The Ying and Yang of the greatest day ever, and why I will never eat fried chicken again

When one rides 30 miles on a scooter you qualify for a pic under the "Cool Zone" Sign

Feeling rather hard core after going 20mph up the pass to Virginia City

Scooter Death Mob founder....Dave

Ready to hit the open road

Rolling

Burning into Virginia City

Ying and Yang, plus and negative, old Stevie Wonder vs. new Stevie Wonder these are things with complete opposites (especially Stevie Wonder, honestly how does a guy put our a record like "Songs In The Key Of Life," then write a travesty like, "I just called to say I love you.") I digress, here is the story. I have been in the Reno/Tahoe area for the past few days for work. I started out yesterday making the rounds to Carson City, Melville, and Tahoe. Not a bad day, had some good calls and saw some great country. I called my buddy Dave to see what he was up to after work. He, much like the Magi spreading words of joy and glad tiding mentioned that he and his wife had just picked up some scooters on Craig's list and we should mob them over the hill to Virginia City.

I was in from the get go, so Dave (now the official founder of the Scooter Death Mob) adorned in his ski helmet and me in Dave's down hill bike helmet and gold Elvis sunglasses headed out. Now Kerouac may have written "On The Road", but he did not do it on a scooter! So after a long climb up the mountain maxing out at 20mph we finally picked up some speed on the decent. Rolling in Virginia City was great. If any of you are in the Reno area I highly recommend that you make it over that way. It is one of the most intact mining towns I have ever seen. Being that a scooter ride is hard work we had both worked up a decent appetite and were ready for some grub.

We hit up the locals on where to eat and learned that Del Rio was having there special Gospel Chicken (this is the start of the yang part of story). So Dave and I sat down to a large plate of fried chicken on mashed potatoes with plenty of gravy. As it went down, it was truly Divine. I experience junkie like craving for fried chicken about every 2 years and this was my fix. We noted that nightfall was upon us and it was time to burn the road home.

Coming out of Virginia City was colder then death, but the way back to Reno was not so bad. As I was going down the road singing the theme song from "Smokey and the Bandit" I noticed that my insides were have some rejection issues with the Chicken. So we made it back, and what was once Divine poultry was now on its way to becoming apocalyptic on a biblical scale. I made it back to my hotel and into bed hoping the destroying angle that once was the Gospel Chicken would pass me by. No Dice......

By midnight the Gospel Chicken had taken full position of my soul and I was purging the demons all night long and into the morning. The exorcism did not take hold until Friday morning. Maybe the open road and smell of two stoke oil was so way to much of a good thing and had to be balanced by a night of being curled up around the porcelain?

With all Drama aside, Dave and I are talking about planning a scooter trip across Nevada on Highway 50 (the worlds loneliest highway). I can assure you that if this trips goes down, no fried chicken will be going down the hatch! Ahhh, the ying and the yang of life.

Brian Head 08'

Frog Hiked For Hours, She Could Not Get Enough of Duck Creek
The Frog With Her Fly New Camel Back

Up at Brian Head Listening to a Band (I of course told the Frog she was never allowed to date a guy in a band)

Great Driver

Dad, Sienna, and I at Cedar Breaks

My Dad and I at Pups Cabin in Duck Creek

Just Finished Dark Hallow (glad to have knocked the dust of the KHS)

Megan at the Start of Dark Hollow

Back home after an amazing weekend up at Duck Creek/Brian Head, UT. First off huge thanks to Pup and Nicole for letting us use the cabin. We got up to Duck Creek on Friday night and it was good to be up in the Mountains. The frog was on cloud nine, she could not get enough of the out doors. After a solid stake dinner and a serious game of harts we called it a night. Saturday Megan and I went down to Brian Head to ride Dark Hollow. It was a great ride and I did not break anything on my KHS this year (last year I broke my chain and ripped of my derailer) and Megan and I came out alive with only getting lost once. On the way back we stopped by a bike shop and picked up a tiny Camel Back for the Frog. She not only loves it, but now she is drinking so much water that her diapers weigh about 10 pounds! We had pizza and watched a band play down at Brian Head. We spent the rest of the day back at the cabin hiking around and exploring. Sienna saw a deer which she called a, "cow" and started Mooing! I kid you not , she loved hiking around so much we had to take turns watching her till the sun went down. She is one serious hiker! All and all it was an amazing time.

Who is the man who would give his life for a brother?

The answer to that question would be.....Shaft! Today we lost a pioneer in the world 100% deep fried soul funk. Isaac Hayes a.ka. the Black Moses passed leaving a void in the gritty world of soul. The dude not only was the pimp chef on South Park (I salute his song about Kathy Lee Gifford) but a academy award winning artist (that would be for Shaft). Sin City bids farewell to Mr. Hayes a true soldier of the funk.

The Frogs 2nd Camp out

A few weeks back we loaded up the family and with some great friends of ours headed up to Macks Canyon (about a 5 mile drive on a logging road from Lee Canyon). It was the Frogs second camp out and she was a champ. It got down into the 60's and we about froze to death (I now how Beck Weathers felt when he was left on Everest), but the frog did great. She was a serious champ. Good times where had, massive amounts of food were consumed, and 1,600 b.b.'s were shot (is there anything better then a BB gun?).

I wish I was still in Costa Rica

The Pool
I could handle living in this beach shack

Lunch After Surfing

The Wife and I

Zip Line

Jurasic Park

Taking the boat to Tambor

Surfing at Mal Pies

I miss vacation!!!!!!!! Althoug being home is great I miss the ocean and the jungle. Till next year...........

Jackson Hole

I have not ended my coverage of Costa Rica, I am just changing it up today. Between the 3rd and the 4th of July we were in Costa Rica, Florida, Vegas, Denver, and Jackson Hole, WY. We headed up to cowboy country to celebrate my Dad's seventieth birthday with my family and pick up the Frog. As we were descending into Jackson we got stuck in the air for 20 minutes because the Vice President was landing. It was really cool to get out of the airplane and see Air force two on the runway. On the ground at the airport we were reunited with the Frog, and man it was good to see her. We really missed that little kid, and talked about her the whole trip. Jackson does the 4th of July right, fully equipped with Rodeo and all. This is a video I shot while watching the bull riders. Although this guy gets worked, he is able to walk away. These guys have some serious cahones to ride a bull, if I tried that I am fairly certain in would take me a week to get out of bed.

Surfing and Getting the Beat Down Costa Rica Style

As Greg Allman would say went, "South Bound" to Malpies for a bit of surfing. Well to be honest it was more like some sort of gitmo water board torture (good times none the less). Ryker and I gave it our best and managed to get up on a few waves, and managed to get worked by even more. After about an hour I felt like I had been ritualistically beaten, so I turned to board over to my wife (who is still has remnants of salt water coming out of her nose to this day) who gave it her best, but the waves were a bit to big for all of us. After our near drowning we hiking up and down the beach and ate pizza at great little beach side restaurant. Costa Rica is so untouched! If this beach was in the U.S. there would be hotels on every square inch of it. Maybe we will give it all up and build a shack on the beach?