May Moab Trip

At the end of May, I went to a high adventure camp near Moab with the young men at church. We rafted the Colorado, mountain biked, rock climbed, checked out Arches, and tried to stay out of the heat as much as possible. Due to my involvement in scouting, I receive "Scouting" (a magazine). In the September issue, I found the following picture of the camp we went to:

Check out the guy in the blue riding shirt (you may want to click on the picture for a larger image). It actually took me a little while to realize it wasn't me. I have a similar red helmet, sunglasses, usually wear a blue riding shirt, the white bikes are part of the camp. This guy even holds his brakes like me. Then I realized that the shorts and shoes weren't mine. Otherwise, it kind of looks like me. Kind of freaked me out for a couple of seconds. I still stare at it sometimes wondering who my doppelganger.

We rode about 18 miles through the heat, visiting Gemini arches along the way.

Birthday Boy

Becca thinks that this is a silly reason to like this birthday, but turning 27 is great. It's just a great number - 3 to the 3rd power (3^3). You only have 3 of these birthdays in your life - at 1 (1 to the 1st power) and at 4 (2 to the 2nd power). Unless you live until you are 256 (4 to the 4th power), that's it. Ok, so maybe that whole explanation falls right into a couple points my sister made in her blog post about my birthday.

I woke up a little early and went mountain biking. Since I was born in Walnut Creek, California, I rode this morning at Walnut Creek park. Ok, I almost always ride there since it is so close and has a great variety of trails, so it's just coincidence (or is it?), but it is one of my 5 favorite places to ride of all the trails I've ridden wherever I've lived. I did endo only 3/4 of a mile into my ride (I really need to stop doing that - my insurance isn't that great), but the blood dried enough to go a couple more miles. I got a nice laceration on my elbow, but nothing a little super glue and steri strips can't solve (yeah! Birthday scar).

When I decided to attend Texas for grad school, my brother-in-law gave me a book called "Backyard Brawl". It discusses the UT-Texas A&M rivalry. Anyway, in the book, the author talks about this great Texas BBQ place between Austin and College Station. It always comes up on great Texas BBQ places, sometimes in the top 3. I have always wanted to go, so today, we went.



Louie Mueller BBQ is about a 45 minute drive out to Taylor. I love Texas BBQ and this didn't dissappoint. It looks like an old gym with the smoking pit in the back. The menu is written on paper and taped to the wall near the counter and you get your food on a piece of paper. Don't forget the fixin's - pickels and onions. Brisket - moist and tasty. Pork Ribs - ok, I like the short ribs rather than the spare ribs (best ribs - Texas Roadhouse, by far!). Sausage - good taste, texture just ok (best sausage - Rudy's). Suace - different, runnier than I like with a little kick; didn't taste very good by itself, but was good with the meat. Potato salad - best potato salad I've had (mostly because I'm so particular about how I like my potato salad: mustardy, oniony, and with a kick from pickle juice). If you are going for a drive to BBQ, I suggest going to this place rather than Salt Lick. A real old town feel that just makes you know the food has to be good.

The other great part about driving to Taylor is that on the way back, you pass through Hutto, which has the Texan Cafe. We've eaten here a few times when we go to a Round Rock Express game (AAA baseball) and the food is pretty good, but the best part is the PIES! I like pies more than cakes, so why not get some birthday pie? It's so hard to choose since there are 10-15 pies that rotate each day. I went with an old favorite, rhubarb (brings back great memories of my grandma). Becca got strawberry cream cheese. Not so exotic for either of us (there are some strange ones), but they are so good!

MTB NC

I have now mountain biked 4 trails in North Carolina. One had a nice whoop-de-doo pit, another was along the shore of a lake with a part called "drop-zone" and one that was just an intermediate trail. Mountain biking in North Carolina is a lot different than out west. I call it root-riding: most of the single track is compacted dirt through forests, and the main obstacles are trees (not catching your handlebars on them) and roots (making sure you go over them rather than them stopping you). There are a couple of long ramps and bridges, but not as many techical rocks and not as much open space to open up the speed.

I decided to take on some longer and harder trails and Paul came along. He went riding with me on one of the previous rides, but prior to that, he hasn't ridden in 5 or 6 years. I planned on a route that would cover about 15 miles with some gravel trails (speed) and some technical stuff. I even planned well by adding extra salt to my breakfast and eating a banana so that I would have enough sodium and potassium. Paul had some other obligations on Saturday morning, so we got on the trails about 11 am. We started with some gravel trails for 6 miles and I got up to 33.4 mph on one of the downhills. It wasn't until about the sixth mile where there was a seemingly endless uphill for a mile.

I've been talking to some people on a local MTB forum, so I got some info on some "bandit" trails or "trails-that-must-not-be-named". The first of these was a 5 mile series of loops with the instructions, "just keep taking rights". It was a pretty good intermediate trail, but you just got that feeling that you didn't know where you were and couldn't wait to see the road again. Finally we exited and crossed over to a trail that parallels the freeway.

I thought it would be a straight shot, so I opened up some speed and hit 20 mph, but the trail kept getting narrower and my tire hit the pine needle edges of the dirt and I endoed, almost slamming into 2 trees. I ended up with a couple of scratches and bruises, but I was glad I ate it then, because we soon were on the side of a ravine and a crash would've been a 25' drop. Let's just say that this trail soon became very advanced and by the end of the 2 mile "straight-away" my quads were cramping, I had finished my 2 liters of water in my camelback, and we had to call for the rescue party. Tami came and picked us up and drove me the last 2 miles to get my car so we could load the bikes up. We still finished with 12 miles, but maybe doing it in 90 degree weather and high humidity wasn't such a good idea. I drank a liter of gatorade and some more water and ate some food, but still wasn't hydrated until Sunday morning.

Here's a classic endo (not me, just a video I found on youtube for an example) *disclaimer: there is mild swearing by the observers, so you may want to mute it

San Angelo

Over spring break, I went on a mountain biking high adventure trip with the 14-18 year olds at my church. We rode 45 miles of trails while camping at San Angelo State Park. I have claim to the best wreck, a reverse-endo if you want to call it that. I went over backwards and fell 10-15' when I couldn't get over a lip coming up a steep side of the gulley (coming up the side I'm riding down in the vertical picture. Other than the periodic gale-force winds that essentially collapsed the tent, the trip was a blast!