New years resolution: bike better more, make more music, kick food justice ass, be a better activist, tell more people how special they are. Maybe not only write about bike rides?
For Christmas I got a crash course in down hill skiing from Uncle Blair, and then skied into a cabin in the woods to join him and his lady, and d bones. I became one with pizza and french fries and slid down the hill occasionally in control, while Derek tested the limits of snow biking. Although it was really cold and windy, the scenery unfolding around us was too amazing to get dispirited.
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| Looking back at where we started |
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| the cabin compound |
And knitting. This winter marked the start of a ladies crafting night, which has been a breath of fresh air. There's something very special about getting ladies together to sit around and laugh and realize we all go through the same ridiculous stuff. In what has been a challenging integration into this mountain town, these nights make me feel a whole lot better.
After New Years Adam, Derek, and I hopped in the car and headed south to ride the black canyon trail, where I didn't take many pictures because I was pushing my bike along exposed hillsides of cactusy death.
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| dorky sequence of one of the rare unexposed sections |
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| Adam and Derek had fun (I smiled a couple times and tried to recall how much I liked riding) |
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| This picture belies the full experience of having guns being shot all around you because this is where people ride their ATVs to shoot their guns at shit. Pop, pop, bratatatatatatat, pop. Another reason I hate guns... |
Waking up before sunrise we rolled out of our camping spot never to see it in the daylight. I wondered if it was pretty or if it was like the scene out of Wristcutters where the couple wakes up after a night sleeping on the beach, only to realize the "sand" was made of spent hypodermic needles, medical waste, and broken glass. I did see some broken glass in the light of my headlamp... The great horned owls sounded nice though all night.
After dropping Derek off at the airport the next morning for his new year adventure, Adam and I entered into the retirement world of the city that never should have existed: Sun City, in the northwestern corner of the Phoenix sprawl. In Sun City they line the streets with orange trees, loaded with oranges so bitter and caustic you can't eat them. Then the rind leaves an indelible sappy glue on your hands to leave a bitter reminder of the fake food. Obviously, the elderly cruising by on their golf carts enjoy the oranges purely from afar.
I didn't take many pictures of Sun City, mainly because I was in shock. On my way to pee in the walgreens bathroom, I noticed the store had everything young people would use on sale. Tampons, condoms, pregnancy tests. They must sit on the shelves and expire. We did go to a thrift store plaza, where I bought some plastic storage containers from a matching set, which had probably at one time not that long ago held some old lady's makeup or other oddities that needed sorting. It was truly like there was a conveyor belt from the retirement community to the stores. Full sets of really nice stuff, and random themes from people who had spent a life time collecting stuff with paper roosters glued to them.
Finally, on our way back we stopped at a hippie art commune in the desert that fore some reason Adam had heard of. They like circles, bells, and apparently The Band. I secretly wanted to join them and live their life. In their vision for a better world, they're doing something right.
Last: I got over my desert mountain biking trauma and started riding Sedona, remembering that bikes are fun.
