Watched most of the Republican Convention and it was nice to see the Republicans rolling out their attack machine in such a proud way. The media talked about how the Democratic Convention was going to be about catharsis for dejected Hillary supporters….I think the Republican Convention has been about catharsis for people sick of Obama getting so much love from the media. They were so sick of this ‘liberal bias’ that they felt the need to go out and be as mean spirited and factually incorrect as an adolescent throwing a temper tantrum.

*She championed the bridge to nowhere
*She herself is being investigated for corruption
*80% of all Americans would receive a tax cut under the dems and those people she mentioned would be in that group.
*Fiscal responsibility?? Alaska is all about receiving pork barrel spending and she doesn’t mind a little deficit spending

I thought the dems did a decent to good job of keeping absolute falsehood out of their speeches and just settled for exaggerations of the truth or subtle suggestions of rumor. I don’t know what’s worse, the plausible deniability that that allow,s or the unapologetic embrace of inaccuracy. Coming from a speaker that doesn’t believe all that much in science(read evolution/global warming) …I guess we should have seen it coming.

I have always been better at posting when we are on the open road, versus when we are staying with friends. When being hosted, there’s usually so much to do that it’s easy to lose track of the “work”. Scott and I have been staying with Tristan for about a week now and we’ve built up to the point where we can do some major catch-up. Hence some new blog features (the “Road Trip Archive” on the right side) and lots of new image content including title bar pictures. Lots of writing forthcoming.

Before we were being lazy at Tristans, we were sprinting hard to get to Jackson. After we leave, we’re going to be sprinting for a week or so in order to get to Portland. I think we’re both grateful to get this chance to write about the stuff we’ve experienced over the past few weeks in greater detail.

Over the last couple of days, I have been passively paying attention to some of the civil rights issues surrounding the Democratic Convention. While there seemed to be a number of troubling situations, none rose to the level of setting me off.

A Few Examples:
* Many police officers not wearing any type of identification
* Many protesters being detained and even arrested having committed no crime
* Reports of police using violent and aggressive tactics to detain peaceful protesters
* Limiting permitted protests to areas far away from the convention

Each of these ‘offenses’ drew a frown, a few seconds of disappointed thought and quite a bit of curiosity. I thought, “why can’t there be a way for protests [which have such a historical place in our society] to happen in a way that allows for both security and adherence to the fundamental right to assemble.

This morning I came across a blog post that greatly disturbed me and, in my opinion, illustrates behavior that is completely unjustifiable. The author is Glenn Greenwald and I have mentioned before how much I like his work. His writing and experiences highlight what I think are substantive and very real consequences to not caring about more “abstract issues” like warrant less spying.

Reports of -what I would consider to be widespread governmental awareness - people’s identities, whereabouts, and routes of travel in the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis are not getting the attention of the Main Stream Media. These are normal people who plan peaceful protests about the subjects that move them. The idea that governmental agencies know enough about these individuals to track them down riding their bikes at night, force entry into their homes and actually get warrants to do these things… show either how out of whack our system has gotten or how far out of whack my view of this country’s ideals is.

If you missed the hyperlinks above, his story is here

Hey everybody -

Quick notes to those of you who wonder if we’re still alive. We’ve been dealing with camera/photograph transfer issues, I’ve been stuck with writers block in trying to catch up with all that has happened and we’ve both been seduced by the comforts of home as we spend a week here in Jackson Hole with Tristan(Brendan’s Cousin).

After a couple days feeding my politics and baseball needs all at the same time with Sox Yanks coverage AND a national convention…I went mountain biking with Tristan. Now, I’ve enjoyed cycling as long as I can remember, but mountain biking has always been this enigma in the biking world for me. It always seemed like something I could do, would love to do, and would do quite well. Oh boy….I was looking through rose colored lenses! Tristan took me on a local intermediate trail that soon had my heart pounding out of my chest in a way I don’t think I’ve experienced for years. Breathing became a very conscious and seemingly voluntary endeavor as we made our way up the second big hill. Meeting Tristan about halfway up, he declared “This is where I always walk”. Now in my diminished mental state, this made total sense to me. I mean, who in the hell could ever pedal a bike up this hill. The section we were about to walk was very rocky and incredibly steep. Bottom line is that I was very pleased to have been saved by this “we walk it” section. At the top, I announced that I needed a breather. Not intending to gross any of you out, but I think a representative illustration of the shape I was in can be the face that I wasn’t able to properly spit out a mouthful of dirt and dust, nor was I able to properly drink water from my camelbak.

Moments later I hear heavy breathing and mechanical sounds coming from the trail…. Out of nowhere, these two guys come huffing and puffing over this hill…pedaling! It was at that moment I knew that he had meant, “this is where I walk it when I have city folk like yourself with me!”

The rest of the trip was a lot less hilly and I found myself more and more able to anticipate the uphills and thus let myself go a bit more on the downhill slopes. Save a bruised ego and one trip over the handlebars, I would have to label it as a success. The views from the ridge overlooking Jackson at sunset and the incredible fun that the downhills provided were outstanding.

Off for a weekend of hiking, camping, and clamboring in the Grand Tetons. Can’t wait

So, I’m OK and the bike is OK, but I had a scary little date with the pavement a few weeks ago.

Scott and I were taking a long, straight road through Wyoming on our way to Colorado, and the sun was going down. Scott was leading, ahead of me probably by only 20 yards or so. All of a sudden I notice on my left peripheral vision- a buck. He look suspicious, so I slowed down the bike a little bit and tried to keep my eye on him as I drove past. This was mistake number one- even though I’ve been around these animals all my life, I didn’t plan for the inevitable other deer. And so she appeared- when I turned to look ahead, she was darting across the road, between Scott and myself. If you can visualize how small a 20-yard space is at 60 miles an hour, you can imagine how close this deer was to the front of my bike. I was totally going to crash into this animal.

I slammed the brakes, and then made mistake number two- in my panic, I must have leaned over to avoid hitting the doe. Maybe that worked, maybe it wasn’t necessary, but either way the bike immediately started fishtailing. I missed the doe, but was too unstable and the bike rolled onto its left side. Sparks were flying everywhere around me as I dragged along the road. This was also the moment when my brain exploded.

After a moment, I separate from the machine and begin rolling down the road. Just want to take a moment here to praise Firstgear, the company that made my jacket- I tumbled down the highway at about 50 miles per hour and barely felt it. I didn’t bruise my elbows nor did I tear my skin. That shit WORKS. Fortunately the road was completely straight and I stayed in my lane. Slowly I came to a stop and took inventory. I felt fine, but I could still see the bike sliding down the road in front of me, throwing sparks everywhere, and I was pissed.

Scott loops back to see if I’m dead, and we go see how the bike did. We took a video of this moment- if we cut it down to something interesting we’ll post it sometime.

Turns out the bike was mostly fine. Some bad damage to the saddlebags and some of my gear was the worst of it. The freeway bars I bought to protect the motorcycle did a stand-up job of taking the damage. I can’t believe it survived as well as it did. I can’t believe I survived as well as I did. There was hardly a scratch. I’ve got some bruises but my jacket and jeans were amazing. And the jeans were from H&M if you can believe it.

The shoes though, well….

All in all, I feel really lucky. Both I and the bike came out with no damage that duct tape couldn’t fix.

After leaving Sturgis, Scott and I did a little camping in the Black Hills wilderness. The Black Hills were beautiful, truly an oasis in the relatively monotonous surrounding South Dakota lands. We were a little stressed out from the Sturgis experience and looking forward to some rest and relaxation.

Two things of note happened. The first is that, after noting as we were turning in that this was “bear country”, Scott and I paced our food somewhere inaccessible. But that didn’t stop me from almost crapping my pants when I heard something BIG sniffing around outside my tent. We joke that, in his tent Scott is like a nice tasty treat inside an easy to open wrapper. Wasn’t so funny just about then though. Fortunately whatever it was, it left without incident. Phew! Probably just a Chupacabra!

The second thing that happened is Scott and I got chiggered. Now, I’ve never dealt with chiggers before. Ticks, sure. Mosquitoes of course. But these little mothers are apparently invisible tick/mosquito hybrids- they wait in the grass to jump onto you, then burrow into your skin and leave you with itchy bites. We didn’t even know we got Chiggered until a day or so later when we each saw about 75-100 red bites on our bodies. They itched like crazy.

And even then, we didn’t know what they were until we got to Denver and someone in the know filled us in. I wonder what other beasties are out there that no one has told us about.

Usually, when you click on the “Read More…” link, you get more text. This time if you click, you will be treated to a view of our horrible chiggering, which includes a partial view of Scott’s ass. Proceed with caution.

Keep reading…

It kept happening. At gas stations, at campgrounds, at restaurants, people would see the bikes and our direction of travel and ask, “You going to Sturgis?”

Our response was always different but the same vein ran throughout, and that was “We have no idea what you are talking about.” Let’s be clear- we’ve heard of the Sturgis Bike Rally in a general sense. We know it exists. But as far as where or when it is or why we would go there, we’ve got nothing.

And so we came to the Badlands of South Dakota on Tuesday, August 5th, and ran into a few bikers on top of one of those crazy Badlands formations. They filled us in- apparently Strugis was going on THAT week, and it was just beyond Rapid City. Unbelievable. We had wandered into the biggest bike Rally in the US completely by accident. Talk about spontaneous road tripping. As far as why we would want to go, we were told it was the craziest party ever. Everyone spoke in vague terms (a warning we should have heeded), but in general it sounded like a can’t miss event. Our minds were made up- we were going to Sturgis. By accident.

So we got on our bikes, made our way through the Badlands, and headed towards Rapid City and beyond. Our biker friends told us about a concert ground called the Buffalo Chip where you could party, watch the show and set up camp on top of it all. That was our plan. But the closer to Sturgis we got, the more ominous the weather became. Black clouds, lightning and thunder, it was looking like we needed shelter and fast. It was also becoming fast apparent that our plans were falling through- why pay 60 bucks to get into a venue if the show and party are going to be rained out anyway?

There was another problem. There were 500,000 bikers migrating to the area that week. There isn’t available lodging for 50 miles. By this point we are driving through the streets of Sturgis with no plan to get out of the approaching lightning storm. We’re totally screwed.

Then we see them- lawns. Lawns with tents. The fine people of Sturgis are renting out their lawn space. We pick a house, I approach the owner, a nice guy by the name of Bill, and by the time the rain starts we are (relatively) safe and sound in our shelters. It was just what we needed, and felt like a blessing, but unfortunately it was our last drop of good karma for the next several days.

One of the great blessings of this trip has been all of the friends who have been willing to host us along the way. Our sincere thanks go out to everyone who have let us invade their spaces. The further west we go, though, and the more our friend well dries up, it seems to us that we’ve got only one way to keep that trend going- making new friends.

We tried this once before, driving around in Michigan. It was spur of the moment- we were exploring what seemed like an empty dirt road and came upon a farmhouse. It seemed like some clearings along this dirt road would have made a decent campground, so I walked up to the farmhouse to see if I could charm the inhabitants into allowing us to set up someplace where we’d be out of their hair. Unfortunately, no one was home, so our exercise was a bust. But we gave ourselves points for trying.

Our next effort came In St. Paul, after the Twins game in Minneapolis. By now we had improved on our strategy- in addition to making sure there were humans to talk to, we decided a soft sell might work a bit better. Make some friends first. Have a nice conversation and get to know everybody. Then, upon mentioning we had no where to sleep, surely they would be excited to help. Foolproof!

Scott had discovered this place called “The Turf” that seemed promising, so we parked our bikes, walked in, and began the hunt. Scott started by approaching a group of people standing by the stage while I made conversation with the guys at the table next to ours. I should emphasize that this was a soft sell- we were just trying to make friends at this point. Nevertheless, neither effort was very successful. One group seemed uninterested and the other was a band from out of town. Which brings me to the fatal flaw in our plan- the bands. This bar had live music. LOUD live music. It’s very hard to convince someone you’re not a murderer when you have to scream at them in order to converse.

The rest of our efforts that night were similarly hopeless. All in all, it was another total bust. On the plus side we did have fun chatting and drinking and enjoying the music, but as far as the plan was concerned we just plain failed. Also, we realized later that between the cover and the beers, we spent 30 bucks trying to find a free alternative to a 20 dollar campsite. (At the place we did end up camping, we were treated to a local boy scout troop’s “rocket day” which was very exciting). So we came away with the following lessons:

* Only try to make friends at a place we would want to go to anyway.
* No live music.

Again though, points for trying. I figure it’s a numbers game. Unless we get hung up on the defeats, eventually we shall have glorious shining success.

It happened again!!! Vehicular Birdslaughter in the First Degree! This time I ran over the poor guy. Oh The Humanity!

Scott and I have a lot of catching up to do. We’ve been through a lot over the past couple weeks and haven’t had as much chance to share as we would like. Luckily we’re taking a little break in Denver to recharge the batteries, so I’m going to try and tell as many stories as we can.

After Scott and I exited Minnesota, we drove across almost all of South Dakota in one day. I was remembering a conversation that I had with my uncle Pete, an avid road-tripper, where he sort of indicated that there was “not much” in this part of the country and that we’d probably want to blow through it as quickly as possible. Boy, was he right- it was all corn. Oceans of corn. As far as the eye could sea.

As we found out later during a conversation with a Black Hills native, South Dakota is divided into the East of the Missouri river (corn), the Western part (wheat and ranches) and the oasis- the Black Hills. He was definitely right about the Black Hills, but I also noticed the transition from corn the wheat as we drove across the state. Always been a much bigger fan of wheat fields than corn fields. Something about the color makes them beautiful to me. I was going to say they seem romantic, but from me that just comes out sounding idiotic.

Towards the end of the night Scott and I had to find an emergency camp location due to an oncoming storm. I’ll plead the fifth on where we picked but I will say this: we were desperate, it was very dark and when we woke up we discovered that we were a lot closer to someones front yard than we were comfortable with.

That’s the nice thing about packing so light. Right after the realization that we basically camped in somebody’s driveway, we packed up and got the hell out of there. Next stop, the Badlands!

We’re leaving the Black Hills and heading south for Colorado. Pictures are posted for the last week or so.

One of the big appeals of owning a motorcycle, especially a Harley, is that loud, chugging noise that the engine makes when you rev it up. People actually modify their bikes to make them noisier.

I can not stand that shit. There’s nothing wrong wth enjoying the sound of your machine, but I just can’t understand the decibel fascination. I’m in love with my Honda- it sounds good but doesn’t wake up the neighbors. But if they weren’t so impractical and ugly, I’d buy one of those silent, hydrogen powered bikes. I mean- it’s a stealth bike, right? Awesome!

Anyway, Scott and I were talking about this the other day. Invading other people’s ear-space with my noise doesn’t interest me at all. My dick is quite large enough already thank you.