Outdoor Travel Geek

  • all aboard for seattle

    I’d love to ride the trains across Europe or Asia someday but I’ve never understood the appeal of trains in the United States. The difference in the US is that less people ride the trains, so the schedules are terrible and the trains are always late. And on top of that, trains in the US are…

  • psycho cyclo

    “That’s crazy!” That’s the response I get from most people when I tell them I’m planning to bike from Portland to Davis. I think that was pretty much the response of everyone except for my dad. My dad’s response was, “Hey, when are you getting married?” Which of course is his standard greeting whenever he…

  • food, fitness & fireworks

    Even by my fairly gluttonous standards, this weekend was a pretty fattening weekend. First stop was House of Prime Rib. My friend Vince was back from China, so we hit up this bastion of gluttony to celebrate. It was pretty dark inside, my crappy cellphone camera couldn’t get a good picture. Time to get a…

  • hanging around

    The weekend started out on a down note. I went into San Francisco to attend my friend Brian’s grandmother’s funeral and be a pallbearer. Interestingly enough, I’ve been a pallbearer as many times as I’ve been a groomsman now. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of being either– I’m mostly opposed to wearing…

  • epitome of stupidity

    Sometimes I get some stupid ideas. This was one of them. Luckily I have friends who can stoop to my level of stupidity. Our original plan was to start at the bike bridge in Winters and float to the graffiti bridge at the end of Davis. But we found that the water was too slow…

  • the list

    Wow can you believe the year is already almost half over? This year is sort of a symbolic year for me in that it’s the last year that I can call myself a twenty something year old. There’s a sort of stigma related with turning thirty– saying you’re in your early thirties for some reason…

  • random memorial weekend

    At the beginning of the week I had no clue what I would be doing for Memorial Day weekend. The Memorial Day holiday falls on a Monday this year, and since I am off on Fridays I had a four day weekend but no plans whatsoever for it. And then, randomly, the weekend sort of…

  • expensive rides

    Today was an expensive day. It started off with a trip to the car dealer. My car was due for its 60k service. Sixty thousand miles. Gosh that’s a lot of miles for a three year old car. But I knew when I bought the car that I would be using it a lot. I…

  • strawberry fields forever

    For the past few years I’ve made it my goal to try to bike at least three century rides per year. In addition to that goal, my overarching goal for my century rides this year is to complete the 100 mile courses for all the rides that I have done the shorter courses for in…

  • trail daze

    On Saturday I went to a workday at Christian Encounter Ministries with a few people from DCCC. According to their website, CEM is a ministry for youth who are dealing with anger, depression, abandonment and youth. It’s located on a large ranch in the Sierra foothills. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of work…

  • big lens, small zoo

    I was pretty bummed out that I didn’t get to experience the shuttle launch. I had even rented a humongous lens so that I could take pictures of the launch. Since I didn’t get to use the lens for the launch, I decided to go to the Sacramento zoo and take pictures of animals there.…

  • the launch

    T-Minus 17 hours. Approximately 10:30pm EST. My buddy Tim and I arrive at Spaceview Park. We thought we were going to be among the first ones there. Oh how wrong we were. The entire front row along the water is already lined with camp chairs. Luckily we find an elevated planter box, from there I…

  • boyhood dreams

    When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an astronaut. I would spend hours playing with Legos building elaborate spaceships, then I would crash those spaceships into the walls. So perhaps it’s good that I didn’t actually become an astronaut. This week I’m in Florida to watch a space shuttle launch. It’s the second…

  • invading zim zim

    One of my favorite lesser known TV shows is a cartoon called Invader Zim. It’s kind of a quirky show, with ridiculous humor, and an offbeat animation style that was somehow both cute and dark at the same time. The only reason why I bring it up is every time I mention the name Zim…

  • curry cabin fever

    I think most people know that I love to be outdoors. One of my favorite places to go is Yosemite. People come from all over the world to visit Yosemite and for good reason– there’s few places in the world with so much amazing scenery packed into such a small place. The problem with Yosemite…