Joined: Dec 25, 2006
Location: fresno, CA
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I packed up the R12GS on sat 3/22 and left for Leakey at 3 PM. I had a sleeping bag and Thermarest pad, small tarp, and a week worth of clothes in my top box and large whitewater drybag. I didn't pack a tent, and my wife needed her camera for her mom's B-day party, so I got no pix. That first nite I made a little past Kingman, AZ before the hypothermia started to take it's toll. I pulled behind a big pile of gravel at a highway construction site and rolled out my sleeping bag just after 10:00PM. At 2:30 I awoke to headlights and the sound of tires on gravel. Two nice men in a blue and white car with lights on top asked me to leave. They said they would be back in 15 minutes to see if I needed a ride to thier facility in town. After an hour ride in near freezing temps (don't forget, I'm a sissy CA boy with what some would consider summer touring gear) I made it to Flagstaff where I ate breakfast, and drank coffee till the sun came up. Then, having never been there, I headed down the hill for the red rock canyons of Sedona. Sunday morning at 8 o'clock and the tourist area was empty, so I pulled into a parking lot and grabbed a nap. I woke up around 9:30 and noticed the lot was filling up. I went and had "second breakfast", then walked around and looked at all the shops and art galleries. Well...not ALL of them! My plan was now to spend a "layover day" hiking the canyons, camp on Oak Creek, and ride towards TX for a couple of hours on monday nite before getting a hotel. Then it would be my brothers house in Tucson tuesday and Leakey wed PM or thurs AM, and back to San Diego by sat afternoon. The sun was out and the temp was well into the 70s as I hiked down the cliff to Oak Creek and dipped my feet into the freezing water. It was finally starting to hit me...I was on vacation, and a warm sense of calm was starting to fill my consciousness. It was mid afternoon by the time I hiked back up the cliff, so I hopped on the bike and started looking for a campsite. Unfortunately it was Easter weekend and there were none to be found. No hotel rooms in Sedona either. So I rode 30 miles to Cottonwood and got a room, with a shower and everything! Monday my brother called from Tucson to tell me about the arrangements he had made for my visit to his place on thurs and fri-I hadn't told him I had left 3 days early to try to make Leakey (to be continued)
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If you meet the Buddha, kill him
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 22:51
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Joined: Dec 29, 2006
Location:
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Darned, Kip, I'm glad I didn't know you were out there somewhere trying to get to Leakey. I thought you had given up on the adventure and were sleeping cozily somewhere in California. Say, iffen I can come up with some excuse to visit California, can I stay in your yard? More importantly, will you help me get upright in the morning after I sleep on the ground all nite? Just kidding, pal.
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jean
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 22:36
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
Location: Independence, MO
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Hey Kip. And I thought I had it bad riding the last hour in a cats and dogs frog strangler of a rain storm yesterday into KC.... Hope you are SOMEWHERE dry and safe - maybe a Walmart or McDs parking lot? Just kddin' mate.... Looking forward to the rest of your ........ adventure.
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******Mike****** "We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them."
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 22:44
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Joined: Dec 25, 2006
Location: fresno, CA
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Wow! I wasn't expecting all of this response so quick! I've already edited the first post and added another chapter up there.
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If you meet the Buddha, kill him
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 22:54
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Joined: Nov 17, 2006
Location: Raleigh, NC
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It's great. Don't go too fast. It's a cool idea to dole it out slowly. I've had that "Hey, I'm on vacation" realization, too. Nicely put.
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 22:58
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Joined: Dec 25, 2006
Location: fresno, CA
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So now it was 8 monday morning and I had 2 1/2 days to kill before being at my brothers house in Tucson wed PM. I rode to the campgrounds on Oak Creek and got one of thier 3 open campsites. By the time I had my bike unpacked, and the first few pages of my book read, the other two sites filled up. I had told the camp host that I would be willing to share my campsite with a quiet couple or solo traveler, so I wasn't surprised when the car pulled into the parking space next to my bike and the pretty college girl asked if she could pitch her tent....
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If you meet the Buddha, kill him
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 23:06
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Joined: Nov 26, 2006
Location: Independence, MO
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 Flowupstream said: I had told the camp host that I would be willing to share my campsite with a quiet couple or solo traveler, so I wasn't surprised when the car pulled into the parking space next to my bike and the pretty college girl asked if she could pitch her tent.... Hell, I would've had ditched Leakey too............
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******Mike****** "We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them."
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 23:07
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Joined: Dec 29, 2006
Location:
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Yeah, Mikey, but you're obsessive compulsive and Kip is ... Well, was she a redhead Scottish girl?
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jean
Posted on
03/31/2008 at 23:49
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Joined: Nov 18, 2006
Location: Houlton, WI
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Uh, la ,la ..........this is getting interesting!
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The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page - 'Saint Augustin'
Posted on
04/01/2008 at 00:58
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Joined: Dec 25, 2006
Location: fresno, CA
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Jean said: Say, iffen I can come up with some excuse to visit California, can I stay in your yard? More importantly, will you help me get upright in the morning after I sleep on the ground all nite? Just kidding, pal. Or you could just use the guest room my dear....and of coarse I'll do whatever it takes to get you goin' in the morning. Rob; It was the most polite harassing I've ever had. Both cops appologized for having to wake me and make me ride in the cold. She was an American-born Italian, with auburn hair and green eyes. She had brought a gourmet kitchen in the trunk of her car. When I awoke from a freezing night, having broken the zipper on my sleeping bag, she was already fixin' breakfast. When I mentioned the broken zipper she told me she had room for me in her tent, where I would be much warmer. I knew she was right. I was starting to feel warmer already! Gotta go to work now. More later.
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If you meet the Buddha, kill him
Posted on
04/01/2008 at 08:32
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Joined: Jan 19, 2007
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Flowupstream said: She was an American-born Italian, with auburn hair and green eyes. She had brought a gourmet kitchen in the trunk of her car. When I awoke from a freezing night, having broken the zipper on my sleeping bag, she was already fixin' breakfast. When I mentioned the broken zipper she told me she had room for me in her tent, where I would be much warmer. I knew she was right. I was starting to feel warmer already! Gotta go to work now. More later. Ha-ha, are you still working? Did you reach your ten post limit?... or did your wife find out about this thread?! Steven
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Posted on
04/01/2008 at 18:08
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Joined: Nov 17, 2006
Location: Raleigh, NC
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Are you writing this to send in to Playboy magazine!!! I can't wait for the next installment.
Posted on
04/01/2008 at 19:58
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Joined: Dec 25, 2006
Location: fresno, CA
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I learned many years ago, in a series of events which won't be shared here, that what makes good fantasy doesn't nescisarliy make good reality. ALL of the above events happened just as I mentioned them but the things that happened in between changes your perception of things. In an earlier post I mentioned a book I was reading when my new friend, younger than the first 3 of my 5 kids, showed up. The book was "The Transluscent Revolution", written by my friend and mentor Arjuna Ardaugh. It's about seeing through the ego's false identity and living in an "awakend" state reguardless of whatever comes up. It's about living authentically without the suffering identity which depends upon conditions. It's something I've been teaching for a couple of years, part time, but want to make into a permanant carreer. Reading something in chapter 6 made it easy for me to communicate with the youngster about the direction she was looking for. When she offered to share her tent with me she was thinking of me as being something between her father and the buddha. After 36 hours of the relationship I only wish I had with my own children, I packed my broken sleeping bag and headed for Phoenix, where I would get a room for the nite. I would see Al Jesse, owner of Jesse Luggage systems, and ordered my "Safari" bags ( http://www.jesseluggage.com/safari.html) in the morning before riding to Tucson to visit my brother. What a trip THAT was!
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If you meet the Buddha, kill him
Posted on
04/01/2008 at 21:44
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Joined: Jan 02, 2007
Location: Austin, TX
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Great reading Kip - keep it coming!! Really wish you could have made it to Leakey.
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Posted on
04/01/2008 at 23:24
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Joined: Jan 08, 2007
Location: Livonia, NY
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Sometimes when we go somewhere to find something, we find something else along the way that is really what we needed. Glad you had a nice trip. Kevin
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SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES .. . . THEY ARE NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING,
BUT THEY STILL BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN YOU PUSH THEM DOWN A FLIGHT
OF STAIRS.
Posted on
04/01/2008 at 23:50
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