Camping Again

A few days rest and we're off again to find out what is so 'white' about the White Mountains. Our last trip ended up being more of the standard camping adventure, you know, the 'drive into your campsite and hang out before going on a few fun hikes. This time its just Sades and me going on back to back 8-hour hikes with some camping in between. Always in a different location, as many miles from our previous site as we can.

I haven't weighed my pack yet but man is it heavy. We lack the high tech, light camping gear so we are ditching the sleeping bags for lighter fleece blankets and a tiny kids tent instead of the big heavy one which will keep the mosquitoes from our faces while our feet stick out the bottom.

We plan on a four day round trip to the car, which by the way we have to park on a hill so its easier to push start. Our starter is dead but luckily the 75hp engine pops pretty easy.

One more note, Joel needs to turn his MSN on more often!

A Thought for Consideration

The following is taken from Richard Dawkin's book "Unweaving the Rainbow"

'We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.'

Acadia National Park, Maine

Well, our trip is over. With four days and nights of sweat finally washed off, I can sit and relax watching lightening out the window while I think of the past few days.

Our first day was a five-hour drive to Acadia National Park in Maine. We arrived at a campground on the far side of the island late in the afternoon and set up camp. There were not many hikes near this campsite so we headed to the beach for the night to skip rocks and wait for the sun to go down. Early the following morning we headed to another side of the island so that we could do some climbs.

In Blackwoods Campground the following morning, we set up camp again, planning to spend two days here and go on hikes using the site as a base camp. We found cars along the side of the road next to the trailhead leading up a near-vertical climb. Sades and I started off at a pace nearer a charge than a walk, taking to the first vertical steps with youthful ambition. Soon we had passed many friendly couples making their way up the mountain, only pausing to snap off evidence of our hike at every vista that was revealed between the trees. We arrived at the top had a few snacks and returned the same way. Thinking back this was one of the few climbs that I have done where I was truly acting with stupidity as Sadie and I ran back down from whence we came. All of those near vertical steps were taken at a trot, covering as much ground as possible in as little time as we could manage. Other hikers stared on as we passed them on our way down, staring either envious of our speed or with knowledge of our own carelessness. To our great fortune, no injury occurred, no slips or even near misses. We should feel lucky indeed.

After returning to camp we sought to find a suitable place to relieve ourselves from a hard days work and with the knowledge of a beach within close proximity we headed down to investigate the possibility of taking a swim. The "beach" happened to be a wall of rocks and surf of violent temperament, not suitable for our much-needed watery relief. Instead of turning away dejected we thought it proper to explore these magnificent rocks and proceeded to investigate their every mystery. Knowing of another beach a ways away, further down, we began to journey across the rocks, without knowledge of the great distance that lay before us. For over an hour we trod over these granite slabs, broken off from centuries of thrashing sea. Finally, we reached the beach and while Sadie took a swim, I arranged Muscles into a pattern on the beach and afterwards we took to the road to return to camp.

The following morning took us to Sandy Beach wherein we decided upon another climb even though we remained sore from our previous forays into the mountains. "The Beehive" as it was called was another very steep climb for the first half mile, gaining elevation quickly. We thought ourselves envious of those who set the trail, wondering how long it had taken and thinking they spoiled us much as we were ever looking for challenge in our endeavor. The scenery was amazing too, as we looked out from the twisted pines that grew betwixt the cracks of the hard granite. The unforgiving landscape had an otherworldly beauty I thought only existed in Myst games. With every turn of the path and every ladder a-fixed to the mountain, I expected a lever, which I would pull to release a steam vent to power some unseen marvel hidden from me until I uncover it, thus solving the riddle of the mysterious island's purpose. To my great distain, I found no such lever, but I remain confident that I will seek out such mysteries in due time.

Afterwards we took to Sandy Beach and while Sadie swam, I played in the sand, digging holes, still in amazement at the beauty I had only so recently witnessed and wondered if there was yet still more wondrous things for me to see. (And if you can't tell, I've been reading the original Robinson Crusoe during camping downtime.)

Our Super Awesome Pics Are Here!!!

Update

I had a pretty bad crash on Saturday and I feel lucky all I did was bruise my legs, shoulders, and hurt my back. I was riding one of the upper trails on the mountain and came up to a stump drop, about an 8 footer. I eyed it over, and decided to do it, so I rolled onto the ladder bridge and towards the end but apparently without enough speed. I remember that both my wheels hit the transition, but I because I wasn't carrying enough forward momentum I was kicked off the back of the bike and hit the ground hard. The end of my handlebar hit my inner thigh (which is now black) and the rest of the impact was on my lower back/hip. I managed to coast back down the mountain and get home alright fortunatly; I'm still healing up though, I feel like I got hit by an SUV. It really is pretty amazing how fragile our bodies are; I guess its a lesson to be careful.

It is good though, to shake things up sometimes. Being able to ride the mountain (even fall onto the mountain sometimes) keeps me sane and staves off the anxiety and restlessness that inevitably builds from working 40 hours a week as a wage slave in an office. 40 hours each week I'll never get back, for a small wage, on blue sky days... Yes, I need the mountain.

Pre Camping Update

I'm packing for a 5 day hike in the White Mountains here in New Hampshire right now. We're leaving in an hour to head up toward Maine for a few hours then camping one night in a park, then tomorrow start the long jouney toward Acadia where we will be hiking for 4 days straight, camping at night. Right now the camera is charging and I'm hoping to get enough power to last several hundred pictures. I am thinking that hiking provides many, many more opportunities to take shots than mountain biking because I know that I will be wanting to stop and rest every 30 feet or so and I can use pictures as an excuse to do it.

Sades dyed her hair a brilliant red this last week. I must say she looks pretty darn good in red. Thats her to the right-->

I'll post the pictures as soon as I get back next week. Hope you get a good ride in Joel!

Emperor Bush Strikes Back

Yesterday our Commander in Chief, in a ham fisted display of his sage biological wisdom vetoed a second bill which would have eased restrictions on embryological stem cell research. When I learned this I was incensed, even furious, yet not surprised. It is a hallmark of the fundamentalist movement to ignore science and cling to irrational dangerous ideas, ideas which can only arise from a willful ignorance.

The benefits of stem cell research are undeniable; potentially millions of lives could be saved, people who are living here and now, people who are suffering from terrible conditions which could be aliened. However, because our president believes that a small conglomeration of stem cells possesses a soul and rights he would deny life to real living people in the here and now.

The 'embryo' in question, more accurately known as a blastocyst is a conglomeration of 150 non-specific cells. By comparison the brain of a house fly has 150,000 cells, thus to claim a moral equivalency between a blastocyst and a human is pure idiocy. Often the argument is made that the blastocyst has the potential to become human and therein lies its moral primacy, yet this argument too is moot. With advances in modern genetics, nearly any cell within our body can be adjusted to exhibit the same potential as a blastocyst; each cell possesses enough DNA to fully produce a human and thus every time you scrape a finger you commit a holocaust, or every time you masturbate you murder untold millions of potential humans.

Lazy Blue Skies

Its a Tuesday night at the end of a beautiful day. Work was especially hard because of compounding issues; first we are at a slow point in the editorial season, I'm on my third day of a caffeine fast, and most importantly I had to sit in front of the computer while brilliant day light slowly passed. Not all was lost though, I had a good ride home from work and then I rode for 2 hours at the mountain after relaxing for a bit. All in all I guess I feel pretty good about it, although less time indoors would have been nice.

I've been looking over some of my pictures that I've accumulated over the past 3-4 years, which is an enjoyable, yet always bitter-sweet task. We all know that time passes, and that we get older, gain new experiences, and leave others behind, but it is not an easy pill to swallow, at least for me its not. The desire to hold onto past experiences is strong; especially when faced with the never-tardy hands of the clock. I guess the best any of us can do is to cherish the past and live in the here and now. That said, I will be putting up a bunch of pictures on the 'pictures' page, ideally with a small description for each. I don't kid myself into believing that anyone else necessarily wishes to peak through my memories, I instead want to do this to give myself a greater context of where I've been, and perhaps gain some insight into where I'd like to go and what I want to become.

Ride Update

I didn't manage to do an update Sunday, but thats ok, I'll do it now. It is approximately 7:30am and the newborn week is still drenched in embryonic fluid, which is another way of saying I'm tired and might not be too coherent. Didn't ride this weekend because of the bad weather and my battle against a couple bodily ailments, which I believe I'm over now. It was actually good to give my body a little break to rest and rebuild. Now that I've figured out how to do 'remote updates', I'll have to plug some stuff in more often, after I go change my underwear from the surprise of seeing NATE updated his page! Check it out!

Father's Day

Since school has gotten out there has been tons of stuff going on which limits my time that I spend on the computer updating things that need to be updated. And with one more week of work left, this horse is rearing and kicking against the goads, anxious to be released back into the wild where I belong. Sades and I have gone camping a few times already on the weekend and we are getting ready for a four-day hike with her dad in the White Mountains next week. If we can remember to bring the camera you might be able to see some pictures from the trip!

We went to the beach today to celebrate both Father's Day and Richard's Birthday which happened to fall on Father's Day this year. My back looks like a tomato with the 90+ degree weather we've had but that still wasn't able to convince me to swim in the ocean quite yet, and from the color and feel of Sades skin when she got out I was further convinced that anyone who entered would shatter into small fragments of crystal when they try to move as ice is not very bendy. When the lightening came the second time we they were in the water, only a few hundred meters away, the beach of about 200 people was cleared in about 1 minute.

So, Further updates will be coming at a rate of 2 per week! (I promise!)

Galbraith Flowers

Its hard to believe its already mid-June, but it is. It seems like just yesterday I was wondering if moving down here was the right choice; I didn't have a job, knew absolutely no one besides Sabrina, and was running out of money. However, now I have a job, know almost nobody, and, after paying uncle Sam, uncle landlord, and the bike gods, am constantly on the verge of running out of money. I'd call this a success! To me, health is truly wealth, and for now I am richest guy in town.

Its been pretty wet this week so I've been getting in some good gaming, mostly on Star Wars, 'Forces of Corruption'. My reviews are mixed though, I HATE the Zann Consortium; their units are overpowered and their corruption ability is nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying. The Rebellion is good though, and its fun playing as the Empire and crushing people with Star Destroyers. Good times.

Here are a few pictures I took on Galbraith today. The wild flowers are in full bloom.

Weekend Update

The past week was beautiful. I was taken on a whirlwind reunion tour with what it means to 'sweat' once again, and of course how to deal with it, which of course means just stubbornly putting up with it. My after work rides have been soggy shirted dates with pure bliss, since paradoxically while I prefer cooler temps, I relish the opportunity of throwing myself into the outdoors on a hot day and just givin' her.

I really do feel fortunate for yet another week of living injury and sickness free, it is a gift, these days, as the frailty of the human experience will eventually catch up with, and seize us all. As the infinitely fortunate benefactors of a infinitesimally small piece of existence, we are all charged with the sacred duty of appreciating every single moment we have here on earth. When one ponders the staggering odds and untold random combinations of genes that fell into exact place to create us, the gravity of our situation is illuminated, and more so yet is the sweet truth that in 4 billion years of earth history the chance that we all came to being within this short period of 80 or so years and have had the chance to know each other is unparalleled in its preciousness. I guess what I'm trying to say is that life is special and really quite brief, and that these two truths mean that we should enjoy it, each and every moment!

We've got some actions shots this week, take a look! 6-3-2007 Weekend in Pictures