September 3, 2021

Rooted Vermont

In early August, I participated in Rooted Vermont, a 48 mile gravel bike race in northern Vermont. It was a meaningful weekend for me on several levels. First, as you may recall from a post last year, during my last organized gravel event, I bonked after 60 miles, and had to call it quits. Needless to say, I went into this race, at 48 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing, with some trepidation. But just as important, this race took place in a part of Vermont very near to where my mom retired. My mom passed away 20 years ago last month (she never knew 9/11), and we hadn’t been…

July 14, 2021

Harvest Hosts

After a year, we are back in lovely Sebasco, on Casco Bay, in Maine. You might remember our visit last summer, during a short lull in Covid, but still in the midst of the pandemic. We were masked when away from the home, we never dined at restaurants inside. We insisted on any visitors being tested before coming. A lot has changed for the good since then. Maine’s numbers are among the best in the country, and our County is among the best in Maine. Frankly, it almost feels…normal. The stores and restaurants only require masks of people who are not fully vaccinated (how that gets enforced, I have no…

May 20, 2021

ADVENTURE ONCE MORE!

After fourteen months of pandemic, the Rippers were itching to get out there again. I had been fantasizing about this trip for years, and we finally pulled the trigger on a 3-day hut-to-hut bicycle ride from Grand Junction, CO to Moab, UT, earlier this month. I mentioned this ride in my post last month, Adventure Time Again?. Well, the ride was everything I hoped for, only harder! We covered 170 miles over the three days, and climbed over 9,300 feet of elevation. Two of the eight riders who started with us dropped out after Day 1. I almost wished I had joined them (not really). Day 2, which on paper,…

April 19, 2021

Adventure Time Again?

It’s been over a year, and what a year it has been. We have struggled to find topics that don’t seem insensitive to what we have all gone through, and to how many have suffered more than we. But we are beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. At least we hope that’s what we’re seeing. Gail and I are both fully vaccinated. Numbers are falling in Utah, restrictions are loosening (for better or worse), and warm weather is in sight (notwithstanding the almost 30 inches of snow the Cottonwoods received last week!), which will allow us all to spend even more time outdoors, in what…