Monthly Archives: July 2009

The Tour de France visits Barcelona today, where I spent 1/39th of my life. Seems pretty insignificant now, but certain years in our lives loom much larger than others. The four months I spent in Sackets Harbor, NY were like ten years in a Turkish prison. The past ten years I have lived in Tallahassee feel exactly like ten years. The year I spent in Barcelona I remember as the greatest long weekend of my days.

I didn’t have a bike in Barcelona. I was a bigtime walker. From Barceloneta up through las Ramblas and all the way to Montjuic, where today’s stage finishes. That would be a day well spent.

I regret not having had a bicycle in Spain, and I regret not having a Catalan novia too. I had my whining American girlfriend with her love of pastry and beer, and I had a pair of Vasque boots that I wore everywhere- until I made a Catalan friend named Jordi who sighed with hopeless embarassment every time I showed up looking like a missionary/ lumberjack to go out for the night. He pointed me in the right direction and I dropped some serious pesetas on some Barcelona finery. Dudes there dress sharp.

When my American girlfriend and I parted ways, I went to war-destroyed Bosnia to escape her- she told me she was screwing some guy in Prague in the months before I got there. I nodded in total understanding, of course you were dear.

Te echo de menos Barcelona. Viva Catalunya Siempre!

Juancho

Jill Homer, a blogworld sister from Juneau, AK, finished the Tour Divide mtb race from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, NM last night. Something like 2800 miles of mostly solo pedaling. Can you imagine walking out the door to go for a ride and being gone for 24 days? I mean, I have had some rides where the Wrecking Ball tormented me so the ride felt like it was three weeks long, but it was actually about 2 or 3 hours.

You can check out more about the race, and find Jill’s “call in” updates here. The pain and isolation is at times so apparent it is hard to listen to, but she never quit- and so today us bloggers are proud to raise one of our own on our shoulders.

Congratulations Jill Homer, you did a hell of a thing.

Juancho

I guess it started with the ribs and slaw at Huckleberry’s BBQ, and the dive in Fanning Springs while spitwad sized raindrops plopped all over the surface of the water. On top was about 8 feet of tannic Suwanee River water. This warm water laid on the cold topaz spring water below like a 151 floater.

A couple of nights sleeping in Mom’s spare bed, where I always sleep the unworried and collapsing sleep you only get when you have no doubts you are where you are supposed to be at the moment.

I watched the Gulf showing out in all kinds of aggressive ways before the sun came up at Bean Point, the northernmost tip of the island and a dramatic view of Tampa Bay and the wide open sea. I saw four thunderstorms scattered in a skirmish line across the morning and knew I would be driving in them and all the storms yet to cross that rise where the earth slants away towards Mexico.

A hellish soaking whiteout drive up the Interstate yesterday, and a good night’s sleep in my own bed, equally restful as the spare one at Mom’s but different. No lilting dreams of caring people smiling, but back to dreams of dismantling apparatae of unspecified purpose and putting it in boxes, but nobody cares about our weird dreams.

A visit to the doctor, wherever death lurks he has not announced himself, nor left clues of any kind. In the face of such evidence how can you not ride, and ride joyfully? 103 degrees says the van, at 5:00 P:M? We will ride for the shade and enjoy the easing of the temperature as the day slips away.

The legs feel too good for caution. I smile and try to turn the screws a little bit, but old CC is not impressed, and when we see him riding the other way, and he joins us, and he thumps us through a mulchy bracken of ticks and vines clinging, neither is Dogyboy impressed.

And yet here we are, riding the day down in summer, and death will have to be patient.

Juancho