Golf Courses

I can't think of a better use for a golf course in the winter than as a groomed ski trail ( and if they advocate using golf courses as common pasturage for locavores to raise cattle and other beasts that low and chew cud in the summer, I'd fully support that too). I've been going to Phalen golf course a couple of times a week, usually skate skiing 10-20k each time. Since I won't be able to get out on my bike for at least a month, skiing has proven to be a great way to get my legs and lungs up to par for my bike ride. (Ask Paul Peterson about my Red Rocks training regimen!) I've got about six weeks to train for an estimated six week long bike ride. I won't be breaking any records, but I want to keep my rear end happy, and the pedals moving up and over those coastal mountains.

*Side note: I can't decide whether to call it a bike ride or bike tour. Ride doesn't capture the bigness, and tour sounds like something involving tuscan wine samplings and fifty seven year old money market executives with $15,000 road bikes. Thoughts?

Skiing today was an exercise in frustration. The trail consisted of a pretty nice, thick base (the remnants of a big ol' December storm...the very one my friend Grant and I flew before on a marathon twenty six hour drive from Moab, UT back to the North Star State a few days before Christmas), topped by an icky brown, icy crust (courtesy of a misty, rainy weekend), and decorated with windblown powder drifted deep, like uneven frosting spread by unsure hands (today's storm). I shuffled across the icy sections and post holed in the powder for an hour before giving up. My middle fingers went numb, so I couldn't give the weather gods the bird.

Before I go further, I'd like to thank my friend Ellie Rogers for providing the inspiration to write this blog. When asking her if I should, she said yes, and that she thought we could arrange some sort of underground railroad-esque network of computers at various places along the coast, so that I could update as I rode. We're still trying to concoct a quilt code and lantern signals. Ellie has been blogging and writing eloquently, check out wherethelionliesdown.blogspot.com and you'll see what I mean.

I don't know what the proper length for a blog is. No one is telling me to write blah-blah number of double spaced MLA pages. Am I trampling on blog world toes here?

Ok, now a list to conclude:

1) Read these books: My Story as Told by Water (my new favorite James Duncan book about fly fishing and religion and the way in which industrial America/Amerika is threatening both of these, and about how fly fishing and religion are threatening industrial America), Take the Cannoli, Into the Wild (better than the movie! (the soundtrack is quite good, though), When you are Engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris tells you to quit smoking).

2) Don't read these books: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (sorry, Ellie), the Wordy Shipmates (Sarah Vowell, you really let me down on this one.)

3) I'm trying to grow bonsai trees.

4) Blog writing is way harder than I thought.

Stay safe, and be peaceful to one another.