whenever we're in the mountains, pete my dad and i always try to rig danger pictures to scare my mom. usually we'll orient the camera a certain way to make it look like there's a cliff below. here's a couple from the wind rivers. and if, "you're just so stupid!" means my mom likes a picture, then the second one was probably the best. they're both of the old man.

i'm depressed. i miss the woods. Soon i'm going to finally realize skreech is gone too...

alot has happened since i got in to colorado springs. masters nationals was really disapointing in general. it's hard to put a finger on what bothered me the most. it may have had something to do with all the older guys who try to be fashonable and cool like they were when they were sixteen, or how all the people there seemed to be so damn serious about the stupid bike races. jeez, it makes me appreciate the good times we had in pennsylvania and chicago where it was a circus and we had a blast losing. but i'm happy for tainter and degolier, they deserve their wins. Degolier's behavior was probably the lone bright spot. he climbed pikes peak (26 miles roundtrip, 1.5 miles verticle) the day before the team sprint where their starter was flying in from pennsylvania just for the one lap. it rained on him the entire way down and he met a guy who twisted his ankle so he fashioned a walking stick for him and helped him limp the rest of the way down. that's class! and the right attitude. oh and my dad crashed in the madison and got a concussion. the guiness guy who he crashed into was telling everyone, "he tried passing me on the inside" which pissed me off because the idiot started to drift uptrack. my dad had a millisecond to choose which side to go over and he chose wrong, since the guiness guy heard him coming or something and went back down. i saw it happen from corner 3/4 and the crash was between 1-2, and it was obviously a sketchy move, so the asshole shouldn't have tried to give all the blame to the guy who was blacked out on the cement. his story changed too, he even told people the pack's slipstream pulled him uptrack, later degolier said this dude had heard my dad coming so he went back down. right, so i argued with him some... he was one of the 4o somethings who thought he was 16. when i'm that age i want to be like my dad who cares absolutely nothing for image. nothing, he just wants to compete and have fun. i think i'm going to work exclusively for him when he returns to racing whenever that may be.

the wind river mountains cleared my mind some, incredibly beautiful peaks in the most rugged range in the lower 48. the old man recovered enough to go in, and we almost summitted a good sized mountain (got cliffed out).

finally, not that anyone who reads this will know her, but the girl who was struck and killed by a car while riding her bike near campus the other day was in my field geolgy class in colorado. i barely knew her, but i know she certainly had one of those kindly dispositions that are hard to find these days. at least she's in a better place, wherever that might be.

ed

Hi ho, hi ho. I'm in colorado springs getting stoked for masters nats tomorrow. the old man is doing his 200m and kilo tomorrow. skibby and tainter are here i hear, but i haven't seen them yet. my field geology class was the best class i have ever taken. we hiked around and mapped above 12,000 feet during the day and fooled around at camp at night. super fun. one night we built an enourmous fire taller than 10 feet and then guys started jumping through it. good times anyway. i like it how when you're in the woods little things like huge fires are super fun, while in the city it seems like you need to spend lots of money or do something really stupid to have really memorable moments... i think i fell in love with the forest this summer, and i don't know what that means.
anyway last night we finished our mapping exam and then the teach and the TA started making everyone margaritas and gin and tonics. it was a fun night. oh, and it rained pretty much every afternoon and in the last week I think it hailed something like three times. that wasn't so cool.

so that's what i've been up to, but i hear skreech has moved to milwakee. skreech if you read this i miss you already. seriously, you're already missed. you'd better show up to visit often. On Sunday after the mad mad madison with skibby and old man my little nemisis, old man and my uncle are heading to the Wind River Mountains in search of craziness. we'll see what happens, hopefully I'll kill peter on the hills since i'm in good hiking shape and acclamated to 12,000 ft. elevations. haha .

ed