Did you ever wonder...

...what it might be like?
to suck the juice from an orange through a straw?
to greet a Frenchman with kisses?
to have a dream where you thought you were falling but discovered you were flying?
to have a conversation with seven different people in seven different tongues?
to find a piece of fluffy lent in your belly button? (ask Denver -he knows)
to find out that there is something to do in Missouri and Kansas?


Well, there is. it's mountain biking (or rather rugged trail biking, as there's really no "mountains")

I'm wild about mountain biking. I know, I've only been twice. But then, I've only had the bike for three days (I'm planning another excursion for tomorrow).

It's like dancing with the trail. It's not about muscling your way up a hill or across country. It's
all in how gracefully you can navigate a
single-track sandwiched by trees and paved with crooked rocks.

Here's my mountain biking firsts:
-thanking God a helmet is strapped to my head.
-finding my chain fell off while traveling down hill toward a large creek -luckily it wasn't the brakes that "fell off."
-realizing my back tire kept flipping over my head on steep down grades was because I kept breaking in the back without the breaking the front.
-finding out that I can navigate a stream and switchback at the same time.
-forgetting to annoy nature (specifically a turtle crossing my path) with pokes and prods.
-realizing mud is fun on the bike as well as off.
-wishing I had called someone to let them know where I was biking, because there was a chance that I break a leg or arm.
-enjoying Missouri.



Oh, by the way, I dubbed the bike "Tige II" after its previous owner -a crazy pro bicyclist who works with me at station 1132.