your backup plan

image courtesy of Golden Age Comic Book stories.
Happy Independence Day, America! I don't care what they say- you're alright.






J______ and meself celebrated with some Secret Boys action.

Plan 1 details heading straight for the New Stairs and rope swang- GO! We were feeling so good, we decided to head for the Caprock and see if these rumors are true...

Yes. There is a bench there now. I'm torn between hating any changes (and certainly any "progress") and appreciating the assumption that this bench legitimizes the spot enough to guarantee no more surprise bulldozerings. I mean, it's chained to the rock!


It is a nice place for a pause for the cause.


BACK!...so here it is again. I hope you understand. J riding the singletrack. He rode the whole of Mudhen Express with no help from me whatsoever. Out and back. Whoopdedoos and rutted entrance.

POW!






We took Barloy over to Blair Witch and down. There was a small, pencil thickness California Gopher Snake impersonating a stick on the fire road. We checked it out. Then we took Henniken's Ranch Road up to the old used to be trail end for the Rattlesnake Trail. We don't ride that anymore, and there's a good reason why not. It became epidemically poison oaked 3/4 of the way up. Of course, we pushed through- how are you gonna turn back then?! Throw good hike-a-biking after bad? Not on the 4th. Not on the 4th.

Our reward for persevering?


Horny Toad.

Then we checked under every piece of plywood we came across. And some we went well out of our way to reach, too. No good rattlers, but under the notorious piece that housed them there was a 4foot(!) gopher snake. I don't know how to say it, but seeing those snakes straight up pretend to be rattlers- to the point of pulling their head in to mimic the deadly triangular shape, and wiggling their tail- is a tough evolutionary pill to swallow. That ish is amazing.



J wanted to hit the stairs/rope swang again.


So we did. Look at that oak. Mighty, mighty. I don't understand how these can be on the table for developing a fucking bus depot when there are literally acres of blighted concrete parking lots cracking and filling up with weeds near the MPC end of Fort Ord. These county supervisors we got are dooooooooouchebags.


Break.





America.