warhol-minutes

Reporter Herald article ...

well, the article came out yesterday and i was pretty happy about it. i am glad to have used up some of my warhol-minutes on something positive. it was really funny to see my picture on the front page. i wasn't a front page article, but i was on the header as a preview to my article inside [page 3!!] it was almost a half page with one big picture and one smaller picture. a bunch of people that know me from other things were really surprised to see me in the article.... and others were given links to the article [by me].

funny... but i've been waiting 8 years for an article to be printed about me.... finally!

i think i am going to unicycle more this year... i feel inspired :)

almost famous

well... tomorrow is the big day. i get to see the new paper article about me and my mountain unicycling. last week i got a call from some lady that worked for the local paper. she had seen the website about the mountain unicyclist down in moab, and was curious if loveland had anyone participating. anyway she found me and we met up last wednesday along with her photographer. it went pretty well from my point of view. i got to tell her everything about unicycling, and every story that i ever encountered while unicycling. i think they got some really good shots of me doing some pretty cool stuff... but we'll see.

i really can't wait to see the article, but i know that i will probably be disappointed. that's why i wanted to write about it now, so i can still have some optimism.

good or bad, i will share the link tomorrow.

two trips in one

when i got to fruita on friday night i still hadn't heard from my 15 year old. he was going to be at home alone, because my wife was going to be out of town this weekend as well. it wasn't a big deal really... he's a very honest responsible kid, so we were not too worried about it. however we had been trying to call him all afternoon and into the evening.

we left messages on his cell phone and at the house. we started leaving message about 3 in the afternoon [while he was at school]. my wife and i were feeding on each other's fears and we started getting really worried. i was already in my hotel room and was threatening to go back to loveland and see what was going on. i was way too tired and the thought of driving 6 hours really sucked. i ended up going to bed and make a decision in the morning. as it turned out my morning started at 2am. i was in full stress mode and ready to drive back. i called my wife and told her i was heading back to loveland. "ok, good luck" she said. i was expecting something like maybe we should wait a little longer... so out the door i went.

the weather had gotten a lot worse since the night before, and it was snowing a lot in the passes. there were white-out conditions at one point. this is really sucking. mile after mile, car after car.... this was taking forever. i called my wife a couple of times along the way just to make the drive a little less lonesome. finally i was in denver, still 40 miles from home i get a phone call from my kid. boy i was angry..... i don't think he could have said anything to keep me from yelling at him, because i was so pissed. the reason that he didn't answer the phone was because he was asleep! i bought the story, but that didn't prevent me from swearing. i was mostly mad at myself for not being patient. but the more i thought about it, the more i think i would have done it again. i'm not trying to justify my stupidity or anything, but it really was a scary thing. my kid is usually the best one at answering his phone. and he is not a wild kid, so we don't really have to worry about him doing that kind of stuff. i guess had he been a wild kid i probably would have not worried so much.

so what should i do now?i had my friends waiting for me... a unicycling event going on... and a car full of camping and bike gear..... i decided that i really wanted to go back, but i was to tired, and it was snowing way too much. i had heard that the snow should be gone by tomorrow, so i decided to wait till morning. i went all the way back home and took a pretty good nap. about 3-4 hours worth. i vegged in front of the tv for a few more hours and a was pretty well rested by evening. i had some diner with my kid and dropped him off at his friend's house.... and i headed back to moab.

by now it was about 8pm and i was drinking a venti latte. the mile were ticking off pretty quickly. the snow was still pretty bad over the passes, but there were not too many cars on the road.
i got to fruita by 1am.... and took a little nap till about 4:30. from there i drove straight through to moab and had some denny's and started blogging again.

later

everything is an adventure

well, friday morning and i was supposed to be out of here by 9am. i had a ton of errands to run and a meeting or two with some peeps. after my meetings were over... and fielding a couple of support calls [that's what happened when you use the company phone as your own], and picking up some stuff from work.... i finally started to moab. it was well into the 3 o'clock hour by the time i left.

off topic:
i am sitting at denny's in moab right now about 6:30am or so. i haven't been paying much attention to anyone around me, except for these three older guys complaining about software licences..... blah blah blah... anyway i just looked around and found this guy from the food channel. i don't know if you have ever seen the show where this guy travels around the world just to eat weird food. not the anthony guy... the other guy who looks a little like uncle fester. i swear that's him. i guess eating at denny's would qualify for gross and disgusting food.

back to topic;
let me give you some background info. i was supposed to hook up with my former work buddy on friday night. he left with some friends very early friday morning. since i left so late friday, i was planning to only go as far as fruita and get a hotel or something then head out to moab on sat morning. i was planning to mostly unicycle on the weekend, but mountain biking was also planned.

so friday morning when i was running my errands i get a call from my friend out in moab. he tells me that the cabins we had picked out were just closed down by the city!! wtf!!! so he was going to find some other cabins.. oh yeah...it's starting to rain. ok, a little rain never hurt anyone. my friend has a habit of bringing rain with him every where he goes, so this was probably expected.

a couple of hours later when i started heading out on the interstate, i call my friend one more time just to let him now my situation. i called him up as he answered "hello". i habitually ask how it was going. he replied "bad"..." really bad". it turned out that as they were driving around looking for a camp site they got hit by someone and now their truck is undrivable. this trip is getting off to a really good start. they weren't sure what they were going to do at that point.. and they didn't need anything from me.

so on with my drive.... i got to fruita about 9pm or so. not too bad. i could have made it to moab...but since it was raining and i wasn't sure where my friend was i thought that i should just get a motel and call it a day.

new adventure

i have a new unicycle adventure coming up. it's not quite as adventurous as my previous journey, but it should be pretty entertaining.
I will be going to moab for the annual moab muni fest. i am bringing my unicycle, extra bearings, and my mountain bike. i am only going to do a couple of rides with the uni guys, but i am going with my mountain bike buddies. the whole trip is going to be about 4 days, but i will be splitting the time between the two groups. it's going to be a little like that classic partridge family episode, were keith had two dates in the same restaurant, and he would run back in forth between them. i guess that has pretty much become a sitcom cliche and if you don't remember the partridge family, then i am sure you have seen this else where.

i'll try to keep this updated as much as possible.

later.

I wish this plane ride was over! I am very sick of just sitting here pretending like i'm comfortable. i'm not comfortable by any means. the effects of my 7 dollar glass of beer wore off a couple hours ago. and the effects of my 7 dollar breakfast buritto are just now kicking in :) i've been reading this bike catalog that emphasizes real biking not comptitive bike.... or pseudo bike racing.. this is hard core basket and pants riding. I love it. it has a lot in common with unicycling. yes there I a connection. infact I can relate most things to the wheel :)
the rivendell bicycle catalog is pro bicycling not racing just good bike engineering. no lycra, no advertising on the jerseys no super cool sun glasses.... in fact there is nothing "cool" unless you think that things that work well for years and years is pretty cool.... then this is really cool! the mantra of that company is that functionality is much more important than "cool". it makes the lycra wearing dork wads seem pretty phsyco. which is how I am sure most people who are not "in-to" cycling think anyway. but this is a revalation to me since I am a lycra wearing super hero (only when I am on my road bike). imagine that, the one-wheeled-adventure-unicyclist-freak is a conformist! when I ride my road bike I am a total roadie. come on! I think it makes me faster :) actually I only do it because it makes me feel like a bike racer....the shaved legs also help. I also thought it helped me fit in to the cycling fraternity. in reality I never fit in and I don't think I want to now that I think about it.
this is where unicycling comes in. with unicycling I can't even pretend to fit in.... fit in to what? right now it is almost completly agnostic of clicks. i'm just a guy on a unicycle. when i'm on my road bike i'm a wanna be racer who can't afford the real good stuff. I actually raced for a year or so, and for a year I kind of fit in. so now here I am, on two sides of a fabricated reality. I really need to stop this roadie charade. I have a much easier time not caring what people think when I unicycle...for some reason.

more later.

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!!!!