![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylTwo entries in one week, INORITE? Well, that's because I actually had an adventure on Monday. Furthermore, I hope to have an adventure at least once a week for the rest of the summer.
Biking is slowly getting into my blood. Colorado has been called a mecca for cyclists. Denver was the second American city to institute a bike sharing program for the Democratic National Convention (Bicycling magazine, July 2010). An estimated 10% of Boulder residents commute daily by bike, 20 times the national average (dailycameracom). (By contrast, Blackhawk, CO, a mountain gambling town, just outlawed all biking in the city limits; presumably too many cyclists getting injured by drunks stumbling out of casinos.) We've got miles and miles of open countryside and a big old mountain range. And here I sit (sat), content with hopping across the street to the paved (and usually heavily-populated) path in the park.
Well, Monday all that changed. I'd been checking out ideas on trails.com, and found a few promising parks nearby. The first one I wanted to try was Barr Lake in Brighton, CO, which promised 9.6 miles of unpaved trail around the lake with zero climbing and a technical rating of easy.
It rained all weekend, so by Monday I was chomping at the bit to get outside. Which is totally not like me. Well, the old me.
I really wanted Ryan to go with me. I'm not used to saddling up and disappearing to parts unknown all alone. We did have plans for me to play Wii at his house, but see what I said above about not wanting to sit inside for one more day.
It turns out neither of these plans were to be, since Ryan was up all night drinking Sunday with Chris. You remember Chris, the Olympian-in-training? Yeah. Needless to say this news didn't do much to raise Chris in my esteem. The last thing Ryan needs is another playboy drunk loser, but you try telling him that.
So with disgust I strapped my bike to my trunk and was off.
In my defense, I don't have any experience with the bike rack. Usually Tery handles it. But I was still a little surprised after 15 minutes on the highway to see the rear end of the bike lifting up off the arm of the rack. It was tied on, but it still looked kind of alarming seeing the bike keeling like that.
I pulled off the first exit to adjust it. As I tied it down more forcefully, I nervously eyed the dark clouds overhead and the chilly wind. But Colorado, as I've learned this biking season, is good for threatening lots of storms that never actually hit my location. I've scampered home prematurely more than once, only to have the sun break through the clouds just as I unlock the front door. Damn Colorado.
So I soldiered on.
Ten minutes later, it was doing it again (the bike coming loose, I mean). DAMMIT. I pulled off an exit right where the highway forked and I needed to keep heading east. I pulled into an auto auction parking lot and tightened it down again.
When I went to get back on the highway, I was taken aback to see there was no on-ramp going in the direction I needed, just the direction I had come from. GOD DAMMIT. I had to jump on the highway, exit, turn around, and jump back on.
Then the highway forked again. My directions stated only I-76 east, yet there was an exit clearly marked Brighton to the left, my destination. With no certainty at all, I took the exit.
I went three blocks and slowly admitted I had made a mistake. I pulled over across the street from a barren-looking U-Haul storage place and checked my Google Maps. Yes indeedy.
By this point I had to pee really, really badly. Oh, and I also had to re-tighten the motherfucking bike again.
I headed back for the highway. To my relief I spotted a Conoco and stopped to pee. The walls were scrawled with such sentiments as "Fuck Obama" and "Burn ni**er Obama." Lovely. Redneck country. And my pinko, fuel efficient Honda with my Obama/Biden and anti-religious stickers, and my tree-hugging, non-gas-using bike sitting undefended in the parking lot. Fortunately this was a working-class town, not many folk around on a Monday afternoon.
I started to head back to the highway. Would you believe AGAIN no on-ramp for the direction I needed? GOD DAMMIT TO HELL, GODDAMN REDNECKS AND YOUR STUPID REDNECK EXITS.
Once I got going in the right direction, I found the park with no problem. I hadn't lost my bike on the highway and the clouds had finally burned off. Things were looking up!
Well, not for long. After all that time on the road (nearly two hours, I think) I was starving. The only food the park's gift shop offered was a small packet of trail mix (18 grams of fat!!!) which was, nevertheless, delicious. I was a little nervous about the park brochure which advised thorn-resistant tires (I have none...yet). I didn't even think to change out my semi-slicks for my knobbies. Mine is a steep learning curve.
I hit the trail and it seemed pleasant at first -- a nice wide dirt path, the lake to my left, the open fields of the park to my right.
My joy was rather shortlived. The path turned a corner and ran for about a mile behind a dam, not particularly scenic. After that it got worse. First it turned into singletrack (I hate singletrack) for another mile. Then for a quarter of a mile I rode through sharp-looking black shale that ran alongside train tracks. I thought escaping this journey without a flat would really be a miracle, and I found myself very anxious for the trail to end.
I passed three local (redneck) kids walking with their fishing gear, very Norman Rockwell. I passed a very independent puppy, who ignored me and resolutely continued on his determined puppy way towards the road. I saw a deer springing across my path in four effortless bounds and vanish into the underbrush before I could pull out my camera. I saw a flock of geese, who could fly surely, instead laboriously waddling through the tall grass on their way to the lake.
The trail (which was actually a tractor road) became very muddy and treacherous, alternating between huge pools of water and soft sand that swallowed my tires past the rim. Every foot of the way I had to be constantly alert for these pitfalls, far from relaxing, but also three times the workout I expected to get despite no hill climbing.
At least there were no Lance Armstrong wannabe's breathing down my neck or sniping at me for forcing them to apply their brakes.
Finally it was over. I couldn't have been more relieved to see the Nature Center come into view. I hated this trail, and not just because of the conditions. Really not very pretty considering the distance I'd come. Couldn't even see the mountains from here. At least I could cross it off my to-do list.
But it had definitely whet my appetite. It showed me how easy it actually would be to saddle up and disappear to parts unknown, a new part every week. (For the ride home, I figured out my mistake with the rack; I had stuck the arm through the rear fork instead of putting both arms under the main crossbar so they both sat snug in the foam cradle. I drove all the way home without incident.) The trip back, without pit stops and knowing where I was going, was just about 40 minutes and 40 miles. There are tons of places like that, some a little farther, but I would of course get an earlier start.
It's going to be a great summer.
~*~
I came home and watched a movie I'll bet most of the people reading this will never have heard of, never mind get a chance to see. It's been released elsewhere in the world, but leave it to the good old US of A to be dead last. Rumor has it it's tied up in litigation; more cynical sources blame it on the big gay content. I found a bittorrent via my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
boy_touching community.
I Love You, Phillip Morris
I loved this movie, so this time I will be brief. Jim Carrey (lined, careworn, craggy-faced Jim Carrey) is con man Steven Russell who ends up in prison, where he meets beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) and it's love at first sight -- for both of them.
Steven poses as an attorney and successfully gets Phillip out early. They seem to have the perfect life, but Steven can't resist the life of crime and gets them both jailed again. Phillip wants nothing more to do with him, so he has to pull off the con of his life to try to save their relationship. I dare not say anything more.
I will say that Carrey as a gay man is thoroughly unconvincing, especially in the few little glimpses we get of him playing Jim Carrey (you know what I mean -- the Ace Ventura moments, or the Grinch Who Stole Christmas moments).
Ewan does a better job, though he is slightly too effeminate in this, enough to raise my hackles just a centimeter. He's a little too innocent and starry-eyed, reminding me of his role in Big Fish, quite a bit, actually. But damn, there isn't a man alive who can break my heart the way he does when he cries. That alone makes me want this for my collection. But it's looking doubtful it will be released in theaters, never mind on DVD. I may just have to burn this file to disc for myself.
But the way he looks at Steven, adoringly, fawningly, besotted, THAT look is worth adding this to my collection. Why don't you look at me that way, my beloved Scotsman?
Of course, the fact that it's taking so ridiculously long to be released Stateside will probably surround the film with unwarranted drama. People are already moaning on the IMDb boards about what crap it is, why is it getting so much attention? Or perhaps they're just using that complaint to hide their homophobia.
Biking is slowly getting into my blood. Colorado has been called a mecca for cyclists. Denver was the second American city to institute a bike sharing program for the Democratic National Convention (Bicycling magazine, July 2010). An estimated 10% of Boulder residents commute daily by bike, 20 times the national average (dailycameracom). (By contrast, Blackhawk, CO, a mountain gambling town, just outlawed all biking in the city limits; presumably too many cyclists getting injured by drunks stumbling out of casinos.) We've got miles and miles of open countryside and a big old mountain range. And here I sit (sat), content with hopping across the street to the paved (and usually heavily-populated) path in the park.
Well, Monday all that changed. I'd been checking out ideas on trails.com, and found a few promising parks nearby. The first one I wanted to try was Barr Lake in Brighton, CO, which promised 9.6 miles of unpaved trail around the lake with zero climbing and a technical rating of easy.
It rained all weekend, so by Monday I was chomping at the bit to get outside. Which is totally not like me. Well, the old me.
I really wanted Ryan to go with me. I'm not used to saddling up and disappearing to parts unknown all alone. We did have plans for me to play Wii at his house, but see what I said above about not wanting to sit inside for one more day.
It turns out neither of these plans were to be, since Ryan was up all night drinking Sunday with Chris. You remember Chris, the Olympian-in-training? Yeah. Needless to say this news didn't do much to raise Chris in my esteem. The last thing Ryan needs is another playboy drunk loser, but you try telling him that.
So with disgust I strapped my bike to my trunk and was off.
In my defense, I don't have any experience with the bike rack. Usually Tery handles it. But I was still a little surprised after 15 minutes on the highway to see the rear end of the bike lifting up off the arm of the rack. It was tied on, but it still looked kind of alarming seeing the bike keeling like that.
I pulled off the first exit to adjust it. As I tied it down more forcefully, I nervously eyed the dark clouds overhead and the chilly wind. But Colorado, as I've learned this biking season, is good for threatening lots of storms that never actually hit my location. I've scampered home prematurely more than once, only to have the sun break through the clouds just as I unlock the front door. Damn Colorado.
So I soldiered on.
Ten minutes later, it was doing it again (the bike coming loose, I mean). DAMMIT. I pulled off an exit right where the highway forked and I needed to keep heading east. I pulled into an auto auction parking lot and tightened it down again.
When I went to get back on the highway, I was taken aback to see there was no on-ramp going in the direction I needed, just the direction I had come from. GOD DAMMIT. I had to jump on the highway, exit, turn around, and jump back on.
Then the highway forked again. My directions stated only I-76 east, yet there was an exit clearly marked Brighton to the left, my destination. With no certainty at all, I took the exit.
I went three blocks and slowly admitted I had made a mistake. I pulled over across the street from a barren-looking U-Haul storage place and checked my Google Maps. Yes indeedy.
By this point I had to pee really, really badly. Oh, and I also had to re-tighten the motherfucking bike again.
I headed back for the highway. To my relief I spotted a Conoco and stopped to pee. The walls were scrawled with such sentiments as "Fuck Obama" and "Burn ni**er Obama." Lovely. Redneck country. And my pinko, fuel efficient Honda with my Obama/Biden and anti-religious stickers, and my tree-hugging, non-gas-using bike sitting undefended in the parking lot. Fortunately this was a working-class town, not many folk around on a Monday afternoon.
I started to head back to the highway. Would you believe AGAIN no on-ramp for the direction I needed? GOD DAMMIT TO HELL, GODDAMN REDNECKS AND YOUR STUPID REDNECK EXITS.
Once I got going in the right direction, I found the park with no problem. I hadn't lost my bike on the highway and the clouds had finally burned off. Things were looking up!
Well, not for long. After all that time on the road (nearly two hours, I think) I was starving. The only food the park's gift shop offered was a small packet of trail mix (18 grams of fat!!!) which was, nevertheless, delicious. I was a little nervous about the park brochure which advised thorn-resistant tires (I have none...yet). I didn't even think to change out my semi-slicks for my knobbies. Mine is a steep learning curve.
I hit the trail and it seemed pleasant at first -- a nice wide dirt path, the lake to my left, the open fields of the park to my right.
My joy was rather shortlived. The path turned a corner and ran for about a mile behind a dam, not particularly scenic. After that it got worse. First it turned into singletrack (I hate singletrack) for another mile. Then for a quarter of a mile I rode through sharp-looking black shale that ran alongside train tracks. I thought escaping this journey without a flat would really be a miracle, and I found myself very anxious for the trail to end.
I passed three local (redneck) kids walking with their fishing gear, very Norman Rockwell. I passed a very independent puppy, who ignored me and resolutely continued on his determined puppy way towards the road. I saw a deer springing across my path in four effortless bounds and vanish into the underbrush before I could pull out my camera. I saw a flock of geese, who could fly surely, instead laboriously waddling through the tall grass on their way to the lake.
The trail (which was actually a tractor road) became very muddy and treacherous, alternating between huge pools of water and soft sand that swallowed my tires past the rim. Every foot of the way I had to be constantly alert for these pitfalls, far from relaxing, but also three times the workout I expected to get despite no hill climbing.
At least there were no Lance Armstrong wannabe's breathing down my neck or sniping at me for forcing them to apply their brakes.
Finally it was over. I couldn't have been more relieved to see the Nature Center come into view. I hated this trail, and not just because of the conditions. Really not very pretty considering the distance I'd come. Couldn't even see the mountains from here. At least I could cross it off my to-do list.
But it had definitely whet my appetite. It showed me how easy it actually would be to saddle up and disappear to parts unknown, a new part every week. (For the ride home, I figured out my mistake with the rack; I had stuck the arm through the rear fork instead of putting both arms under the main crossbar so they both sat snug in the foam cradle. I drove all the way home without incident.) The trip back, without pit stops and knowing where I was going, was just about 40 minutes and 40 miles. There are tons of places like that, some a little farther, but I would of course get an earlier start.
It's going to be a great summer.
~*~
I came home and watched a movie I'll bet most of the people reading this will never have heard of, never mind get a chance to see. It's been released elsewhere in the world, but leave it to the good old US of A to be dead last. Rumor has it it's tied up in litigation; more cynical sources blame it on the big gay content. I found a bittorrent via my
boy_touching community.I Love You, Phillip Morris
I loved this movie, so this time I will be brief. Jim Carrey (lined, careworn, craggy-faced Jim Carrey) is con man Steven Russell who ends up in prison, where he meets beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) and it's love at first sight -- for both of them.
Steven poses as an attorney and successfully gets Phillip out early. They seem to have the perfect life, but Steven can't resist the life of crime and gets them both jailed again. Phillip wants nothing more to do with him, so he has to pull off the con of his life to try to save their relationship. I dare not say anything more.
I will say that Carrey as a gay man is thoroughly unconvincing, especially in the few little glimpses we get of him playing Jim Carrey (you know what I mean -- the Ace Ventura moments, or the Grinch Who Stole Christmas moments).
Ewan does a better job, though he is slightly too effeminate in this, enough to raise my hackles just a centimeter. He's a little too innocent and starry-eyed, reminding me of his role in Big Fish, quite a bit, actually. But damn, there isn't a man alive who can break my heart the way he does when he cries. That alone makes me want this for my collection. But it's looking doubtful it will be released in theaters, never mind on DVD. I may just have to burn this file to disc for myself.
But the way he looks at Steven, adoringly, fawningly, besotted, THAT look is worth adding this to my collection. Why don't you look at me that way, my beloved Scotsman?
Of course, the fact that it's taking so ridiculously long to be released Stateside will probably surround the film with unwarranted drama. People are already moaning on the IMDb boards about what crap it is, why is it getting so much attention? Or perhaps they're just using that complaint to hide their homophobia.
