Peacocks and Chinchillas

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Fly Away, Little Birdie

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Published on February 28, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking, IMBA TCC, LISTS.

Since Steve and I left Boulder on January 19, we spent the next 33 days learning everything we would need to know in order to become trailbuilding professionals. We traveled to or through 6 states – Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas – and logged over 2,700 miles on the IMBAru. In a nutshell, and to paraphrase McDonald’s, we’re lovin’ it. The only damper so far had nothing to do with IMBA, but rather, a young man joyriding in a borrowed Cadillac Escalade and effectively totaling our IMBAru, three days into the job. This happened in snowy and icy Prescott, Arizona. The whole situation was a bummer, as it impeded our quality training time, but after a quick jaunt back up to Denver, we were able to pick up right where we left off in Prescott. Although wintry weather (snow, rain, hail, sleet, wind, mud, you name it) did

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You Will Like My Alta Pictures

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Published on February 28, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking.

I have been using Flickr to post my pictures from our travels. I decided to categorize my pictures into “collections” by state – so far, there’s a category for Utah, Arizona, Texas and Nevada. Each state, as a category, has individual albums for each place visited. For example, the Arizona category has five albums: Black Canyon Trail Riding, Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Sonoran Desert Museum, South Mountain Trail Riding. I don’t take pictures everywhere we go, but I try to at least. I also don’t post ALL of the pictures that I take, as I decided to focus on quality over quantity. I find it overbearing to click through hundreds of pictures, rather than a tightly edited album. I still working on the editing part, but try to keep each album down to 50 or fewer pictures. Below is a gallery of my new album from Alta, featuring

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Alta Is For Lovers

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Published on February 22, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking.

Steve and I are in Alta, Utah right now, with his dad and brother as well. I love Alta. Not only because we got engaged here about a year ago, but because of the powder on the mountain even with few storms, scarce lift lines, friendly folk, and comfy lodge.We’re here for three days. Here are shots of Scott and of Steve skiing today.

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Wild Times with the Trail Care Crews

 

Links To Other Posts

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Published on February 11, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking, IMBA TCC.

Leslie and I have been contributing to the IMBA Trail Care Crew blog about our recent work, travels, and rides. I wanted to share them, as they shed some light on other adventures we’ve been having, that aren’t related to Weinermobiles, prairie dogs, and cacti! How to organize your community to get more sustainable mountain bike trails (that I wrote) The week that we did five rides in five days in Phoenix and Tucson (from Leslie) Our experience riding with a group of middle schoolers in Tucson (that I also wrote)

 

Texas, Yee-Haw!

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Published on February 11, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking.

We’ve been in Texas for the past five days, and will be here until early March. We’ve spent time in El Paso, Fort Stockton, Fredericksburg, Austin, and, starting next Monday the 15th, will make our way through Waco, Dallas, Lake Meredith, and up through the NE part of the state. I can’t say anything bad about Texas. Folks are friendly as can be, and aside from the fact that Michelle’s Obama’s food deserts have a whole new meaning to me (Sonic’s popcorn chicken do not a healthy meal make) and that Steve might be in the early stages of seasonal affective disorder because of the gray weather, I can’t complain. These are some pictures from our drive eastward through half of Texas (“Texas is so big!” said Chris). Shout out to Tim Dooley, of Dooley’s 5 10 & 25 in Fredericksburg. Tim saw us pull up in the IMBArus in

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Prairie Dogs

 

Pictures on Flickr

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Published on February 10, 2010, by in NEUTRAL.

I’ve created a Flickr account to display all of my photo albums. I try to take lots of photos of different stages of our travels — trail assessments, meetings and presentations, road trips, mountain bike rides, activities, the Oscar Meier Weinermobile. (I shot this today out of our car window in Austin.) I’m still in the process of updating my account with all of my albums to date (I have 6 or 7 albums that I’d like to share right now, a couple more every week). So come back frequently! http://www.flickr.com/photos/morganlommele

 

Oh The Places!

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Published on February 10, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking, IMBA TCC.

We’ve been on the road for three weeks now! It feels an eternity in all the good ways. Here are the wonderful corners of our great nation that we’ve set foot in over the past three weeks: View Larger Map Some of the places we expect to find ourselves over the next few months include (in this order): Bentonville, Arkansas Lake Meredith, Texas Kansas City, Missouri Salida, Colorado Omaha, Nebraska Marseilles, Illinois Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Augusta, Georgia New River Gorge, West Virginia Raystown Lake, Pennsylvnia Indianapolis, Indiana Happy travels to us!

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Thoughts

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Published on February 1, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking.

I realized last night as I was trying to fall asleep that I’ve posted a lot of pictures but no reflections on our life and work on the road. All in all, we love it. We love the travel, the characters we meet, the fast pace of the work days and the relaxed pace of the off days. A big part of this job is knowing “how to travel.” How to feed yourself on the road in a healthy and sustainable way (to sustain your well-being that is!). How to find a hotel in the middle of the desert. How to pack and unpack seven times a week. How to get along with strangers. We can do all this, so check to that. Another part is learning and then teaching the substance, i.e. starting and maintaining a strong mountain bike club that advocates, build trails and has fun; how to

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