well, there doesn't seem to be any time for rest and relaxation. I slept well enough last night and I had a pretty good waffle breakfast. today was one of three planed mountain bike rides. it was going to be the easier of the three rides...but I just wasn't feeling it. I had a killer green tea latte (they are so good!) an I rented this way-cool soft tail bike. I was pretty excited to get going.... at least mentally I was ready.

I made it! I didn't have phone service for the last 3 miles or so, I couldn't inform the world about my victory.
I was so tired yesterday...as I had mentioned over and over yesterday,but it was so bad I think it's worth mentioning again :)
the trail was pretty nice for the most part. it was really buffed out and mostly flat. I would have loved if I did't have to carry this 700lb pack! in fact falling with this pack on was pretty scary. iwould usually far forward and when I "landed" I would run forward off the front (that is pretty standard) however since I was going so fast I had a lot more momentum and I would have to run really fast... the only problem was that my legs were not strong enough to support the load. I would end up tumbling on the ground with the pack and all. it was pretty painful at the time...and now it is still painful! the problem is that right now I can't tell why things are hurting so badly...from falling or from being worked.
so last night as it was getting darker, I was going as fast as I could. I was told that the first "road" that I crossed would be the sign that ithe road I wanted was across the street. so I wasn't paying too much attention at first...bacause I kind of had this in my mind. I was heading downhill and still moving pretty quickly (for a unicycle) so I crossed a paved driveway.... no that wasn't it. then another....then a paved private road...then another. this went on for a long time. I was getting so neverous. it was getting darker darker. my friend said that he would start heading "up" the road after dark to look for me if I wasn't there by then. if I passed the road...then what? he wasn't going to look dowwn the road. I did't have any phone service....and I was stressing pretty badly. actually I was pretty delerious and everything seemed like a huge problem. I had thought about knocking on someone's house..and asking to use the phone...and asking for dinner :)....but I really didn't want to do that. I decided to just keep going downhill and try to make to the town of nevada city...and there I would make a call to someone. at this point I was so depressed, I had made it this far only to have over shot my final destination :( as I was contemplating spending another night in my tent...i look up the trail and saw my friend on his bike waiting. oh I was so happy! I would have hugged him if I wasn't so intent on getting to his house. "how much further" I asked... "about half a mile" . at this point I really didn't care I had company...and a way out. Ironically what made adventure unicycling exciting..was that I did't have a way out...and that I was alone.

I did it! from kings beach to nevada city one unicycle...and an 800lb pack :)

share the trail

maybe you can't tell, but that's a bear track! pretty fresh too. he was traveling the opposite direction...i don't know how we missed each other :)

he is what the trail looks like



4 miles togo....

i've been out of food for quite a while now....and out of energy even longer than that. the only thing driving me right now is not quiting. the sun is making its way down and if I don't get back by dark my friend will be out for rescue.
I picked up the last water stash about 3 miles ago . he put it in this minute made cherry limeaid container. I could taste the hint of fruit in the water. right now I would probably give some kid 20 bucks for a glass.....ohhh

when I got near to the area where my friend stashed the water...i noticed some really loud.... and really old rock music playing (late 80s early 90s).and there was an old trailer parked there with bunch of motor cycles. it was my friends! of course not the friends but my motor cycle friends I had made earlier in the day. they noticed me and turned down their music (my god it was loud!) they asked if I needed any water.. I said sure... I thought I would be polite since they had guns. I rested my uni on a stump just outside their camp and walked over to get my water...when I returned to my unicycle I noticed that I had rested it on a stump that they were using to dry their squirle (sp?) carcas...yuck! it was really shocked to see it so close to me.
I filed up my camelbak with the new water....and started to leave. as I was leaving one of them asked me if I neeed any food. I don't know why I said no... but I did.....and now I am so hungry, and all out of food.

ok... I am tired beyond belief. a while back I ran into a couple of guys on dirt bikes they stopped to talk to me and I got some general directions to the trail. they were impressed with what I was doing....then we quickly parted.
(to be continued)
a while back I found a stream with running water. I had less than one liter left... and I was curious how to filter water. I got everything out and conneted all the hoses properly(?) and walked over to the stream unknowingly dragging my camelbak mouth piece in in the mud...yuck! since I only have two hands I had to be very creative on how to hold everything and still be able to pump. so I fugured out a way that involved holding the pump in between my knees and holding up the camel back with a couple fingers and the other fingers holding the hose with clean fresh mountain water....oh yeah! I was pumping for quike some time before I could feel the pump primed. the all of a sudden a bunch of black water started filling my camel bak.
second tip of the day.... always prime the pump before filling your container. I had to throw away my old water and only use "fresh" water.

I ended up only filling my camel up half way because my friend had stashed some more around here ...that's when I came across the gang from deliverance.
i'll talk about it next time...

the good news is that i'm only about a mile or two from my friend's house.... the bad news is that our fore fathers were a bunch of drunk cowboys when they made this trail. now I am about 12 miles away. this trail is so confusing there are so many options I am very afraid of taking the wrong direction... because it will imply a very long up hill. note: I am at the top of some hill....and I can hear the cars below....

the pioneers could not have been this stupid! straight up a freaking hill, for crying out loud.
I know the trail is just going to drop down again....
actually i'm only 78 percent confident i'm on the right trail anyway :)

I finally made it to the pioneer trail.

this is the trail or forefathers used to get to sacramento.... I guess? anyway it's the trail i'll use to get to my friend's place tonight.
this a pretty cool little pool.

our forefathers used to clean up here before they.....heh :)
one more photo of my unicycle

easy little fella...don't get too close to that cliff ... :O

I don't have very much food left....i may have a severe bonk in a few hours... stay tuned.

as I left camp this morning, I decided to follow the power lines....despite what les (a.k.a. "survivor man") always says, "don't be lured into following power lines... often times they will just take you up and down cliff sides"... I was keeping this in mind because it was looking pretty bad the direction I was going. I could still hear the cars from the interstate near by. In the mean time I was getting deeper into the brush and not happy.... the interstate option started sounding better and better with each step. ok that's it I'mheading to the interstate. the "trail" was a little better but still some bushes. as I got closer to the sounds I caught a glimps of the interstate... it was elevated! crap!
so decided to start heading down this mountain so I could climb the other one that would hook up to the other side of the elevated hw. as I was down in the thickest of brush I could hear a train. that was part of the train tracks I was supposed to follow yesterday... but the unfriendly gas station man couldn't tell me how to get to them. anyway they were actually closer than the hw! so I changed directions again to head over to toward the tracks.... then I saw a stop sign! woohoo! a road. I scrambled over to the road and walked a bit because there is no shoulder.... now I am stopped because I wanted to make another post.

later

day three i've got my godzilla socks on and i'm ready to suffer for another ten hours. :)
tip of the day. last night I couldn't find my head lamp, I thought it had falled out. I need to post, and I didn't want to turn on the keyboard lights b/c they drain the battery pretty quickly. anyway before my trip I was at the kings sooper passing through the halloween section when I saw some glow sticks for 75 cents! I used one of them last night to luminate the tent while I typed...then I hung it outside the tent to keep the bears away :)

my post may become pretty sparce for here on... the service is getting kind of in and out. so camp is all packed .... and here I go..

unicyclist makes it through the night.
it was a rather un eventful night last night. I slept pretty well. I gave up any illusions of sleeping through the night long ago. despite sleeping on a few rocks I did ok. I basically had 3 positions I could sleep in and I just went through the rotations over and over...
I talked to my friend last night, and told him that I was probably going to bail. he was actually out on the trail last night planting some water for me. I was going to be in an area without water so he was worried that I might be out by then. he also said that I was about 20 miles away. well after all that I think I have to go for it. it might be difficult since I don't know how to get out of here. anyway i'd better start.
oh here is a picture of the tree where my food is hanging... it's the old tree in the middle

well today has to be one of the toughest days ever. I was so tired about 4 but I wanted to get to hwy 20...so I kept pushing. this one rout kind of sucked, but there was no other way... I had to hike next to i80 for about a mile. when I got off 80 the rout was much nicer than it has been all day. I was told to follow the road till it ends then follow the power lines... this went really really well at first then it went really badly. first I lost the power lines then when I found them they just went up up up. so with my 600lb back pack and uni I started hiking up the side of a mountain. I was bush wacking it for some time while going up this very steep cliff. this was by far the hardest thing i've done today. I was also fighting daylight. I needed to camp soon before I ran out of light. I got near the top and found this place with spectacular views! I wasn't really looking for that but oh well:) I ate put all of my stuff in a tree (i hope it's high enough) put up my tent and now i'm here in the middle of no where....at least I don't know where I am. my friend does, but when I tried to call him last time I had no service. it's funny as soon as I get lost my service drops out :)

here is a picture from my camp

I am in a bit of a delema. I am at this really nice place to camp....but I am still too far from where I want to be.
I also don't have any food or tonight. I am so tired right now. my shoulders and legs hurt when I walk, and my butt hurts when I ride. i've been trying to mix it up a bit but I find my self switching every five minutes now. I can't really tell if I am going up hill or down....i really need some rest.

later...i guess I am moving on to cisco right now....i thought I was there an hour ago....but was I wrong. it sucks to be wrong :(

I am pretty tired right now it's been a really long day...so far. I thought I was at cisco, but I just talked to my friend and he informed me that I am quite away from cicso. oh well.
wow! I just saw a crawdad fight. it was pretty lame, neither of them lost their arms.
as I was going down the summit, this car pulls up next to me really slowly.. it turns out to be my unicycling friend from hawaii! he was still in town from this past weekend and just driving around. it was cool that he stopped to talk.

ok enough rest... i'm off

it's lonely at the top.
I just got here at donner ski ranch..and everything is closed...despite the "open" sign. i'm pretty tired right now but as soon as I finish this post i'm off. I rode the entire way, I only stopped a couple of times to take some pictures. here is one a little ways from the top:


and here is yet another picture of leo:

man! I was tired....

that's where i'm going....

see the road?

good morning
I seemed to have lost track of what day it is. that could be a sign that I am so relaxed. that thing like time don't matter to me anymore.... (note: I have been known to loose track during regular weeks as well)

last night when I went looking for a bear locker, I found a shower. I had all my shower stuff with me, because I was going to put all of that into the locker as well. anyway I got all undressed and reached over to turn the water on, when I noticed that it was coin operated and all my coins were back at camp. so on with my clothes... in a brilliant move I decided to save the shower till now.
it was and still is so cold right now. I didn't like taking one, but I still have a couple of days togo and I didn't want to skip this. I put in exactly 7.5 minutes worth of change and sat there waiting for the water to warm up. it took forever, especially with me twisting the knob back and forth..."hmm I wonder if this way makes it hot....how about this way"..etc. finally it started getting warm, in reality it was probably only 45 degrees or so, but it seemed warm. thinking that I only had about 2 minutes left I quickly washed (and rinsed, I mention that because i've actually run out of rinsing money ata car wash ). so the water stayed on and it was getting warmer all the time. I didn't have anything else to do so i just stood there relaxing ... that's when I noticed a little frog hopping around my feet. I don't think he was a fan of the warm water. ..to each his own.

I was really looking forward to breakfast this morning. I was going to have western omelette! I got my jet boil ready and started boiling water..that's when I began reading the instructions for the omelette. it claims that after mixing with boiling water...i am supposed to pour into a greasy pan! son of a!.. I am supposed to carry around a frying pan? well at least I won't have to carry around that dead weight any more :)

here is me just a few monents ago..
.

I made it here to camp just before dark. I am camped at donner park I was hoping to camp near the lake but all of those camps were closed for the season. the camps that were open were not all that great either. this place charges 20 bucks a night for a camp spot. I was going to sneek in and camp outside the park...however, the place I was looking at looked a lot like tredwell's grizzley maze. I think i'll just pay.

boy! the ride over here was sure long. I didn't think I would make it this far. my pack was getting so heavy. I don't know what is in there to make it this heavy...maybe it's the food? I guess I didn't eat any of it yet.. I bought some subway on the way up here....so I guess that's why my load was so heavy. I was very happy when I saw this sign

before this the miles were ticking off so slowly.
all is well now, and it's dark, my food is in the bear locker, and I am in the tent.
I hope I recover before tomorrow's big hill.

not so bad any more.
I just wish I didn't have this 500lb backpack on. I stopped in tahoe city a while back. there were lots of stores there, including a couple of bike shops... one is where I got my new jet fuel (which btw is adding to my already oversized load.) I had parked my uni outside but proceeded to go into the shop with my full load on. I didn't know it at the time but I spun aroud and knocked over some display... it just happened to be for jetboil (my stove).... then I remembered that I didn't have any fuel.
I rode into the other shop on the uni, ther were some people outside and they wanted me to do some tricks! lol.... here is a trick: watch me carry out this 500lb bp down the street.

I got on the trail that folows the truckee river it was pretty nice.



right now I am just resting my back.

well gotta go.

why did I try so hard to that stupid bearing?

i'm about three hours into my trip and this is my first rest. I don't know how many miles i've gone, because my map does not have a scale. i'll just guess and say 30 miles :) just kidding, guess it's 8 or 9 miles.

I was a little hesitant at first. I felt kind of weird riding my unicycle in front of traffic. after a while I got tired of walking and decided to try to ride as much as I can. maybe i've only ridden about 70percent so far.
my butt I kind of tire right now because I usually don't put so much weight on the seat.
I have to try and put some air into the seat...however I didn't bring the correct tool to do it.
I might have to cut the seat cover a bit in order to get to the tube.

swiss army knife saved the day! I was able to save the seat cover by removing the bolts with my swiss army plyers (i guess wars and armies are good for something)
i'm ready to continue now .... hopefully this helps.

last day in paradise

I woke up a little late this morning. I guess it took me a long time to fall asleep. I am pretty nervous about my journey. a little bit of good nervous... and a little bit of bad nervous.
the good nervous, is about not knowing where I am going to sleep tonight. the only thing I know is that it will probably be in my tent. i've been going over all my supplies and trying to make sure I have just enough. i'm leaving a bunch of stuff here and hopefully I can come back and pick it up.
the bad nervous is about climbing donner pass on my unicycle. this is the same hill I climbed the other day... for charity :) it was pretty difficult on a bike, I know it's going to kill me. I don't have to ride it but for some reason I feel like I have to. I don't know why I feel compelled... I guess because it's part of the journey.

more later...

I decided to get my dinner at safeway again tonight, and eat it outside the condo as sun goes down. this way I can get a good picture of the sunset over the lake.
well my timing was slightly bad and I got out here way too early. i've been sitting out here for what seems like two hours and this arizona tea I kicking in. I bought a 42oz bottle for one dollar! can you believe that! that's cheaper than water! anyway I drank most of it and now the sun is never going down :( ... damn safeway.
ok it should only be a couple of minutes now. ....


I hope it doesn't take very long for my eyes to return to normal...

sketchy bike shop.
I was walking around kings beach, looking to pick up some supplies. I found a rite-aid which was pretty cool (no, wallgreen, but close enough) I picked up some stuff there, and moved on...
I found this bike shop, that was hardly lit. when I walked in I was expecting to find some snobby high end joint, that had tinted windows (since it looked dark from the outside) but no.... this place had one lite. it was placed way in the back, and it was one of those creepy basement lights. the ones with one bulb hanging from a chord in the ceiling. I could hardly see the prices of things... and I kept hitting my head on things hanging from the ceiling. in fact everytime I felt my head brush up against something, I would spin around really fast and try to catch whatever it was that I dropped :) it was worth it, because the prices were so good! they must have very little overhead...except for rent.
the guy working there seemed pretty anti social, like he only liked dead people.... but he still tried to smile when I left. before that he tried to put all my stuff into this really tiny bag... it was stretched so much I had to ask for a bigger bag...he seemed a little irritated, but he went in the back to one anyway. it took a pretty long time, but he evntually returned with what looked like a garbage bag with handles. I felt pretty stupid for waiting in the first place, but since he went through all that trouble with out having to kill me. I was really happy.

....

here are some pictures from the condo.



and another.....

cool unicycling shirt

I don't think I can wear this to work :)

the brutal reality of adventure unicycling.

yesterday after I got dropped off at the bike shop, I waited for my friends to arrive so they can take me to their condo, where I would stay for a night and regroup.
the condo is on the north shore of lake tahoe. too bad the donner party didn't have a condo... they might not have tried to go over the pass :)
anyway my friends dropped me off and said so long, and as soon as I closed the front door, I jumped in the shower and took one of the best showers in my life! I had a bunch of stuff I needed to do before I leave this beautiful place, but i'm starting to question my motives now.
who would want to leave this very nice condo located next to the lake (with beach access, even though it's posted that they have "no beach access")
my friend even said if I change my mind I can stay here for the remainder of the week... boy I am going to have a tough decision. it's sooo nice here....hmmm.

whatever I decided, god help me I gotta do laundry!






i've been quite uncomfortable for the past few days

good hearted unicyclist.

so I told my bearing story to almost everyone at the unicycle festival....one at a time. when I told this unicyclist named gary, he asked what kind of unicycle it was. I told him it was a torker....he suddenly got really excited and said that he had a torker and it's bearings cracked too. then he told me that he had three bearing.... but he didn't bring them with him (you can imagine the kind of emotional roller coaster I was on) .
but not to give up on trying to help me, he said that he might not ride tomorrow, and if he decided to not ride he would give me the bearings off of his unicycle! holly cow, my dream to backpack/unicycle over donner pass, was still alive. I was pretty excited that I might even get to ride one of the event rides.
I told him I was really excited, I was so greatful , and I would help him take them off.

so as the evening went on... he never brought it up again. I was kind of hoping that I would know by the evening....because now I have different problems:
1. we have to check out of the cabin by 11:00.
2. I have to return my rental bike between 10 and 6.
ok I guess those are really the same problem.
so I now have 2 possible options for riding tomorrow.
but I have no possible options for getting me my uni, my mtb, and my huge back pack to the trail head by 9 am, and getting me back before 6.
I should have been more worried than I was, but I was just going to stay at the cabin and reurn my bike in the morning. the only flaw in that plan, was that I would have had to ride down to the bike store return it by 10, then walk 2.5 miles up hill back to the cabin and be out by 11. and that plan involved not being able to ride a unicycle on my adventure.

as lame as that plan was, it would have to be my plan until further notice.

the next morning I was actually feeling pretty good that I would not have to worry about my uni, and just hike for the next four days.
when gary woke up, he asked me if I still wanted those bearings, of course!!! so my new plan was pretty much the same as my lame plan, only now I could spend the week unicycling. I helped him take off the bearings and went directly over to my uni and started putting them on. so just to add more drama, I was taking my uni apart and I had one bolt left, it somehow worked it self out of my grip and dropped off the deck into a pine needle covered ground... I didn't have too much hope to find it but I went down to look anyway. I sat there just staring at it until my eyes started watering. :) after about 5 min I finally found it!

now I just need a ride....
to be continued.....

miracles

I found a bearing , the trip is on!!!!

...still no unicycling.

I couldn't find a bearing for my uni, so I decided to rent a mountain bike and ride around. I rode up donner pass, there happened to be a 100 mile bike event going on. I happened to be riding part of it. it was the part went up donner summit. i am an ok hill-climber and it was funny passing people on my mtb. there were people on the side of the road from time to time and they were all cheering me on, "way to go" ...."nice job"....(clap clap....clap). i even got my picture taken by some people [i think they were "official" because they had cameras with huge lens]. I might show up on the cover of unicef weekly or something.

i met up with the uni guys who were riding trials. of course everyone was asking me where my unicycle was. so i've had to repeat my story about 20 times so far.... i don't mind really, it's a good conversation starter.

so I just had a beer and a red bull in that order and i'm feeling very confused right now...

i told my story to the event organizer, and he said, "oh i've one [unicycle] you can borrow" i am so happy about that. i still don't have a uni for my adventure but, i have one for tomorrow....one step at q time.

later

draino trip

last night was hell. it was the night before my big trip to draino....oops I mean reno! I was at work until midnight before I could go home. I had nothing packed. I didn't know how I was going to pack my unicycle, and I was tired.
I started to take apart my unicycle and that's when I figured out why my unicycle wheel hasn't been spinning very freely. one of the bearings was shattered. hmm... this isn't good. five hours till my flight, and just now I am figuring out that my unicycle can't go.
I had several ideas, and one of them involved using the bearing from my son's unicycle. it took me a while to take apart his uni and figure out that his bearing wasn't a match. I kind of half put his back together, and mine....well that's a sad situation.
I packed the broken pieces back together and squeezed them in place with the pedal crank. hardly a fix. :(

2AM and still not packed. I kind of felt like it was no longer a unicycle trip and I would resort to backpacking and mountain biking. still not a bad vacation, but i've been looking forward to this so much.
while packing I had to make some tough decisions on what should go and what should stay. I think I ended up bringing too much stuff, because I could hardly lift it.
the biggest problem where deciding what to wear :) heh... I didn't know how many cycling shorts I should bring. here at home I never wear the same pare more than twice with out a wash, and socks... I never reuse those. that has trouble written all over it. I need a hiking consultant.

I figured out a way to pack my unicycle too. I thought that I would bring it, just in case someone in lake tahoe has a bearing.....i guess I am more religious than I thought. ...shamelessly looking for miracles :)

I don't know how 2 became 4:30, but it did, and I was done, and my wife was waking up, so she can get me out of the house on time.

right now i'm in the plane flying to reno, and it' shaking really badly....i hope my bearings don't shake loose... :)

some video of a guy who is way better than me

warning! this video contains a clip of an elderly lady flipping someone off. sorry if it offends anyone :(


Amazing Muni Tricks - video powered by Metacafe

four year old cliff bar and one ugly girl

saturday was one of those days when nothing quite worked out. i really wanted to go for a unicycle/backpack test hike [after all, my trip is less than one week away, and i am still not used to carrying such a heavy pack]. it was about 8am when i woke up and by the time 9 rolled around i was still thinking about things. the clouds started building up and the sky was getting a bit dark. i decided to bail on the unicycle plan because my back pack wasn't filled. i still had my tent unrolled and hanging in the garage, and my sleeping bag unrolled in the living room. not that i really needed these to go on a hike, but i wanted the real load to be in my pack so i could get used to it. besides, my unicycle was just washed and it needed to be lubed real bad. so no unicycling for me today.

next on the list of options was mountain biking. unfortunately the chain on my mountain bike was full of dirt and almost frozen in its last position. i really can't ride it until someone [me] cleans it. also, i wasn't going to mention this, but my camelbak really needed to be cleaned, and i didn't feel like doing it that morning.

in case you haven't noticed, it seems that my god given talent to procrastinate, is playing another roll in my day, where nothing "works" out. i suppose it would be a much more shocking and interesting story if something did work out despite the lack of preparation and unfinished tasks.

last on my list of options was trail running. the only real piece of equipment i need for this, is running shoes and running shorts. i managed to find a pair of shoes, and barely found a pair of clean shorts, but it all "worked" out and i was almost ready to go. i needed some food because i didn't eat any breakfast yet, and i was pretty hungry. i rifled through some of the cabinets and found a cliff bar. i was a little surprised to find the flavor that i had in my hand, because it was a flavor that i used to like a while back, but i finally got sick of it. but i was in a hurry, and this was food and i was hungry. i decided that i would just make it work!

i put everything into my car and drove off to the trail head. i opened my mysterious cliffbar, and took a big bite out of it. first of all it was really difficult to bite into, i should have noticed that, but i kept going. i actually tore off a chunk and started chewing it. it tasted really bad, but i also remembered that i got tired of the taste a long time ago, that's why i stopped buying them. for the last five years or so i have been buying cliff bars every chance i got. i eat them so much, i don't even consider them food anymore. they are just something i put into my stomach so my stomach will have something to do while i am exercising. i get no enjoyment out of these things anymore. so when i was eating this one this morning, i knew i didn't like the taste anyway, so it wasn't really a big enough red-flag that this one cliff bar i pulled out the back of the cabinet tasted horrible. i actually took a few more bites and almost finished half of the bar, before i became suspicious. i looked at the wrapper and noticed that the bar will expire on april second.... hmmm, i wonder what year. wait a minute! that's not april second, it april 2002! yuk! i spit out what i was chewing and hid the rest of the bar from my sight, and tried to drink a ton of water to wash it all down. i read somewhere that water actually helps flush out any bacteria that was consumed from expired food....ok, i'm lying, i just made that up so i wouldn't feel so icky.

i made it to the trail head, and wasn't feeling any side effects from the four year old cliff, but it was raining. it wasn't just a little rain, it was quite a bit, and it even had a little hail mixed in. i love running in the rain. it is on of my favorite things to do, however running in hail is a whole different matter. hail really hurts! i've been caught in a hail a few times and it was not a pleasant experience. the worst part about hail, is that you don't know if it is going to get bigger, or how long it's going to last.

back to my story:
it looked like the hail was going to stop so i started to get ready. by the time i was done, the hail had stopped and only a light rain was coming down. this was good enough for me, so i went for it. this trail had a lot of long uphill sections and the middle miles are pretty technical. i was moving along at a pretty good pace by the time i got to those middle miles. i was running up the technical part, when two mountain bikes were heading down. i let one bike have the right-of-away, even though i know runners/hikers [people on foot] have the right-of-way. the first biker went ahead, and the second biker stayed at the top, and motioned me to go ahead. he also said [at least this is what i think i heard him say],"go ahead girl". heh..... picture this: i have a really bad 5 o'clock shadow, i have a sole patch to go with the shadow, i have really hairy legs, and i am not built like a girl! i don't think i am fat enough to have man-breast yet, which may confuse someone, with bad eyesight. i can't even imagine how ugly i would look as a girl. this threw me off for a few miles, i just couldn't fathom someone confusing me for a girl. this is probably this first time since i was an infant. even then it looked pretty clear to me.

it was actually a really good run, seven and one half miles, lots of climbing, a little bit of rain, and one really bad stomach ache. by the time i got home i had forgotten about the bad food, and the whole girl thing was so wrong it wasn't even worth telling anyone. i don't know why i am writing about it [?].


i'd better hurry and finish this post, tonight's temperature is going to be in the thirties, and i want to sleep outside one more time before my trip.

later

all up hill

I decided to go out and get into shape today. yesterday was an eating and sleeping day, filled with b-day cake. thank god i'm not another year older already.
anyway, I went out to one of the local trails today. I wish I didn't go after lunch. my stomach was hurting so badly. but I pressed on... the weather was kind of rainy (although I didn't know that at first. it was not a problem, however. I was sweating so much I almost didn' notice the rain. here is a picture of the sky


the only thing that bothered me really, was the thunder. i'd better get used to this, because my trip is going to be full of rain. lake tahoe, in late sept is pretty unpredictable. in fact I think that's when the donner party got stuck :) if I get stuck i'll be in worse shape, because I won't have any one to eat :(.

the weather made everything muddy. actually my unicycle made things muddy. this may turn out to be something I have to prepare for on my trip. i'm trying to let things dry out right now.... but I don't think it's doing any good. the sun did come out for a bit


i'd better go it's getting pretty cold over here....

i hate scales

all of them suck! i know, this subject has nothing to do with
unicycling, and i promise that this will be the only time i jump off topic like this... at least i won't do it any more times today. where was i... oh yeah, i hate scales. all the ones at my house are whack. i don't know why but i seem to have a habit of acquiring stupid scales. it doesn't matter if it's a bathroom scale or a fish scale.... they all lie.

scale one:
this was my first scale, that i had since college. my mom gave it to me and my wife, because she had too many. she was buying them at garage sales and i guess she over bought. it was this really old scale that was worn down and had rust around the edges. my wife couldn't stand having a used bathroom scale, not just that it was used... and that people stood on it with their feet... but that this scale has spent most of its life in someone else's bathroom...yuk. wow, it never really struck me until now, just how gross this thing was. anyway, my wife kept it in another part of the house...in fact it was very close to the outside of the house. this scale was only accurate to about 7lbs. so if you got on really carefully, you would weigh less. if you got on kind of roughly, you would generally weigh on the upper end of the accuracy. if you just jumped on... then you could be anywhere in the range. i don't even know why we bothered keeping that scale as long as we did.

scale two:
this is the scale we have today. it's a tanita body fat scale straight from japan. i was so excited when i first got this one. i was going to finally prove to everyone that i am as lean as a stick. it was all i japanese, so i let my wife set it up. she looked kind of confused while setting it up, and since i don't read japanese, i have to just assume that she did something wrong. there is no way i am 24% body fat! i should be like 4%. i keep telling my wife that this thing is crap, send it back. but she insist that it is measuring some kind of internal fat, not the same fat we are all used to. i don't buy it. i tried to set it up myself, not only is it in japanese, but it's metric... and i don't know who stole my calculator. i've come up with several theories as to why this thing is bogus. for years, i've blamed it on my feet being conductive, and since no one else is an electrical engineer in my house, that story held some validity for a while. i've been telling people for years, how that stupid scale claims i am 24%... and they all reply, "no way, i thought you were much less than that" this was pretty much how all my "friends" reacted to my scale story anyway.... at least until two days ago. that's when i told a long lost friend, my story. he replied, "that seems about right...." so i hate my scale.

scale three
this scale is the worst of them all. it's not even my scale.it belongs to my doctor. it's like one hundred years old, and requires someone to move little weights around in order to get an accurate reading. so i went in to the doctor's for something [i can't remember what it was, but she ended up suggesting i get a colonoscopy] and i had to get on the scale before anything. i jump on the scale fully clothed and i had kind of long hair at the time [i don't know how much hair weighs, but i just
wanted to point that out] the thing was oscillating up and down while the nurse was moving the scale, then she jots down some really high number. wtf? "hey", i said, "it didn't even stop", she said that it was ok, she knew what she was doing. no way, this is going on my permanent record. i was really not too happy about this. i couldn't let it go. after we got into the room, i brought up the subject once again, hoping
for a re-weigh. i asked her if it mattered that my clothes were really heavy. she smiled and ask how much i thought my cloths weighed... about ten pound i guess. then she smiled and started taking my blood pressure. i guess she thought i was joking, and didn't know that i was actually obsessed about my weight.

so the moral of the story is that all scales suck.

camping on the local trail?

ok here is the plan. i am going to load up my backpack with all my camping gear, strap my unicycle on my backpack and see how difficult it is to carry it around for five miles. that doesn't sound too difficult. i can trail run forever. i've run eleven miles recently over some pretty rough terrain and it wasn't too bad. five miles of walking should be a pretty easy thing to do after lunch. i know what i can do! i'll hike out 5 miles, unhook my unicycle, and ride back five miles on my unicycle while wearing my pack.

funny as i'm writing about this now i can not see anyway possible that this was at one time a good idea. i must have had too many endorphins still hanging around from my shopping spree the day before. how could i have possibly thought that this was going to go well. i had done this same route a couple of weeks prior to this, but back then it was all unicycle, and it took something like three hours. i really wish i would have done the math before i set out on this one. also, it is worth noting that my stupid scale said that my fully loaded pack with my unicycle strapped on, was only 33lbs! [if i sound a little harsh on my scale, it's because i have a real problem with all scales and their lies] anyway, 33 lbs was a lot lighter than the load that almost killed me in the store.

picture this:
95 degrees out, no shade, big backpack, unicycle strapped on, bed roll, sleeping bag, misc clothes, stove, 100 liters of water, no food, and i was about to use my new shoes! after several thoughts, i decided that new shoes would be too much for ... even me "sufferman". i set out on my test hike. i got some pretty weird looks from people. they didn't know what the heck i was up to. i wish i could say that they were all staring at me, but i think it was because i was glaring at them to see their reaction to me. i hiked along, mile after mile, step after step, hill after hill, nagging back pain after nagging back pain, weird look after weird look. the pain was getting pretty bad, and i was only about two miles into the trail.

that would have been a perfect point to turn around. it's really too bad that my brain doesn't work as well as it should. i did have a pretty "good" idea, however. i thought that whistling would take my mind off the pain... and if i looked happy i would be happy :) i don't know where i got this tune from, but it was definitely not a song i had on my ipod. it seemed to be a song that required a lot of exhaling blows. it did make things better for a couple of blissful minutes. but then it kind of made things worse because it messed up my breathing. then all of a sudden i felt really out of breath and tired.

i slowed down a bit, and talked to some people along the way. everybody was really nice. they all asked me about unicycling, and the trail, and snakes whatever. i can't tell you how happy i was to make it to my turn around point. when i got there i practically threw off my pack, and laid down on dirt floor in the middle of no where. i didn't have any energy bars, or energy drink, or ice cream... nothing! nothing but water.... and i was running low on that.

so after some rest, i put my gear together. i tightened up my back pack, and hopped on my unicycle. whoa, that was weird. unicycling uphill with a huge pack on, was really really hard :( i was really looking forward to this part of the journey. now i have five miles to go with a whole different type of suffering. i'll spare you every little painful moment. because frankly i'm really tired of writing about suffering.

one last thing that was pretty funny, as i was heading back, i could not do any thing very technical on the trail. i'm not too sure if it was because i was really really tired or that the stupid pack was not fastened to my back. it was firmly strapped to my waist, and this caused a whole bunch of problems with my balance. so anyway i was coming to this group of teenagers. they were very nice [for a bunch of punks] they were really impressed with my unicycling. i tried really hard to ride everything while they were watching. when i came to where they were i had to go through this pretty rocky section. they thought that it was pretty cool to be doing the stuff i was doing [they said so, i'm not making that part up.... really!]. i was talking to them as i was trying to make my way through the section. one kid ask if he can have my autograph. heh....i thought he was messing with me. you know the same way bullies lure their victims in, before they pull some embarrassing prank... i know. i kind of laughed, and tried to change the subject a bit with some story about guys that were way better than me on a unicycle. then this kid said, with a very serious look on his face, "so no then?" then i had to tell him, "you don't want my autograph [kid]" it was really weird, but there was no way i was going to give someone an autograph....unless i was really famous :)

finally, on the way back, i passed some guy, and he said, "what are you camping on th e trail?"

the store

i just got my new backpack the other day, along with new hiking shoes, tent and one awesome stove. a funny thing happened when i was getting fit for my pack. i was telling the guy how many days i was going for and where. i then asked him if he thought that i could strap my unicycle on the back. he was very enthusiastic, and started telling me how to strap the wheel and pedal, and how to position the weight. he didn't even question my motives. oh well, i guess this guy has seen/heard it all. i didn't ask him why he wasn't curious or why he knew so much about it. he just filled up the pack and had me walk around the store.

I went every where in the store, i even put up a tent on one of the open spots on the floor...all while wearing my pack. it hurt so badly, but i thought i was just being weak. i hate being weak. i really only hate being weak about some things. not being able to carry a huge backpack around the store was something i didn't want to weak about. my back was killing me! i was getting a little light headed, and it wasn't long before i started feeling dehydrated. oh man, i'm not even out of the stupid store yet and i'm already not surviving. i was lucky to be in the middle of civilization.

i guess i just wasn't used to carrying around such a load i'm pretty sure the guy, overloaded it just to try and make me look weak. it gave me some comfort to know that i figured this guy out. he was playing mental games with me the whole time. when i got back to the backpack section, i thought that i would play with his mind a bit. just before he removed the weights, he ask, "how much weight do you think is in here?" i thought that i would low ball the guess to make it seem like the load was nothing to me. i was sure there was about 70lbs in there, so i guessed 20lbs. he laughed... there was 45 lbs! looking back i guess that was about right.

i bought the pack and all the other gear, and played with it all night. i was so excited that i was going to try it the next day.

room

One Wheeled Adventure

One Wheeled Adventure
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