2nd and 3rd Dirt

Sunday was my 1st mountain bike race of 2011 but my 3rd dirt race of the year.

Leland-Kermesse was dirt race #2 and stands as the toughest of the 3; 65 miles of dirt, mud, gravel and pavement.  Oh, and completely flat.  Racing on the flats is tougher than racing in the mountains, there are no downhill sections to recover it’s pedal, pedal, pedal.  I tried to debut the new CarboRocket jersey and the stylie  Bonebell / X-Men combo  arm warmers.

Sunday I hit Oglesby, IL for stop #2 of the Illinois Homegrown Series the Matthiassen Mountain Madness and my 1st mountain bike race of the year. I also debuted the new Rhodamine Red 333 jersey.  I think it goes really well with the orange CR bibs, no?

The thing about racing in the woods is that you never know if anyone is ahead of or behind you until you find yourself right on top of them or they on top of you.  The idea of having a carrot is non-existent.  I finished 8th but 5th, 6th and 7th place were all within 60 seconds of me yet I never saw them on course.  Damn trees!

Next up – May 14th, WEMS Stump Farm (stumps=carrots?) 100!

Road Trip

I still can’t get my head around the fact that I live in Chicago. I know I’ve only been here a week but it feels like I’m on vacation and will be heading back to Utah any day. Must be the road trip and 2 weeks off the bike and 2 weeks of road trip food.

Summer is all about road trippin and I-90 is heavy on the trippin. Granted we started on I-80 but things didn’t get trippy and more than a little kitschy til we got to I-90. We left SLC early on June 30th bound for Chicago and headed straight to Rawlins, Wyo. Yeah I’d never heard of Rawlins either. Mile after mile of boarded up motels and restaurants, must be the $30 entry fee to visit the historic Wyoming State Penitentiary. We just asked to use the bathroom and got the whole tour of the place for free. Maybe it’s because of the non-paying bathroom users like us.

We spent the first night at Devils Tower, Wyo. and wondered why we had never been there before. Oh yeah now I remember, it’s a 10 hour drive from home. Actually, totally worth the drive and was hands down our favorite stop of the trip. After Devils Tower you hit I-90 and it’s pretty much non stop kitsch all the way to Chicago, not that that’s a bad thing I happen to like me some good kitsch.

The kitsch starts ramping up in Sturgis, grows and grows through Mount Rushmore nearly reaching a crescendo in Wall, S.D. at the worlds largest drugstore that consumes an entire town. But wait, there is still the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D.

Oh thank God, respite in Sioux Falls.

Like I said before, I loves me some good kitsch and Austin MN didn’t let me down. Behold the SPAM museum. Tasha and the girls had never tasted SPAM before so I made the mistake of opening some in the car after we left the museum so we could all have a wif and a taste. After all, the CEO of Hormel proclaimed SPAM “wholesome” in the video we watched at the museum so we were all anxious to give it a try. Pee yew! Catfood. Smells and tastes just like it. Only 1000mg of sodium per serving too! Good thing it has a cool name.

Wisconsin took the top prize as the king of kitsch though with the Wisconsin Dells. Part Disneyland, part Vegas, part really bad David Lynch movie and 100% kitsch. Worth the trip just for the Goody Goody Gum Drop store and their chocolate covered potato chips.

I’ve been too tired to notice any kitsch in Chicago, I’m sure it’s here. We spent the first 3 nights sleeping on the hardwood floors waiting for our truck and the last 4 days trying to cram everything from the truck into those top two windows on the left in the picture below. The moving truck is 3 times longer than our flat is wide, ended up leaving a bunch of stuff on the curb and it magically disappeared.

I’ve got a photo tour of the new house up next. Stay tuned, you’re gonna love my bathroom.