Outdoor Travel Geek

  • resurrection and road rash reminder

    When I was a kid it was easy to remember when Easter was coming. Easter more or less correlated with spring break. Now that I’m an adult I don’t have a spring break, so it’s harder to remember when Easter is near. Well I guess there are all sorts of reminders, I guess I just…

  • watery wonder world

    This weekend I was in Monterey finishing up my open water scuba certifications. Apparently Monterey is the place to go for scuba lessons. There were several other classes out there even though the weather wasn’t all that great. The class I was a part of was pretty small, just me, my buddy Tim, and a…

  • front finally finished

    The landscaping in the front of my house is finally finished. It was about a year ago that I started tearing out the grass in front of my house. I wanted a low maintenance yard, so I put in rocks and wood chips. Recently my dad hired a landscape architecture to do some work on…

  • the plunge

    I have liked watches for as long as I can remember. Ever since my first job out of high school I’ve been sort of shopping for a watch, but haven’t gotten around to buying one until now. I finally made the plunge and bought one this week because of my scuba class. It’s not a…

  • head banging

    During middle school I was a boy scout for about a year and a half. I have a lot of fond memories from those days, which is probably part of the reason why I love going outdoors. But I don’t remember any of the technical stuff that I learned from those days. I don’t remember…

  • merry mondays

    Today was my first Monday off. It’s nice waking up with absolutely no plans at all. My only goal was to fix this bike. It had been sitting on my workstand for almost a month. When I had bought the bike around a year and a half ago, it had a broken front shifter. Originally…

  • racked up

    The weather has been incredibly nice lately– unusually warm for February. I’ve been taking advantage of the weather by going biking, if you couldn’t already tell from all the biking posts in February. This weekend I went biking out at the American River Parkway with Jiro and Ray. I’d forgotten how nice it was out…

  • cycling mix

    I knew Mix Canyon was a tough climb. I’ve attempted the climb three or four times, but still haven’t made it to the top. I made it almost to the top once, but that was on a motorcycle (http://outdoortravelgeek.com/2011/05/the-mix/). On a bicycle the farthest I’ve gotten is about three miles. So yea, I knew it…

  • granite bay

    Today was my second time mountain biking at Granite Bay. I came out here once before with Dave and Jason, but we ended up not being able to ride all that much last time. The scenery is nice at Granite Bay, even at the parking area. That being said, I don’t come here often, partly…

  • mini triple crowns

    This weekend I went for what I guess was the first real training ride of the year. The weather was perfect for riding. The sun was out, but it was not hot. There was a bit of wind, but not too much, in fact it seemed like just enough to make the ride a bit…

  • feather falls backpacking

    According to some people, Feather Falls is the sixth highest waterfall in the United States. According to Wikipedia, those people are wrong, and Feather Falls doesn’t even crack the top ten. Regardless of who is right, Feather Falls is a pretty amazing waterfall. It’s incredibly tall. To get a sense of the size of the…

  • donner dining & dozing

    The Donner pass area is named after the infamous Donner party, a group of explorers who set out to California to strike it rich. They spent a disastrous winter in the mountains near Tahoe, with almost half of the group dying of starvation. The group is infamous in that the survivors had to resort to cannibalism to…

  • the garden

    When I first moved into my house in Davis, I was happy to find a lemon tree in my backyard. (Well actually it’s more like my side yard.) Despite my complete neglect the tree never fails to provide a ton of lemons every winter (and for some reason this year it started producing some mutant…

  • twelve pounds

    My work has a holiday tradition called the twelve pounds of Christmas. For twelve days there’s a potluck every work day leading up to Christmas, except for one day off for the annual holiday party (which is a buffet.) My work is organized into different bureaus, and each day a bureau brings in food for…

  • lazy days

    It is cold. The trees are barren. Winter is here. It was especially apparent when I went biking on Saturday morning. What’s amazing is just three weeks ago I went biking on this same stretch of road with Jiro and one of his lab mates, back then the trees were still covered with autumn leaves.…