Fartab-a-riffic.

Yeah- so 40 already had a nice wrap-up of the trip, so I am not going to double up on his efforts. I do have a video ready to go, but apparently Blogger is about to release video upload capabilities, so I think that I will wait for that to post the video rather than upload it to YouTube and link to it. Unless there is great demand for it right now?

Anyways- the float/drinking worked out quite well this year- I am digging the alternate route. Less portages. Easier portages. Arrival at the campsite in plenty of time to set up and eat while it is still light out. That saves rushing around, which is nice...

The weather forcast was rain, so we set up tarps over the main camping area and collected enough firewood both for the night and to cook breakfast the next morning. Actually- we ended up collecting more than we needed, so hopefully the karma-coaster will pay it forward for us the next time around.

Sleepy showcases his version of the Lynndie (no trip is complete without one) while dinner is cooking:

The rain held off for most of the night- only a few passing light showers. The next morning we actually managed to sleep in a little and had plenty of time to prepare the all important breakfast of champions before hitting the river again

The sky was pretty ominous when we started out, but for some reason I was really optimistic that the rain would hold out.

Unfortunately I have no future as a psychic. If we set out 20 minutes earlier we would have had the car packed up and been on the road before the sky opened up- instead we were within sight of the landing when the rain began

I know that 40 can't wait for the movie to be put up on the blog, so perhaps I will make it happen sooner than originally planned. The film through the mousehole is a good time. Planning will soon commence for RAMHADAB- hopefully I will no longer feel like I was run over by the time that arrives...

1st Annual YABADABADOO!!! (part 2)

After our 4am-ish return from the Crotch, we slept in somewhat late on Sunday. When we finally motivated enough to leave Sleepy's, we had a narrow window of opportuntity to get down to Manch-Vegas's legendary diner Chez Vachon. Back alley's are cool.

There Sleepy and GUDG introduced us all to a local delicacy Poutine ('puts-in')... which is french fries, heavy canadian cheddar cheese, spicy chicken gravy, and we got the optional bacon on it too. OMG.. this is freaking wonderful... Check it out:

After breakfast we packed the iBucket with discs and headed out to play some disc golf. We learned that using white discs in the snow is a bad idea.

So it throwing it up on the roof... Here's GUDG being the hero of the day getting a disc down off the roof. It was Freakin' Sweet.

After disc golf we had to scramble to get back to Providence to see Keller Williams at Lupos.. sorry.. no pix of that tho.

Anyhow... it was a great weekend.

I think the next big weekends we have coming up is the Big-River Cleanup, and the Arcadia Trail Days... make sure you come out/down/over to help clean up those areas.

-40

1st Annual YABADABADOO!!! (part 1)

This weekend was Sleepy G's first annual YABADABADOO! I think we all agree, this is due to become the late winter -ADAB we all need. Thanks Sleepy for pulling this all together!

(Wait a minute... should we consider this the second annual YABADABADOO. Last year's trip to Snoe.Down was a good YABADABADOO too ... just a thought..)

Anyhow.... this has been a weird time of year for me with work being f'ing nutty and trying to find time to study. I couldn't join the early weekend crowd for Friday night's hockey game in Manch-Vegas (Casa De Sleepy G was an excellent base of operation for this year's YABADABADOO!)

However, I've gathered from all sources that there was more than acceptable levels of mass consumption of adult beverage and minimum consumption of food. So much of the former that Saturday became the rest day, with not a whole lot of hot action unless you count Sleepy and CTLP on the drums (btw...this is the cure-all for hangovers...)

When SickoJerk and I arrived, we played some N64...classic MarioCart and 007!

After dinner of the now famous IPC(c), quesadillas(show your class and say "Kay Sa Dill As" when you order these at a restaurant), and beer, we headed up to Crotched Mountain for Midnight Madness snowboarding! Crotch Mountain puts on a Midnight Madness snowboarding event from 9pm to 3am for 30 bucks.. sweet deal, and minimum crowds. It was the right kind of crowd too for us Pandapas' folk.

It was a little chilly, but we figured out all we needed was a parking lot beer-break to make it through the night.

It was a great night.. not a ton of people, no lift lines, decent enough snow, not too cold and whatnot.

...To be continued

Riding in the Beer-muda Triangle...

It's been wicked cold these days, check out the pond down the street, frozen solid 4-6" thick...



So Mrs Forty and I moved this year. We used to live in an area everything was close together, old, and sketchy. Going for a mtbike ride meant either heading down to the GhettoTrack or loading the car to go ride in Big River. While the GhettoTrack was cool to have a huge variety to ride in, from fast ghetto alleys, a skate-park, a short dirt track with jumps, and eventually some quiet singletrack about five miles out. Not a whole lot of each, but enough to scratch an itch. Unfortunately, no matter what, all options on the Ghettotrack where trash-and-broken bottle strewn. (After the 12 blown tubes in the first few weeks, I ended up putting Mr.Tuffys in the tires of all my bikes. When it came time to replace the tires on the beater, I plunked down the cash for some 2.35 Big Apples that have a kelvlar belt...they rock btw)

Anyhow.. one big factor for where we were looking to move to was how many key places i could ride on my bike. Work was a plus, woods a must, grocery store key, all other places not so much. I couldn't care less if there was a star-buck$, or any of that other crap. So far so good.. rideable woods are 1.5 miles away, a grocery/video/pizza/library are 3 miles out, work is 7 miles away (through the woods and on a dirt road no less), and the westernmost point of the Beermuda triangle around 10 mile. Watch out for Western Beermuda....been "-Adab"-ing it out there since high school.

Anyhow... out here instead of the homeless sleeping/peeing/sh*tting etc under the bridges and behind dumpsters, I see things like this with regularity:

The horses and their people are neighbors of The FlatTires and the Fortys.

I'm starting to get use to this....

-40.