen. From hot weather that had us in shorts to sleet and hail to snow, in the span of two days.

The snow let up for the wedding on day eight. I had a minor scare when the cleaners didn't have my suit when they said they did. But it turned out it just needed to be pressed, which they did while I ate lunch.

The wedding was nice. It gave me a good chance to get used to the new camera, which will come in handy for Beau's wedding a week after we get back.

Day Nine

The day after the wedding was mostly packing up and traveling. Snow increased, and we had to drive through some nastiness to get to Val's grandmother's place in Falls City. We visited with her for a few hours and then headed back towards Omaha and visited with a friend of hers who recently had a baby.

We made it back to Val's parents with the plan to leave for Colorado the next day (Monday). Little did we know that we were about to get snowed in...

Tim Bray has a good article on Unicode that’s worth a read.

Day Six (4/3/03)

We found the bike ride after a little initial confusion. They've kind of built a mountain bike course into some rolling terrain. Imagine a skate park, but for mountain bikes, with twisty singletrack winding through lots of skinny trees. They've got poison ivy here instead of oak—and it was plentiful—but we both managed to avoid it. It was a nice little ride. Val did well, despite saying she thought for sure she was going to fall a few different times.

After cleaning up and packing, we left for Des Moines. Val's friend Laura (who's wedding we're here for in the first place) was supposed to have a bachelorette party, but it turned into a program preparation evening instead. They still kicked us guys out, so I went with the groom (Barry) to eat dinner and shoot pool at the local bar. Turns out that Iowa thinks it has the best pork in the country, so I had BBQ Pork for dinner, and while I don't know about the best in the country, it was a fine dining experience.

A little before midnight, just as we really got started playing pool, I got a call from Val saying that they were wrapping up. What a bachelorette party! Done before midnight! I told her we'd be home in a while. She called again 15 minutes later to check on us, and then Barry started getting calls. I guess they were afraid that we were going to get into some trouble. ;)

We stayed at Barry's house just outside of Des Moines, in a small town called Waukee.

Day Seven (4/4/03)

Friday sucked big time. Val had convinced me to wait until we got to Des Moines to get my suit dry cleaned, so I set out to do that first thing. Val had a nail appointment with the other bridesmaids, so I set off on my own to look for a 1-hour cleaners or something. Barry wasn't much help, but he pointed me to the local Hy-Vee (a supermarket chain that has all kinds of stuff in it, like a cleaners, a post office, etc.). Of course, they couldn't do it. A couple of stops later, it was apparent I needed to head into Des Moines proper, which I don't know at all, to find one. After trying like 10 places for two hours or so, I finally found one that could do it.

I was supposed to follow Barry from his place in Waukee to the rehearsal dinner (which was at 5), so I went back to Waukee to meet up with him, get my clothes for the evening ready, and so on. He arrived late, got ready, and I started to follow him. He took off like a shot, and I got behind a slow woman who decided to stop and fix a trash can that had rolled off the curb into the street. I couldn't pass, so I had to wait while she did it, Barry disappearing into the distance.

I knew the place was in Des Moines, and that it wasn't Catholic, and Barry had told me that it was on Ingersoll, a big street I was familiar with. So I went there, and there were a couple of churches. The one that I thought would be it had a real bride, groom and party coming out of it, with photographer shooting and everything. Can't be it. I looked all around the area for about half an hour and couldn't find anything. I needed gas and stopped to fill up. I pulled out my Treo, remembering that they had a website. After looking it up, turned out that the first place I looked at was it, and they were in doing the rehearsal right after the other wedding. By the time I got there, the rehearsal was done. Pissed by now, I was happy to see that there was a bar at the dinner. ;)

Dinner was nice, and I met about a thousand people whose names I'll never remember. We went back to Barry's to crash afterwards, and I was happy to have the day be over.

Day Four (4/1/03)

Mostly a family day in Omaha. We're staying with Val's folks in her family home. Omaha is having unbelievably nice weather...86° or so. That's like 30 degrees above seasonal norms here, and it's beautiful. It's supposed to get down to 30° this weekend.

We ran around looking for some stores that Val wanted to shop at that moved and a bike store for me. We really brought the bikes along for the return trip through the southwest, but I figured there has to be something around here. We didn't get around to looking for the bike shop until it was too late, so it would have to wait. We got plenty of bargain shopping done at TJ Maxx and Marshalls, though. (You can tell I was excited by all of that, I'm sure. ;)

We spent the evening at home with the parents.

Day Five (4/2/03)

More of the same as yesterday, but we got to the bike shop. A perusal of the phone book turned up a bike shop selling bikes of the kind that would seem to indicate a mountain bike slant, and I was right. A guy in the shop pointed us to some local stuff that isn't far at all, so we'll probably give that a shot tomorrow. Wow, who'd have thought we'd get a ride in Nebraska of all places, since there aren't any mountains? We spent some more family time, and had a nice walk around Val's old neighborhood.

We had dinner at this place that was supposed to be Warren Buffett's favorite spot in Omaha (he's from here). I had a Prime Rib that was the thickest cut of meat I'd ever had, but it was done a little too well for me to call it the best I'd ever had, despite the obvious high quality of the meat. Besides, they had to compete with those ribs from the other night. Man, eating like this makes me certainly need to start riding. ;)

Met up with Val's sister Kristin and her husband Khalid for dessert and some conversation. I met them both last time I was here; I've got one sister (sort of estranged), who I've yet to meet. I think I've got the rest of the family checked off.

The plan for the next few days is mostly stuff for the wedding that we're here for in the first place. Tomorrow (after we try and slip in a ride), we're heading for Des Moines, IA, where the wedding will be. Val's attending a bachelorette party and I'll have to find something interesting to do while that goes on. Luckily I'll have the car and my laptop, so I should be able to keep entertained, even in Des Moines. ;)

We've driven a lot of states so far: CA, NV, UT, WY, SD, NE, and IA. NE and IA are the only ones that we haven't completely crossed, but we'll have spent more time in them than the others. We're still deciding what we're exactly going to do on the way back, but it's likely that some southwest Colorado is in the future (great riding down there...I'm dying to see Fruita if we can) and hopefully a little Moab, UT. If we come that way, we'll either take the normal (IA -> NV -> CA) route home, or maybe a southerly route through AZ (and maybe a quick ride there too!) before hitting home. I'm having a great time so far. We'd probably get more done, but Val's got a lot of wedding stuff since she's in it: bachelorette party tomorrow, rehearsal dinner on Fri., wedding proper of Saturday. We'll see Val's grandma in Fall City (southeast NE) on Sun., and probably get on the road again on Mon.

Day Two

Left Salt Lake City towards Wyoming. Wyoming is pretty, and we crossed from its southwestern corner diagonally to its eastern side...a long drive.

Along the way across Wyoming, we stopped at a monument that was part of the Mormon Trail, where a bunch of Mormons died making their way from England to Salt Lake City. The monument was to the importance of the handcart to the Mormons. Apparently, they built handcarts as both their livelihood and to use to get others to Salt Lake City through the treacherous terrain between Iowa/Nebraska and Salt Lake City. (Highway 80 now follows much of the original Mormon Trail, so we'd been on it for some time.)

It was more interesting than I thought it'd be, so we stayed awhile. Naturally, there was no one there except the LDS Elder that ran the place, so we had a personal tour guide of the whole thing. This guy, obviously quite a devout follower, had apparently been a Hell's Angel, riding through the area on his Harley with his wife the first time he came across the site. You'd never have guessed it to look at or talk with him now.

Our ultimate destination was Mount Rushmore (in western South Dakota), but we decided to spend the night in eastern Wyoming in a small town called Newcastle. The hotel in Newcastle was a small quiet affair with a friendly college kid at the front desk and small inn charm. This town was obviously used to having some tourism, but there was absolutely no one around this time of year.

Day Three

Had breakfast in a little cafe in Newcastle that was a former flour mill called Toomey's Mill. It looked like something out of a movie—old guys in cowboy boots with false teeth that craned their necks to see who the strangers were when we walked in. On to South Dakota, twenty-something miles to the east.

Our first stop on the way to Rushmore was another park called Jewel Caves. There's a tour of these underground caves that sounded great, but we missed it by half an hour. There's also supposed to be a spelunking thing you can do in the caves, but it doesn't start until the more touristy season starts. Speaking of the season, there is no one in this part of the country right now. Apparently that's because weather can be unpredictable until May. We lucked out though—blue skies and 75 degree highs.

Mount Rushmore was neat. The National Parks are all on "high security," which in the case of Mt. Rushmore meant lots of rangers with M-16s (!) searching all the cars and metal detectors to get in. Since there weren't very many people around, this wasn't a problem, but I can imagine that it would really slow things down in the prime season.

My first thought looking at Rushmore itself was that it was smaller than I'd imagined. Not that it's small, but it's just not as huge as I'd pictured in my head. It was still impressive, though.

We decided to press on through South Dakota, rather than driving south to Nebraska as we'd originally planned. We drove to Badlands National Park in lower South Dakota. Badlands looks like you'd landed on the moon: chalky, cracked rolling hills. It's interesting, though, and was a pretty drive.

We crossed almost all of South Dakota, and stopped for dinner in a town called Mitchell. This little place called Chef Louie's, "Where Beef is King." They aren't kidding. I ordered BBQ Beef Ribs, and I swear that there were more than a foot-long rack of ribs. Meat falling off the bone and corn chowder for $14.99. Brought a tear to my eye that such a fine cow died for my culinary pleasure. Mmm.

From Sioux Falls, SD, we had to cross into Iowa and follow the Missouri River down to Council Bluffs, and then cross into Omaha, our ultimate destination for the day.

Hello from Salt Lake City, Utah!

We made it to Reno last night, after stopping in Vacaville for dinner with my parents. Reno was uneventful; we stopped to sleep and didn't gamble or anything. I wanted to do the tour of the Temple here in Salt Lake City, since Val's never done it, but there was some big thing (we're hypothesizing that it was related to Lent) going on, and we didn't venture into the sea of people moving about the Temple Square.

Dinner was at a local brewery called Red Rock. We'll sleep here and make for South Dakota via Wyoming tomorrow. There's been plenty of driving, and I even got a couple of bugs with this site fixed along the way. A good start to the trip so far! :)

Val and I are leaving tonight for a two-week road trip. The base motivation for the trip is a wedding that Val’s a bridesmaid in. The wedding is in Des Moines, IA. Our plan is loosely based on arriving in Omaha, NE, where she grew up, a couple of days prior to the wedding stuff to hang with her folks. Outside of that, we’re planning on seeing sites and ride bikes.

The first pit stop (tonight) will likely be Reno, NV. Tomorrow should see us across NV, to at least Salt Lake City, UT. En route to Nebraska we’re planning on stopping to see Mount Rushmore. There are a few other interesting sites to see, and we’ll stop as time allows.

I’ll post pictures and a trip log here, as bandwidth is available. My Treo is able to act as a modem via a USB cable, but that’s dependant on getting data service. When I can, I’ll post updates.

As I mentioned here a few months ago, I bought my first digital camera, a Canon Powershot A40. It was intended as a replacement for my film-based point-and-shoot camera. Since I bought that camera, something that I never imagined happened: I’ve stopped using my very expensive, high-quality, film-based Nikon gear.

I’ve put off going digital for some time, but there’s no way around the fact that film’s a pain-in-the ass. As Val would tell you, I’ve got a drawer of film I never got around to having processed, and there are plenty of images on them that I’d like to see, but not at the price it’d cost to process them all and time it would take to wade through the ones I didn’t.

With my new Canon, pics are on the website and shared almost instantly, and the chaff is tossed easily. The only problem is that its 2.0 megapixel images don’t make for good landscape and other photography. This thinking has led me to decide to sell a bunch of my Nikon gear (and my film scanner) on eBay and make the jump to all-digital.

I’m keeping my lenses, and my current plan is to use the proceeds of the sale of my film equipment to buy the digital Nikon D100.

I played with the D100 at Macworld, and more recently at Keeble & Shuchat. It’s great: it feels like a film-based SLR, but is 100% digital. It’s a 6.1 megapixel body that can use my old Nikon lenses. It’s got a 1.5 focal length multiplier, which means that my cool 80-200mm f/2.8D becomes a 120-300 f/2.8D. That’s cool, but my favorite 24mm f/2.8D becomes the equivalent of a much more pedestrian 36mm. So, the only downside of this move is that I’ll have to invest in a wider-angle lens sometime soon.

I’ll post pics and stories about the transition after I get the camera and have some observations. My auctions end Sunday night, so I expect that it’ll be a couple of weeks before I make the jump. I sure am looking forward to being able to shoot and print without the hassles of film.

Just before my trip with Val to Nebraska, I got a Handspring Treo 300. It’s a great product. The T300 is made by Handspring for Sprint PCS (there are other models for the competing networks), and the Sprint network is supposedly the best one running right now for wireless data.

My plan has unlimited data, which is really nice. Supposedly, you can add unlimited data to any Sprint plan for $10/mo. I hadn’t been very happy with Sprint’s service, but it’s much better with this phone than it was before. I can typically drive across the bridge without dropping a call, which never worked with my other phone.

The phone itself is basically a Palm with a cell phone all-in-one. It can read e-mail, browse the web (with an HTML browser, not just a WAP one) and most other stuff you’d expect from a wireless Palm.

Apple’s new iSync program allows me to sync the Treo (or any Palm Powered device) to my PowerBook, which is nice. The syncing is really slow right now, but hopefully by the time iSync gets out of it’s current beta period, things will get faster.

Here’s a nice kicker: I just got software to use the Treo as a wireless USB modem for my PowerBook. That’s right folks, I’m posting this connected only to my Treo with a USB cable, and I’m connected to the ’Net at 230,000bps! Sweet! This is a nice gadget.

One of my favorite photographers (I have many of his books, some signed, and a couple of prints), Galen Rowell, was killed in a plane crash, along with his wife Barbara and two others (archive of original link).

I talked to him a couple of times while his gallery was in Emeryville, and he was an interesting, talented guy. I always intended to take one of his workshops. His wife was also very nice—although I only met her briefly—and quite an accomplished photographer in her own right. She was an expert pilot, but not piloting the plane at the time they crashed.

I can’t get over how much this shocked me. I’ve been (slowly) re-reading one of his books, The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography (in fact, I’m reading it in the pic of me and Val reading at Big Sur). I listed that book as my “Last Great Book I Read” in my profile on Nerve.com. I read his articles in Outdoor Photographer every month, and I’ve been to his gallery a few times. He is one of two people whose work consistently makes me want to get out and do photography.

What a tragic loss. :(

His web site was http://www.mountainlight.com.