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When I arrived home from Mongolia, Mylinda was at my house visiting. She came and went several times over the course of the next couple of weeks, so there were plenty of opportunities, but all I ended up with were four photos, and unfortunately, three of them were out of focus. This single image is the only documentation I have of her visit. Still, a trained observer might conclude that she has her hands full with her descendants, and I will readily confess, that I enjoyed watching... I had her cut and polish a rock, and she made it look easy. Perhaps it was due to her training in dentistry, |
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Below is the advertisement I used to entice the young men to participate in an outing. It was very appealing to me, and it may have even worked on the boys, but... ...my leaders bailed. They all had impeccable reasons, so I can't fault them, but I was still pretty disappointed. So... ...I went and did it myself. |
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Actually, I took family (Barbara and Nathen et. al.) Murphy came along as well. Barbara and I got away about a half hour later than planned, and arrived at Nathen's abode just after he broke the chain on his bicycle. We effected a repair, got underway again, and arrived at the campground just as the sun set... ...without a lantern! |
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The braille method of boiling things in oil leaves a bit to be desired, but we were finally ready to eat about 9 p.m.. Those of you with children will have no trouble guessing how Nathen's offspring reacted to that timetable. AJ and Brittney have spent time and resources perfecting Buffalo Chicken Tenders, and I used their recipe. Either I have trouble following a recipe, or they failed to include their secret ingredient because, while my product was good, it was not as good as theirs. Come on, AJ., fess up... |
| Landen was all over and into everything as we checked out and adjusted the bikes. Apparently he is a normal, well adjusted child. |
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Does Kyle look excited? |
| Getting the boys slathered with sun screen, ready to go, and actually pointed in the right direction was a bit like herding cats. But, with sufficient effort, even that is possible. |
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I should have put a little more effort into making sure my stuff was fully functional, but planning meals and procuring food took all my free time in the evenings. It seems like preparing for an outing should be a lot easier than it is. |
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Murphy stayed with us just a little bit longer. We stopped for an equipment check about ¼ mile into the trip, and our attempt to inflate Nathen's tire ended with the entire valve stem separating from his tube. Scratch one bicycle. |
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I let Nathen use my bike. The two vehicles played leap-frog, with one staying behind the bicyclists (as a shield from traffic) while the other went on ahead to identify photo-ops. |
| The first part of the ride (along the south side of the mountain) went quite well. This portion has relatively gentle grades. |
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It also offered some spectacular views. On a bicycle, you are too busy to study them, but from a slowly moving car they are quite panoramic. |
| Then we came to the steep parts, and Murphy rejoined us. |
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From my position following the cyclists, I could see that, from time to time, Kyle's bike seemed to become unstable. Nathen estimated that this occurred about 15 mph. |
| Kyle recovered the first several times this happened, but eventually lost control and ended up kissing the pavement. The result was road rash on a hand, arm, and knee (sorry about the blurry image). He was determined to continue riding, but I was pretty sure the inherent instability of his bicycle would result in a repeat performance. A promise of a subsequent try with upgraded equipment sufficed to placate him, and Kyle rode in the car with me the rest of the way down the hill (sleeping part of the time). |
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Nathen and Ethan continued on from that point. |
| Kyle wanted to play photographer and, given the cost per digital image, I could think of no reason why he shouldn't. He took some pretty good shots... |
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...and some that left a bit to be desired. |
| Ethan took the whole ride in stride, as if he did that sort of thing every day. He made it look easy. |
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Part of the appeal of this particular route is that it has lots of curves. There is one section in particular that is just switch back... |
| ... after switch back... |
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... after switch back... |
| ... after switch back. |
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Nathen let Ethan ride in front and set the pace. |
| That seemed to work pretty well. Ethan didn't seem to tire, but going downhill is not known to be particularly strenuous. |
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It is evident there were clouds, but in this Murphy missed his chance. We had shade without percipitation. |
| When I review my memoeries from the time period when I was about 8 year old, and I find they are pretty blurry. I wonder what, if anything, Ethan will recall from this wild ride. What do you remember about being 8? |
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Nathen, being the techno savy that he is, didn't realize that the upgraded wireless speedometer had to be turned on before it functioned, so we don't know the speeds they reached. Given that we started down around 10 and arrived around noon, it is probably safe to say that no new speed records would have been set had the speedometer been functioning. |
| Just as we reached the federal prison, the chain came off Ethan's bike. This was problematic, as his bike had a coaster type brake, activated by rotating the pedals backwards. Apparenetly he forgot about the hand brake to the front wheel, or maybe it wasn't adequite to the task, but at any rate, he left the road and crashed into one of the prison gates (constructed of 2 inch of pipe). Neither he not his bike sustained damage, but I couldn't resist pointing out to him that crashing the service entrance gate is not the way to get into prision, and he probably didn't want to go there anyway. |
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| We ate lunch in the park in Safford, and from there went our separate ways. Barbara, I, and Ethan went hunting for fire agate near Bowie, following directions from an acient volume (20+ years old) found lying about the house. Actually, I went to Google maps, identified recognizable points along our route, and noted their coordinates. Then, as we drove the route, we verified our position using a GPS. That method worked susrprisingly well, but that's another story for another time... |