The Blog of John Patrick Larson

Last weekend Tracy and I did a Century Ride, the culmination of a summer of training on our new fancy road bikes.

I really don’t have much of a story to tell about the 100 mile-long ride that Tracy and I undertook.  To be honest, a blog post about this is mostly for posterity: a reminder to myself that I did it.

Also a reminder to myself how, at this moment, with the physical sensation of biking miles 60-100 still fresh in my memory, I’m quite content to mark this off the list of things to do in this lifetime and be done with it. :)

My heartfelt gratitude to the party of three who stopped to help when I was pulled over with a safety pin lodged firmly in my rear tire: to the dude who took over the tube swapping operation and volunteered up one of those groovy compressed air cartridges to get me back on track, I thank you for enabling me to finish and thus be able to cross such a long distance ride off my list!

Tracy and I recently returned from a week of camping in Wyoming.  Just her and I, we stayed one night in a lodge outside Jackson Hole, 3 nights in the Grand Tetons, 2 nights in Yellowstone, and 1 night in an off-the-highway camp site named “Windy Valley Creek”.

Here are 13 observations which nicely capture the feel and flavor of the trip:

1. Our ability to fill 8 hours on the road with lively and fresh conversation (among other things a lot of waxing hypothetical of our parenting style and game plan) is damn useful, and bodes well for the seven more decades we plan to spend together.
2. The local beer should be enjoyed while you can–there’s no telling which ones ship out as far as your home town (for example, the quite tasty Snake River Lager cannot be found tucked away in the liquor stores of Denver, whereas the vastly inferior Trout Slayer can).
3. A 200 square foot A-frame cabin might make a fine place to hole up and write a book for the span of a winter, provided access to the a lodge 100 feet away serving aforementioned tasty lager.
4. Hiding dry and snug from the rain in a tent you pitched 15 minutes earlier is more satisfying than it rationally should be.
5. Piles of bacon, fruit and pancakes from the buffet quickly mollify the shame of visiting the restaurant in the first place due to morning campfire starting difficulties.
6. Peeing outdoors is more satisfying than it rationally should be.
7. Turns out campfires are way easier to start when it’s NOT the morning after a rainy day, so it’s ok to have enjoyed aforementioned piles of bacon, fruit and pancakes.
8. When camping, dinner is a roughly 4-hour ritual of food prep, fire starting, beer drinking, fire roasting, food eating, dish cleaning, and s’mores making.  The expense in time and effort is a joy, not a problem.
9. S’mores are just as delicious at 32 as they were when I was 8.  I’ll take 4, please.
10. There is no one I would rather spend an extended stint of one-on-one time with than Tracy, and it is so nice to have that fact laid so bare during a week like this.
11. Having 2 sleeping bags which zip together to make one big one is a setup for primo snuggling.  Useful in general, doubly so when the temperature dips to 28 degrees Fahrenheit at night in the early September of Yellowstone.
12. A place like “Windy Valley Creek” is apt to be named so for good cause: choose this as your campsite for the night with caution.
13. Our honeymoon in the Philippines lasted 3 weeks and cost around $5,000 in total.  This camping trip lasted 7 days and cost around $800.  To the extent that it is expedient to be content with less, I’m thrilled by how much I preferred the camping trip.