Taklamakan: Way Down in Cocomo
Morning weigh-in: 185.5#, 11% BF (b-b-but it was a chicken cheesesteak!!)
Anniversary: it was one year ago today that I broke my ankle. It's also my brother Kevin's birthday.
Friday: did a road ride, short & sweet & hilly, another Morvale Road extravaganza, and then walked down to Which Brew. Early night, but I wanted to be there to say goodbye to that dude Ryan, who took a job as brewmaster down in North Carolina. Also, they had a special cask-conditioned Weyerbacher Black Hole Stout brewed with arabica beans. Good stuff.
Saturday was a good hard yoga workout, followed by a very intense gym workout (with a trip to the coffee shop and a mile run in between); I followed all that with a nap. I was going to do another road ride, but it was raining -- and when I woke up it was sunny and beautiful of course. Got a call from Doug, he & Lori were down at WB, and soon enough so was I.
Sunday was trailwork at Sals, then the Banff Mountain Film Festival road show. I went with a group of friends; we were a crowd of about 16 people, and saw a whole bunch more familiar faces. The films: I had several favorites, but two that stood out were "Kids Who Rip," a documentary about children (youngest was maybe 6, oldest was 13) who skate/snowboard/surf/ski, either competitively or for fun, but at a very high level of X-games proficiency and craziness, and the other was a documentary of a young Canadian couple who bicycled from Ulan Bator to Calcutta, through some beautiful but godawful-remote and rugged scenery.
Which brings us to the Taklamakan Desert. It's not really as remote as I'd originally heard -- the Silk Road bifurcates to go around it (a Northern route and a Southern route), there are cities along the edges, and of course the couple was riding along a road as they crossed it -- but it is still pretty damn remote, and one of the biggest sand deserts in the world. I became infatuated with the place after reading A Good Old-Fashioned Future, a book of interconnected science-fiction stories by Bruce Sterling. The last story was about some extreme adventurers, recruited as spies to investigate some abandoned top-secret facility deep in the desert, where of course they make the usual shocking discoveries.
There was also quite a bit about the Taklamakan (among many other Siberian and Central Asian wonders) in Against the Day (yep, still reading), so it was very cool to actually see the place. Sand, sandstorms, broiling heat, no water. You know: desert.
3 comments:
A year for you, and it was a year for me in January since I busted my wrist all to he**. To be honest with you, I marvel at your recovery. When I heard and saw how bad it was, I was truly scared for you. I'm glad my fear was all for naught.
It is so freakin' cold outside! Ya know, I don't like it when it's sweltering hot with high humidity in the summer, but I don't like feeling like I'm living in a freezer either. It would be so nice if our temps. could consistenly be in the 70s with little humidity all year long. Well, I can dream, can't I?
Yeah, Old Man Winter's not quite done with us... I think we need a little bit of really cold, and a little bit of really sweltering, just to make our bodies run right. Even so, and despite the cold, it felt like spring was coming when I walked outside this morning.
I haven't asked in a while: how is your arm?
Every once in a while, my wrist lets me know it was injured; but, so far, it hasn't hindered me much. My shoulder never did go back to full flexibility. There are times I forget about it; and, when I do, it gives me a real jolt. But, again, for the mostpart, I can live with it. I'm hoping it's going to improve by using the elliptical.
I'm so pissed! Joe's been on the elliptical for the same length of time as I have, and he's already been able to move his belt down a notch. It isn't fair! Okay, he finally admitted he's cut out all the sweets he loves to consume, as well as using the elliptical; but I never did have a sweet tooth, yet I don't see any improvement at all on me. Ya know, it would be so much more rewarding and inspiring if I could see a change, just as he has. I'll just struggle along and hope for the best.
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