sd1000 photos

Thank you John. We are cheaters. Deer in the middle of Colorado Springs

Hey it's Tim!!
Velodrome. The racers were all business, no smiles. Racing's work, doncha know!!

I had no idea Colorado looked like this. I was stunned. I coulda sworn I got a better picture. I SAW A BUTTE!!!! Well, not a real one, but a poser Colorado butte. You have no idea how excited I was.
Prison. After I took this photo, I saw three inmates riding on a golf-cart-thingy, one of em waving at me. So I waved back. Then the other two waved, and so I grinned and gave them a thumbs up. I don't know why I did that. I don't think you're supposed to give incarcerated criminals grins or thumbs ups. I'm pretty sure they're going to punch the first cyclist they see when they get out.

I've seen a lot of these lately. Backroom of the grocery store, in search of toilet. Lotsa rocks.

Blue Mesa Reservior
Bikes at the Grocery in Gunnison. There were more before, I swear.

Got rained on for 30 miles today. A bit harrowing. Take all those situations I ranted about and add water. It was still fun.
Before the deluge. Lightening. Over the hill, before it started raining, I was really sleepy as I coasted down. Kinda scary when you're nodding off going 35 mph. Rain woke me up.
Sky. His bike makes me SICK. More on that later.

Cut short on time. Again. Now to explore town. Fare thee well.

Steven

Rebel photos

Dunno if I ever mentioned, but I'm carrying 2 cameras. An old 1st gen Canon Rebel and a little SD1000 with dirt in the lens. These are my Rebel photos, I'll post the other ones in the next post just to confuse you.
Colorado springs sunset. Monarch Pass. I took another picture with a flash so you can see me better, by why on earth would I post that when I look like the biggest dork at 11,000 feet???? My point exactly.

Gunnison rodeo. If I had some extra cash, I woulda checked it out. But just riding around town was cool enough for me.

Colin and Halley!!! Crankkkk ittttt!!!!
The freezing morning ride totally took me by surprise. The Gunnison river valley was beautiful. I litterally gasped when I turned the corner and saw the thing. Blue Mesa Resevior, equally nuts. Plenty of pottys too!

I didn't thaw out till I reached the lake. But at this point, I was too freaked out by the valley to think about the cold. Of course this picture doesn't do it any justice.

Montañas!! I there's so many of them

Telluride is just around the corner.

Rambling and RANTING

I apologize again. Pictures won't upload. Internal Error. Garbage. I'm super hella pissed. Not really, but jeeze, I got lots of pics I wanna post. And stories to go along with em.



Back to me last post. I gotta catch up:



Bout that screaming: turns out it was the sprinklers going off. The girls tents had gotten soaked once, and it was coming around for another pass.



Everybody ran around in confused circles for about 10 minutes before figuring out the only decent place to sleep was on the concrete walkway up to the church entrace. I kept on moving trying to get comfortable, and the motion sensitive light kept on blinding us. I'm surprised nobody killed me just then.



We woke up and it was Saturday, Aaron took care of the hotel for everyone else, I tracked down some groceries at the awesomeness that is Safeway, and found out the bikeshop wouldn't open till 11. I had to ride more than 100 miles, so I said screw it. I walked with Billy, Becca, and Walker down to a coffee shop that Tim said was modelled after the one in the TV show "Friends." Maybe I haven't been watching enough Friends lately, but it looked nothing like it.



I said my goodbyes and wished the others luck. It definitely wasn't under the circumstances that I had expected. I walked outside at 10:00 or so, got on my bike, and rode down 115. I talked to a couple random people, and followed 115 through Florence and down 50 all the way to Howard, instead of following the route from Pueblo. It turned out alright. I shaved about 30 miles. The roads were kinda sketch (I will rant about drivers as soon as I get the facts down), but I made it to Howard by 6:00. A lot faster than I was expecting to do 105 miles through the mountains.



I searched around for Colin and Halley for a good 45 minutes. I coudn't find them anywhere (there were only 2 campgrounds and a church). I had to ride a mile down the road to find a cellphone signal, and sent a couple text messages (coudn't talk, even with 3 bars, dur). After a lot of riding back an forth, I got some soup and had a cold, delicious meal in front of the campground. 7:30 or so, they rolled up, to my extreme delight, and I jumped up and down and waved my arms and the like. We camped at the Sugarbrush campground that night for 18 bucks. Delicious shower.



Next morning, woke up at 6 or so, went through Salida in hopes of finding a bike shop to grab a tube. Colin and Halley some breakfast there, so I kept on rolling. I found a shop at 8:45, and they opened and 9, so I said screw it, if I get a flat, I'll just cry about it.



And I rode up, and up, and up. And my knees started bothering me, so I stuck on one of the knee braces. And my achilles started bothering me so I just kept on riding.



It was wierd because I kept on feeling like I had a brake pad rubbing or had a small child stuffed in my pannier or something because I was going slow for no obvious reason. Then I realized it was because I was going UPHILL. Welcome to Colorado. You don't even notice when you're going uphill, except for the fact that you're going really slow. I think it might be because of the mountains or the air or something, but either way, I always have to check the grade by looking to my left. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm really going up or what.



So I kept on going up, freaking out when I saw snow on the peaks, getting a little sweaty, getting a little cold, but not really getting tired of the fact that I'd been doing 6-7 mph for the past hour or two. I forget how long I climbed, but it was 20 miles or something. I had been spinning in 2-1 the entire time, and my knee really started bothering me when I knew the end was near, and I dropped into the granny. 200 feet later, I turned a corner and was at the top and cursing the fact that I'd nearly made it in the middle ring, without knowing it. What the duece. Monarch Pass, 11-thousand-something feet. Weeee!!!!



There were tons of semi-semi's pulling horse trailers all the way up. They were mostly assholes. More on that in my upcoming rant.



I was expecting to get some nice altitude sickness, but yargh, no cigar. I saw a couple spots a couple times, but that's about it. Oh, and my hands were kinda shaky when I was handing over some change for a snack at the top. The cashier prolly thought I was about to rob the place.



Make a sweet tomato-and-cheese sangwich, look at all the tourists, talk to a Harley guy, look at the BMW biker who looks like a ninja (as do most BMW guys) , and get ready to BOMB THE CRAP OUT OF THAT DOWNHILL THAT I JUST UPHILLED.



Surprise. No bombing. The wind killed everything. The downhill after Monarch was quite dissapointing, only hit 35 or something- with some pedalling. I later learned that the wind goes down the mountain in the morning and up the mountain in the afternoon, which is probably the opposite of what you'd really want. So the 45 miles into Gunnison were not nearly as easy as the all-downhill-elevation-profile suggested. In fact, they were really hard (sweet 15 mph headwinds), and totally not downhill.



But Gunnison was sweet. Really cool feel. Lots of bikes. The rack at the grocery store was full. There was a rodeo going on- Catleman's Days- as the wrought iron text proclaimed. That explained all the horsee trailers from Texas. Jerks. City park was sweet. Sat and read Kerouac and ate till Colin and Halley showed.



We ran around looking for a place to stay for a while. The girl at Tomichi cycles (I found a bike shop!)(I found a girl in a bike shop!)(The bike shop was pretty cool!) had told me bout some BLM land west of town but we didin't really want to worry about BEARS and whatnot. So we scoured the town. We found a church, Colin talked to the pastor, and he said it was cool, just "watch out for the sprinklers at 3am."



Sprinklers? No problem. We'll just rain fly it. In fact, we found a spot in the front lawn that didn't have any sprinklers, so we were golden.



During the night, some drunk guy half-woke us up when he stumbled by yelling something like "FUCKIN CYCLISTS...CAMPING....CYCLISTS...PRAISE THE LORD....PRAISE JESUS....MOTHERFUCKERS..." I was too tired to be really scared, but it was a litte unnerving. A little while later, I was woken up by the same voice saying "Hey, yall seen a guy going past here yelling? I need to find him before the cops do" (The police station was 2 blocks south) I forced myself into conciousness enough to say "Heyyyyy....lemmme get my bearings....alright, yeah, he went north." "Alright, thanks buddy" "No problem dude, no problem." It musta been his brother. Back to sleep in 11 seconds flat.



Woke up at 6. Tent is wet. Feet are wet. Oh crap, bike is wet, oh crap, no rain covers. Crawled out into the cold (40 degrees or so), and wet. Looked for some dry clothes. I had a dry jersey and shorts. Wet shoes, helmet, socks (normally don't wear socks, but when I'm about to freeze to death...). Garbage. Shivering all over the place. Took forever packing up the stuff, miserable as I was. Colin and Halley were done way before me, and took off down the road in search of nourishment.



I got all my junk ready, and headed to the bathroom in the park to get some water and take my morning dump. OH MY GOSH IT HAS HEAT. I changed, ate, dried off my socks, ate some more, dried off my socks some more, piled on some more clothes, then headed off, still freezing and wet down the road. I spent at least 45 minutes in that bathroom.



I can't describe the ensuing ride without pictures. I'll get em up as soon as possible, fore I forget about everything hopefully.



Montrose.



That's where I posted from yesterday (Sunday 08-13). Apparently some bikes had been stolen in the past couple weeks. Locked mine up around back behind a tree. I was still nervous the entire time.



Colin and Halley showed up. Colin had been stung by a bee. His lip was the size of Pike's Peak. 14'er? I coudn't stop laughing. I felt really bad about that, but it was SOOOOO BIGGGGG!!!! I thought he might accidently knock someone over with it. Okay, I'm done. I guess insta-Karma will give me one in the lip tomorrow.



Went outside and met a guy by the name of Sky that had ridden from San Fran, started the 2nd of July, and was a complete genius. His bike weighed something like 40 pounds with all his gear. It was completely sick. He was nice enough to pull everything out of his bags (only rear panniers, mind you) and give me the run-down. He may have saved my life. More on that later. THANK YOU SKY.



While I was talking to Sky, a young guy on a nice road bike rolled up, pulled a few books out of his pack to stick em in the return slot, and said hey. A minute later, he had offered us a place to sleep, showers, laundry, and homemade dinner. Scott and Jenny. We went to their house down the road at 6:00. It was the most random act of extreme generosity I've come across on the trip. Pizza and salad were amazing. They even gave us desert! And beer! Turns out they had done a little touring of their own....



I STRONLY DISLIKE LIBRARY INTERNET TIME LIMITS. THEY MAKE ME SLIGHTLY FRUSTRATED.

***okay, back. I'm back. Screwed the system!!! yeah!!!

Yeah, so Scott and Jenny had ridden "5000 for Thirst." They made a bike sideways horshoe from Oregon, out to Michigan, down to Utah. They even had a sweet map to show for it (yargh I forgot to photograph). 5000 miles!!! ON A TANDEM!!! I was told those things were Divorce Machines, but they seem to have faired just fine. They raised $9000 for a charity: which one I can't remember, but I'm prettttttty sure it had to do with thirst. We exchanged crazy stories listening to Dave Brubeck, and crashed on the couches and bed.

We left early again, for Ridgway and Telluride for the night. Again, I need some dagum pics to show how suhweet it is.

But in the meantime, I can RANT!!!! And it's all the way at the bottom of this post, so nobody's going to read it!!! SWWEEET. I'll just make it super obvious.

>>>>>RANT OF AGES<<<<<<

Okay, here we go.

Cars suck. No wait, different rant.

Colorado cars suck. Actually, the trucks, SUVs, MASSIVE campers the size of 747s, little campers the size of 767s, and some of the cars SUCK. To prime you on how much they suck, let me tell you about a few of the pickles I've found myself in in the past 3 days, all occuring on windy, narrow 2 lane roads, with vehicle speeds between 50-70 mph:

• SUV oncoming, panel truck passes the SUV, swerving far into my lane, no shoulder on my side, I stop on side and prepare to jump over guardrail. Panel truck gets back on his side with 20 feet to spare. I flip the bird.
• SUV/truck approaching rear, another SUV pops out from behind him to pass, I'm stuck on shoulder, cringing as they both roar by at the same time, with little room to spare. Sometimes one's hauling a camper. One time, there was a truck in the oncoming lane, leaving the passing SUV about 25 feet to spare
• This one happens constantly on HWY 50: oncoming traffic, hugenasty semi approaching rear, I watch it all the way in my mirror, he gives me 1 foot to spare, I jump off the road, cursing
• Monarch Pass, all day: Texas horse trailers do the same thing
• Road to Sapinero: fast 2 lane, me chuggin uphill at 8 mph, I hear some lady scream "GET OFF THE ROAD" The shoulder is some fine loose stuff, I sink if I ride in it. There are 2 SUVs oncoming, I figure the lady can wait 10 seconds to pass safely. They pull up next to me. Dad driving, Mom sticking her torso out the window, waving her arm at me. She shrieks "WE'VE GOT A CAMPER BEHIND US, DON'T HAVE HAVE ANY RESPECT??" No. I do not have any respect for your rich, wastefull, impatient-tourist-ass who can't wait 10 seconds to pass. All your hubby has to do is hit the brake, the hit the accelerator 30 seconds later. The worst that can happen is a toe cramp. The worst that can happen to me is I can pull off the road into the soft crap, sink in with my touring tires, and end up laying in the road for your camper to squash me. Please go to Yosimite and be devoured by a bear. I wanted to give her a digit, but instead I gave her a wave and inadvertantly swerved into the soft crap. Yay for me.
• I'd say it was just toursits, but here's one for you: Oncoming cars, 70 mph. Big white truck with muddin tires pulls to pass. I'm in wide shoulder. Muddin man pulls so his perfectly clean noisemakers are riding the white line a couple feet from me, staring the whole time. It's people like him that make me want to carry a brick. Or an RPG. I couldn't resist the finger. Turns out he did the same thing to Colin and Halley, who where a ways behind me.

Other crap that has happened lately:

• Colin and Halley told me bout this one: most dangerous turn in the Rockies (that's a hyperbole) , theres a sign right before it that says "MOTORCYCLISTS USE EXTREME CAUTION..." and a million of those arrow sign things. Oncoming cars. Little sports car pulls around to pass on the outside lane, heading straight for Halley. Apparently she would have been done for if the dude hadn't seen her and swerved back in. Idiot.
• On Thursday, a cyclist was killed on 50, riding on the other side of the road we took into Ridgway today. Turns out some genius parents let their 14-year-old drive, the kid hit the cyclist, made a U-turn, and drove away. The rider was from Illinois. That's all I know. All I know is people is idiots.

Bottom line is, most of these here situations could be averted by wider shoulders, more driver patience, less malice in the hearts of a few idiots, and eradicating campers from the face of the earth. THEY CALL THEM TENTS. Why would you drive something the size of a tourbus in order to enjoy nature?

Rant over. Please comment on this annonymously if this offends you or if you agree or if you know of a way to eradicate campers from the face of the earth.

Let me just say that I'm thoroughly blown away by Colorado, and am happy to deal with the ridiculousness in order to ride these roads. I'll miss it when I go, and I hope to come back one day. These towns are just awesome.

Now I gotta check out Telluride, which seems to be the most awesome of all.

Telluride!!! ,CO

Steven

Colorado, no pics

Sorry, no pics today. This fancy pants library has everything except nice librarians and USB ports. I've got some crazy ones and some funny ones.

Getting to Colorado

The craziness with Johnathan didn't end with him getting shipped off to surgery. John had to be there a couple days to recover from surgery. He's fine, except for all the stitches and pain meds he's on. He's flying home from Colorado Springs, CO to Murphy, NC, as soon as possible.

So how'd we make it to CO Springs?? Well, to put it simply, we cheated... The nastiness happened on the 8th. I waited for the rest of the group to catch up until about 1PM on the 9th- laying around reading, catching up on push-ups, catching up on sleep, waking up to cheerleading practice 20 feet away, posting on le blog, etc.

I talked to quite a few people who helped us with the disaster. Jennifer, the EMT offered us the use of her house, Art offered to let us stay in his apartment, and John Gould (volunteer ambulance driver) offered to lift the kids from Garden City back to Leotia. A few more people came by just to see if everything was okay. It was kinda ridiculous how friendly and caring these people were. The maintenance guy (didn't get his name) offered to let us store equipment in the boiler room of the hospital.

When I went to meet the group, I ran into Blair and Osta riding eastbound from SF. We spent the rest of the day sitting around, halfway trying to figure out what would happen with John, Helen, and Sean, and the other half wasting time in the pool and on the park bench. We really couldn't do all that much, since Johnathan's ability to travel was kinda up in the air.

It was determined that we'd ride to Pueblo then hitch a ride to CO Springs to see Johnathan off, check out the superchurch they've got over there, and maybe climb Pike's Peak and otherwise enjoy the supposedly supercool city.

I was kinda stressed at this point. I had called Colin and Halley to see where they were at, but hadn't received a reply all day. I figured I would ride to Pueblo with the group, say fare thee well one last time, then ride off into the sunset.

To make matters much worse, I realized the pain that'd been bothering me for the past couple days was actually my Achilles tendon. Blair had the same problem a couple weeks ago, and her solution was a few overdoses of ibuprofen and a couple days of rest. I didn't have a couple days to rest, but I did cave in and go get some off-brand ibuprofen (Advil gives me some nasty chills). Blair's dad (doctor) says it will reduce swelling, speeding healing.

I was able to relax that evening. We had a little party on the picnic bench in the middle of the park. Nobody seemed to mind. Everybody went to sleep and carefully reminded themselves to stay at least 15 feet away from the shelter when they got up in the middle of the night to pee. I forgot, of course.

Some ridiculous winds woke me up a few times during the night. We woke on the 10th (the day we were supposed to be in Pueblo) at 8:00AM to 25mph winds coming out of the SW. Gusts at 30 mph or so. Wonderful. Nobody felt much like riding. With these winds, we'd be chugging along at 8mph at full steam. And we had 200 miles to Pueblo. Aaron checked the winds for the next couple days: same or worse, even at night. My Achilles was not feeling up to 200 miles of headwinds. Billy was in worse condition than me- knees and achilles.

Blair and Osta rode off to brave the winds. Blair offered me both of her knee braces in case I ran into more knee trouble down the road. I took one and left her the other. Thanks Blair!

At noon, after hours of indecision, it was decided that we'd have a race. Girls vs. Boys. Ride like mad, thumb a ride, hijack a plane, whatever. Whoever got there first would buy the other party drinks. We got into our huddles and schemed. We were going to split into 2 groups of 2 and hitch it.

Then I remembered John Gould's offer. I gave him a call, explained the situation, not really expecting him to be willing to make a 400 mile round trip for us, and he told me he'd be there in 10 minutes. I was hoping we could fit everyone in, but he said he only had room for 4. I rode down to the gas station where the guys were chomping on food and the girls were accosting pickup drivers. I heard Telula say "...suckers," and I half-laughed, half-cried for them.

Once everything was packed in, we headed down the street. John said, "you know, we could probably fit a couple more in here." We saw them turning the corner in front of us- rideless. After a little inexplicable hesitation, we drove up behind them, Aaron stuck his head out the window, and said "Hey guys!" Telula saw Aaron's grin, the bikes in the back of the pickup, and she gave us the finger.

After a little explanation and, again inexplicable hesitation, Becca and Telula agreed to take the ride.

It was insanely weird to to hurtle along the highway at 80mph without my helmet on. We passed up a few Trans-Am'ers We stopped at a gas station to fill up, and I helped push a van that had stalled out 12 feet from the pump. "Ethanol" said the driver.

Aparently, a lady at the counter called us cheaters. Aaron had sworn up and down that he'd never take a ride other than one directly North or South. No West miles. I didn't care. I don't care. I previously mentioned that I'd take a ride 100 miles over Kansas, no qualms about it. It's what my Achilles would have wanted.

Down the road, hills appeared out of nowhere, Pike's peak loomed in the distance, and my heart raced. John dropped us off at a gas station on the east side of town, where we filled up his Ram turbodeisel and thanked him profusely. He gave us 6 hours of his time, at the drop of a dime. Ridiculous.

After grabbing some eats and fixing my flat rear tire, we rode into town to check out a park that we hoped to camp in, and instead found a bunch of "NO CAMPING" signs and a bunch of guys on fixies racing around the velodrome. As we watched the race end, I checked my phone, and got a voicemail from Colin and Halley. They had lost their phone, and the only reason they were able to call me was that I had left my phone number in my last message. I talked to em, and they said they'd be in Howard, CO the next evening. That meant I had 150 miles to go the next day- through the Rockies, at altitude for the first time in my life, with a still swollen Achilles. Fun.

A funky guy named Tim on an old beat up Specialized rockhopper said hey and ended up leading us on a "shortcut" to downtown. Along the way, Telula flatted. It took 20 minutes to fix it as Tim tried to help out. Fixing a tire is a one man job. The other hands just collect brake dust. We finally got downtown, had an after-last-call Laughing Lab pint at a local brewery/ bar, then looked for a place to stay. Tim gave us all kindsa info, but we ended up taking the easiest suggestion and walking across the street to a church.

The church was right on main street, and we saw 4 raccoons sneaking around, but we halfway-hid behind a Jersey barrier, locked up bikes and put the food in a tree. The guys slept in the open while the girls set up tent.

I woke up that night to the sound of falling water, and Telula yelling, "NO! NO NO! NO NO NO NO!!!"


Next time I get a comp:

1. What the heck happened to Telula
2. Finding Howard
   
3. Nearly getting hit by a dozen near idiots
   

AND HOLY MESS I GOTTA GET OFF IN 30 SECONDS OR THEY'LL TAKE MY TOES.

steven

More bloody pics

Sorry, they're a bit outa order.

That's a little of it. They hosed off the rest 'fore I could get a pic.Thank you Helen. I don't think me rubbing his hand while they poked him with a bunch of IVs and syringes would have had quite the same effect.
Hey Ma...
Weeeeeee....

Thank you John!! Volunteer ambulance driver. Great guy, free ride.
Okay, out of order, I guess I did get a pic.
Thumbs up. Johnathan's a trooper.
Into the machine.

For future and past reference, this system doesn't do the best job with formatting, and it's a pain to upload pics. So sorry if it dont' look purty, blame Mr. Google.

Gotta run. Going back in time again today. Colorado maybe?

Steven

08-09-08, 12:10, I guess they're nice at this Lib.

Leoti, KS

There's Blood Everywhere (no seriously, bloody images)

So last night was pretty nuts for us. Really nuts.

Leoti, KS, 11:30. Only have 30 minutes.

Last night we slept under a metal shelter in a city park next to a hospital, Sean, Johnathan, Helen, and I. Fettecinni alfredo, fried veggies, life was good, went to bed happy.

2:30 AM, woke up slowly to the noise of Sean waking Helen up. My brain was barely working, but Sean said "Hey Steven, Johnathan's bleeding, can you go to the hospital to get somebody to come out here?" I looked over at Johnathan, who was kneeled over with Sean at his side, was dripping blood onto the concrete. His face and forehead were shiny with blood.

He was almost delerious, and shaking. I forget exactly what he was saying, but he had no idea why he was bleeding, and he and Sean were worried. After taking a quick look, I didn't think it could be that bad, since I had seen my brother Richard destroy himself on some dirtjumps, blood spurting out of his lip, and end up okay. I fumbled around for a shirt in my bag and half ran/half shuffled into the hospital.

I tried to explain the situation to the nurses, even though I didn't quite know what was going on myself. Helen had beat me to it, and they already had a wheelchair out there. They wheeled him in, Sean following. Helen felt lightheaded, so I stayed with her for a minute, then headed inside with John's wallet.

They let us watch as they cleaned him up. We all cringed as the nurse said, "Oh that's bad." C'mon. I didn't get a good photo of his face, but he had a huge gash from the top of his nose to the base of it, and a gash on top of his head, like he'd been whacked by a rock or something.

The cleanup took a long time, and then they wheeled him in for a CAT scan, which took forever, then back to the ER room for the doctor to stitch him up. In the middle of the stitching, the doctor got a phone call, and, holding the phone with a dressing, recieved the news that John's cartilage was broken in a few places, and his maxi-sumthin (I think the bone above his nose) was broken and was protruding 2 mm into his sinus.

He finished sewing up his forehead (7 stitches), then called an ambulance to ship him to Garden City (?), 40/60 miles SE, where the nearest surgeon would fix his face. They had room for two passengers, so Helen and Sean left at around 5:30AM.

During all that waiting during the op, John had regained some of his bearings, and told us that he had got up to pee right before he found himself bleeding on the ground. Looking at the trails and puddles of blood, it looks like he got up to pee, leaning against the metal shelter, turned to go back to bed, hit his nose on a low hanging, nasty piece of sheet metal, his head on the corner, fell on the ground, then wandered over to Sean and woke him up. The sheet metal actually went into his nose and broke the cartilage.

It still seems a little surreal. I've been holding down the fort, reading Kerouac. Some local cheerleaders came to practice under the shelter, so I asked them to watch over my stuff and headed here. The slow group stayed 25 miles back in Scott City (arrived last night at 11p or something!) and they're one their way over here right now. When they get here and we talk to Johnathan, we'll come up with a gameplan.

Johnathan's pretty messed up, we're worried this might be the end of the trip for him. Sean has offered to stay back with John a week while he recovers, but it might be too bad.

I'm playing it by ear, but I may need to jet in the next couple of days. I'm trying to contact Colin and Halley, who we haven't seen in quite a while. We'll see.

Kansas Pics

Oooh.
Uck.
Sorry, terrible photos. Dunno how I managed that one.

There's no way to capture the beauty of this place in a photo. It doesn't even look that nice with sweat-smeared sunglasses on. But when you take them off, and see the unframed landscape, it's nuts.