Places I want to go...

So I've been thinking a lot about places I'd like to go. Here's some of them, with photos included. Now I just need to find a way to make it happen. Photos from the internet...
In no particular order.

New Zealand:


Guilin, China:


Switzerland:


The Appalachian Trail (again):


The Pacific Crest Trail:


The Continental Divide Trail:


The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route:


Norway:


Palau:


French Polynesia:


Iceland:


Mongolia:


Montana:


Patagonia:


Siberia:


Kentucky:


Maine:


Alaska:


...etc...

Winter ride.

Went out for a "road" ride yesterday. 15 or so mile loop on snow and ice covered gravel roads mostly. 25 degrees and snowing a bit. Toes got a bit cold, but otherwise not bad at all. Slippery though, studded tires would have been nice.

The surly in winter mode.

The road ahead, the ONLY flat stretch.

Stupid glasses kept fogging up going up the hills. Had to have them on the downhills to keep the snow out of my eyes though...

Back home on the porch.

Photos via Facebook.

So, I just realized I can allow access to the photos I have on facebook to people who aren't on there. So here ya go. You've seen lots of them on here, but some of them you haven't. Enjoy.
In sort of chronological order:
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Hope it works...

Francis Joyon. Wow.

New Solo round-the-world sailing record. 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, 6 seconds. Can you imagine that? Sailing alone around the world. In a 92 foot trimaran. 92 feet! Alone! The previous record was set a year or two ago by Ellen MacArthur on her 75 foot trimaran. Francis Joyon beat her record by over 2 weeks!
I haven't been daydreaming about boats like I used to, and I sure wouldn't want to sail around the world in a big hurry. But wow, that's just amazing.
Assume his route was 24,000 miles (actually it's longer). That works out to about 421 miles per day, or an average speed of 17.5 miles per hour! That's over twice as fast as I've ever been on a sailboat. And that's the average... Props.

Hippity Hop.

So, way back in 2003, I was at UMaine. I spent most of my spare time riding trials. My buddies Ryan, Stu, and Ben also rode. Ryan got a camera at some point and put together this video. Keep in mind this is pretty old, but I still think it's awesome. I'm obviously the enormous guy on the pink bike. Ryan is on a black bike, Stu is on a silver bike, and Ben is on a white bike. Good times. Let me know what you think.

or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LDobu3XZjs
By the way, that pink bike was awesome. A prototype steel Planet X zebdi. It eventually broke of course, but it was awesome while it lasted.
The riding that's on rocks by water is down at Ocean Point.
Ryan is doing carpentry work and traveling a lot, Stu some big shot engineer living in Boulder, and Ben is supposedly a bank robber. No joke.
PS - Also note the totally awesome Honda Civic WRC cameo at 3:24. Ghetto wagon represent!

Kentucky Photos... (and a couple others)

Sorry it took a bit to get these up... They're out of order too...

A view of the farm where Ford/Amanda currently reside. Pretty awesome place.

Ford taking out the compost.

New Year's fireworks from my front porch in Vermont.

Aparently they don't make skis/bindings strong enough for manly men (or people who crash all the time like me).

Ford riding the 4-wheeler back to get more gas for the chainsaw.

Day 1 of work that I helped with. The walls and braces were already up. We braced the corners and added all the horizontal poles across the roofline.

Day 2, started putting up the siding. We eventually got it up about 3/4 around the barn, but ran out of the 100-year old siding...

Ford insisted on taking my picture...

Attempting to burn some brush down in the field. Way too wet and tons of dirt. Didn't get going any more than this.

The last day we worked, we cut down a ton of small trees to use as the diagonal rafter thingys to support the roof. We also put up some vertical posts to temporarily hold the ridgepole. We attempted to use 2 16' sections of really old heavy wood for the ridgepole, but it was way too heavy and awkward to actually lift up there. Ford tells me that they've now got most of the roof up. Pretty fun doing that sort of work, though it was pretty tiring and rather muddy.

Back here in Vermont, it's still cold and snowy (and probably will be for 3 or 4 more months). Since I've been back, it snowed another foot or so. I really ought to take some pictures to show you just how much snow is piled up in places, and it's only going to get better (or worse, if you don't like snow). There's a worrying amount of snow/ice on the roof now. Basically a bunch of little glaciers. It's going to be kind of scary in the spring when it all melts and slides off the roof. The river that runs through town is also frozen now. However, it's quite warm out at the moment (probably 25!), and getting warmer, so it'll probably melt again before too long.
In other news, I finally got myself a bed! After sleeping on a thermarest (that leaked and was flat by morning) for the first month and a half, I bought a queen size air mattress. That thing worked well for a while, but I've had to repair leaks 3 times now. Got fed up and bought a real mattress/box springs/frame thingy. I was rather giddy about it last night, and even when I woke up this morning. Somehow, my place feels more like home now that I'm not sleeping on the floor.
As far as work goes, still pretty slow. I was going to get sent down to Long Island again on Monday (the 7th), but that's been pushed back a week, if not more. This seems to happen a lot. Something gets scheduled and then rescheduled again and again. Oh well. In the meantime, I'm getting experience repairing things I never thought I'd have to, like diesel heaters, peristaltic pumps, and all sorts of other gadgets. Honestly, I feel more like a mechanic or a janitor than I do a geologist. Whatever, it'll pay the bills for now...
Oh, almost forgot, Mom/Dad and Teal, your christmas packages are finally on the way! Sorry about the delay on that...