Canadians ride bicycles in Florida too!

As if unexpectedly seeing a long lost family member I was sparked to life today to see a touring cyclist pull up in front of the shop today. The sheer monotony of pick up tool, turn cranks, adjust, repeat was broken by something other than stabbing into a conversation with another lame joke. Sometimes I wonder myself why I tell those crappy jokes over and over. But back to the story at hand. Like an old friend Aleks rode into my eager awaiting conversation. Aleks is from Canada and is down here in Florida to ride down to Key West. We chatted a little bit about which routes to take through Pinellas and beyond, 5 days in and he has quite a few left to go. I didnt catch where he left from but he told me of a stay in clearwater where a woman allowed him to camp on her mansion lawn by the water on the beach. Nice. It is good to hear that people are accepting to this idea of travelling by bicycle. I still think its crazy... but that is what makes it so intriguing. Well after Aleks and I had finshed talking I made sure he let me take some pictures and we exchanged some contact info. This is a sign... i think to myself. This open road is calling to me. there is so much out there to explore. I cant sit here much longer. DC becons..

here is a pic of Aleks with his fully loaded Peugeot. eh?

wax-poetic

everyonce in a while I post something of a more personal nature here on the old blog. I typically like to keep this for my cycling adventures and other related things, but every once in a while I feel I must wax-poetic and reveal a glimpse of the genius behind the crazy.. or is that the other way around? Anywho.. as I sit here amongst a pile of texts, spiral bound notebooks, my calculator, a couple pencils, my warm lap-top sitting in my.. well.. im giving it purpose to its name. I am slowly, but hopefully surely(fingers crossed) getting all my homework and studying done to wrap up my first semester back to school in a few long and trial filled years. I have learned a lot about myself in the past couple years and I am intent on making this my final comeback as an undergrad student. I am hoping to plan a trip this summer to Washington DC as a means of soul searching, or rather, soul cleansing. I am becoming more and more confident in the man and parent I am and I want to take a gander at what this country is all about. I also want to take Caleb with me.
Reading has become an important part of my life. A little less than 5 years ago I was introduced by a good friend to a good book and a great story. The book itself is of little significance, but that book was the first of many that would follow. The books I have read have turned me into the knowledge hungry man I believe I have become today. No more blissful ignorance, no more wondering what.. just knowledge and access to more and more. In turn I have turned my son into a reader and it is an amazing thing to watch him pick up one of his favorite books and sit down with me while I read. It is these books that have lead to my desire to search for this thing we call America, and this thing I call me.
I am excited about the future. I am excited about Caleb's future. There is so much I want to see and so much I want to say. I am hoping my trip this summer gives me something to write about. Another notch in the belt, but more importantly an adventure shared and a story to tell. we shall see where this adventure called life leads us.

North Shore riding in Florida

With this little set-up in the yard Caleb is training for his text trials competition.. by the end of the week we'll have teeter totters, wheelie drops, and wire spools. :)

The new Home

Ok so the new home away from home arived.. the Big Agnes Seedhouse 2.. this thing is great! or rather small! ha ha.. very small and light and nice for Florida weather.. very open and breezy but has a nice rainfly with adequate ventilation for cooking and not for sweating yourself to sleep durring a night rain storm. Caleb and I should fit quite nicely in this tent but I wouldnt want to share it with an adult. We'll se how she performs real soon.
its a great color for hiding when needs be.

This thing is all mesh!

plenty of room for cooking and stinky shoes.. wait.. better rethink that.

Tour-lust gear porn

My wander lust is itching again as I just picked up the book A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins.. lots of cool stories about Peters hike across the country with his dog. Very inspiring. So any who.. I had a good time on the trip with the shop, but my desire to go with just my son and I is driving me crazy. Im gearing up for a trip down to Myaka River State Park this winter break and im really looking foward to it. I got a few new toys for the adventuring to come and I have almost totally replaced everything that was stolen from my first gear rig.

The first and most important piece of gear is our new Trek Mountain Train 24. Caleb is getting awfully fast, but he is getting too big for a child trailer.. easy solution.. :) This way he gets to ride and he helps me pedal! I havent shown it to him yet as It will be a holiday present to him. I will also be using this to take him to and from school.

I got the MSR Whisperlite to replace my old Jet Boil. The reason i chose this stove was for the sake of not having to buy fuel canisters. The bottle is refillable with white gas and is infinately reusable. To me this is a better choice due to the fact that it doesnt require having to recycle bottles of fuel and that it will be easier to find liquid fuel than specialized canisters of fuel. I actually had the chance to use this stove on our first trip with the shop tour on two nights of cooking. So far I am pretty impressed.. i am still learning the nuiances of this type of stove but as I get used to it I like it more and more.

I recently bought a Big Agnes Seedhouse 2 tent that I have not yet recieved.. but it is a much lighter and packable tent than the Eureka 3 man tent my brother and I took on our first trip up to Inverness. The tent weighs a scant 4 pounds soaking wet, a nice departure from the 6 pound tent I was borrowing for the last trip and my 10 pound Eureka.

I got this new Marmot Trestles 15 degree sleeping bag.. I didnt use a bag on our first couple trips and I borrowed one for the last trip we took. I have an old Army issue extreme temperature bag but it weighs nearly ten pounds and is massive, so a nice lightwieght packable bag was in order. It seems like a low temperature bag for a Floridian traveller, but i do plan on doing some out of state trips eventually, and this thing weights less than 4 pounds. Caleb will be getting a bag from his grandparents for the holiday.

One last decided purchase was a packable rain resistant jacket.. its been cold lately and I figured I needed a decent jacket. I got me a Marmot PreCip Jacket. It is nice and warm and works nicely to keep me dry in light rain as I had a chance to test that all day today. Caleb has much nicer winter clothes that Angela bought for him years ago.. thanks Ang. We are looking foward to our next trip to Myaka very soon. Details on that to follow.

Hands on Bicycle -- more adventures with Bullet

I stopped into Clearwater today to see my old friend Bullet. I have posted about him before and his intense love for the most efficient vehicle ever invented, the bicycle. Bullet's passion for cycling has led him to opening his own shop in Clearwater. Bullet's Hands On Bicycle Shop is located at 1453 Gulf to Bay BLVD. in Clearwater, Florida. The shop is small and he doesnt sell any bikes(the bikes on display are his personal collection), the main focus of the shop is repairs, and what may come as a suprise.. teaching. Bullet hosts open stand time at a minimal charge and allows customers to work on thier own bikes using his tools and some guided instruction. This area in clearwater is very close to the Pinellas Trail and just outside of downtown Clearwater, a great location for the community, and as Bullet lives less than a block from the shop he walks to the shop every morning. In fact, the old man sold his truck to commit soley to riding and walking, saying that he is commiting himself to the community by saving the environment. Bullet hosts rides on the weekends and is only open on saturday and sunday by appointment. He also closes the store every day at lunch for siesta, about two hours so he can spend time with his girl friend and cats, much like shops in Europe do. With years of experience woprking on bikes and welding, he can perform just about any repair needed, and will help you to learn how to do the same.

live life plant a garden

Yesterday Caleb and I built boxes and cleaned up the garden... It has been a depressing venture due to the fact that between work and school I have not had enough time to tend to the garden, the weeds got out of control, and killed many of the plants. The garden was intended to be an experiement and we did learn somethings about gardening, as well as about life.
Working for money doesnt necessarily cover the cost of living even when living well within your means, especially when the cost working keeps you from living at all. Having time to work in that garden would have provided us with lots of edible food that would have costed little money and only a small amount of time after the initial investment period of germination, growth and initial setup. these boxes cost less than 40$ and only about 2 hours time to build and recultivate the existing beds. Plus as an added bonus I spent those two hours teaching my son some valueable lessons about gardening and using hand tools. The plants that grow from this garden, given a minimal amount of productive research, patients with germination, proper soil selection, the correct seed choice for the season, and the probability that some plants will not survive, should yield as a rotating crop, enough vegetables to sustain us. I have not run the exact probability for success in numbers as several of my plants died for various reasons the first go around so no real number can be summated. However.. the tomatoes have yielded a decent number of delicious roma tomatoes that were enough to use in a chili I made the other night.. with still a few left over. Had the correct fertilizers been used I could have yielded twice as many. more research to be done on that note.
my point to all this is that with enough research, a well thought out time buget, and some old school ingenuity, I can live much happier off of less money and more time spent with my son and working on more important things in life.
We built these planter boxes to keep the weeds and grass seeds out of the garden.. with more time off of work starting in a couple weeks I will be able to spend more time with my son, more time in the garden, and will get more real living done.