just so

you know that I now know you know:

Full Snow Moon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SUNDAY Sunday sunday February 28th. Which, coincidentally happens to be this coming Sunday. So get your ish together, your balls in the air, your eggs in a basket, and your ducks in a row to meet at 8ishthirty time at the usual.

If you aren't there, I will know it. Believe that.

One for the rangers...

Sons of bitches always bore me.

___________ has been in effect.

Go get a late pass. Step.



Step.


Step.


I do not love the Joshua Tree. (I guess Moab has spoilt me, but I'll take my desert with a heap of BLM and USFS designation.) We had a good time anyways- what else are you gonna do?- and came home dirty, sunburned and tired so there can be no other conclusion but that we ruled it all over that joint...




Still. Overheard during my conversation with the ranger:

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Whose slingshot is this?"

"You can be charged with restoration costs for riding off trail in a National Park."

etc.

There are other brow raising details I will not post in this forum. Ask me in person how stupid and how lucky I am.













I will say: leave room in your traveling schedule for the occasional stop for thrift shops or shooting BB guns in the middle of nowhere, behind those gravel piles.

any of y'all been to Joshua Tree?

The boys are out of school next week. We are going camping with bikes someplace. We've never been to Joshua Tree, but it looks neat. Anyone have the skinny?

short but rousing bout of shooting ish

Like shooting ish in a arrel of onkeys?




It's not what you heard. I spent the earlier hours swapping handlebars, replacing cables/housing, etc. to remake (yes, again...it's a process) the Kampe Monkey. Then it was out! Up! And over:












...to meet J at Outdoor World and "look at BB guns." I'm saying: no one just looks at BB guns. I'm also saying: whatever genius of happy circumstance placed the liquor store right next to the camping goods store is a mastermind!

I'm just so pleased with this development. I've been wanting a BB gun since the Goosebeery Mesa interlude following last fall's Interbike. Thanks for the motivation, J!





We had to give some careful thought to carrying the rifles. It won't be a pleasant or happily concluded interaction with Johnny Law that begins with getting stopped for carrying a gun, and moves on to include the booze. No.

Better to keep it low key. J bought the pump action model, which (amazingly, luckily) has a stock you can remove with just the turn of a bolt. He may modify this to a wing nut. Let the customizing begin...! Look how cleverly it fits in his pack ^. He later cut a slit in the bottom, and the barrel just barely pokes out. It is nearly impossible to see.


I disguised my lever action (cuz I'm old skool) Red Ryder BB Gun as an umbrella. A bumbershoot, if you prefer. A brolly. The scissor-like action of the jury-rigged nylon carry strap and the heavily laden 12 pack bag slowly and progressively cut off circulation to my brain. Oh, I accounted for it by loosening them repeatedly and by not being so smart with which to begin.





We rode through Cside! to practice our art in Fort Ord. The disguises worked perfectly.

On the bike path out Gen Jim Moore, we ran into K____ and drank beers while the sun went down. What else are you gonna do? By the time we got to some dirt, it was well and truly dark.


The beauty of combining cheap canned beer and BB guns is so synchronicitous as to be indescribable. I mean, every time you drink a beer you have a fresh target. It's incentivized!

We felt it would be best to spread this around, so we did not linger too long in any spot except maybe on the cliff at the end of Mudhen Express.


This is not over.

no more of this karate stuff

Jump!

Taking every break in this monsoon season I can get. Up and over sneaky style, quiet is kept. It's getting saturated under the trees again, so I cut that short and climbed back up and over on pave and dry(ish) trails.




Drop to home, swap out the Kampe Monkey (which is not feeling awesome with the deep drop/long ramp Noodles...I'm too far forward. I think it's time for a bar swap. I did pull and clean the BB, though, so the creaks are lessened. AND repacked the boy's BB with actual bearings!) It's the Big Dummy to go pick up the boy.


It was a cold day for these parts. 30ish miles.

repair at will

Friday was Conference Day- no school.


Time for some Brown Lunch!

The trusty Esbit.



Toasting almonds in the woods.


Damp twigs and spanish moss. You know how we do.


L and J wait for the Brown Lunch: lentil soup, chard, toasted almonds. Tabasco and crackers.



The trusty Esbit transforms. Tall cylinders are not the best cooking vessels. But it was time for coffee. I need a Kelly Kettle so bad.

And perhaps another coffee cup.


Fancy town and country style.


J took off early. Several times. We drank coffee, then headed for the swings and their attendant lollipop stash.






So yes. Idyllic.

J had brought me his bike before L got home and said it wasn't working. The BB was luhoose. Loose enough to have lost a bearing as he (and his siblings who know better...) had ridden it relentlessly and warped the cages. L was due home in 20 minutes and we had that window. I decided to replace the missing 1/4" bearing with an acorn nut of nearly the same size. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, it's an ashtabula crank on a 16lb 3rd hand kid bike. Anyways, it worked!

You know, well enough.

I'll replace the bearings soon. I know what you're thinking...but really I will. On account of J's BB seized completely coming up the road on the way back from the old Boy Scout Camp:



I'm going to freak out.

retractable eyestalks

This:



Carrying on a musical conversation with Berg.



Polishing rivets the right way and terrorizing the local fauna the hard way is what really time it is in Monterey, homie. 50ish miles under some sun!


Interactions with cars. Mostly sucky. I rolled up to stop at a stop sign and some important woman with a higher purpose cut the corner turning left at a high rate of speed, nearly clipping me. She was frowning and shaking her head as though it were my fault she'd nearly run me down on account of making her turn way too early. It is hard to swallow. Entitlement and transportation...it's always someone else's fault. Right?

And, hey! Monterey to you, Patchkit Guy- my kids have a list with your name on it...

Who likes to velocache?

afternoon skull examination

Sunshine saw me up and over, packing some trail maintenance gear (I looked and looked for the folding saw, but nope. Since it doesn't do to be spotted on trails packing a saw, I tried to arrange the one I could find- handled and sheathed- as inconspicuously as I could) and a guidebook... neither of which were called up; no dead falls in my neck of the woods to do more work than has been done, and no mushrooms looked edible. I guess the sunny weekend saw a lot of hunters.

Wet and spongy in places. Better to wait for a while to ride in the trees, as I found PG to be boggy and sloppy- HEY! Pacific Grove! Do you even ride bikes? The trails over there are in pitiful shape... Not my problem, as I won't be going back for another 13 months or so.

Anyhoo, here is the Monterey y'all want to see and I never show you:

Westward, ho.



What does it say that this

is what I see?



This is the East. I usually avoid this section of things, as it is a true tourist cluster_uck. So there it is and enjoy.


The Monterey Pine loaded trails up through PG and into Pebble being what they are, here's some things:



The plastic packed Early Times has been in place long enough to concern me that the booze is disolving the plastic- that can happen, right? But the mouths of the cached cans of beer have been getting a gnarly mustiness to them, so it is just what is needed to cut that. Note the full topped PBR. It is some science type sterilization going down.




Good to be on the bike.




Maritime chaparral, here I come. Fort Ord is the set up Goods on account of the eggslellent drainage properties of all that sand.


I need to do so much maintenance. As a good friend says: I recommend replacement. a.k.a. I hate my drive-train.

I did motivate to pull off the shellacky tape and adjust the angle of the levers on the Le Tour. Before:


During:


I'mma ride it bald for a few days to see if this truly is the angle I want before putting on the fancy sky bleu cotton tape and shellacking it all into some celeste-ial greenery. You can't teach me, but I can learn the hard way eventually.



Did some work on the kids' bikes; big bike camping coming up. Location to be decided/announced. Do y'all even ride bikes?

They always drop the damn thing, so there you go.