I’m half asleep even though I slept like a dead baby last night. I guess depriving my body of sleep for 5 days makes for a bit of a slow recovery. Anyways, here’s what I know you all are dieing to know…

The Drive South

The Golden Knuckle and myself left the polar north just before 6 p.m. We were dressed for success in our warm weather clothing, neither of us checked the weather. I drove straight through to SG. The Mooseknuckler-mobile was a little hungry for fuel with the two bikes up top so we ended up stopping twice instead of my usual one stop per trip. But we made it nonetheless in 5 1/2 hours.

We swung by Kathleen’s house and picked her and Chaco up to go to the parent’s house to pick up a few things that we needed and let Lily have some fun for a few minutes. Of course, we had to have something to eat and mum delivered with some pistachio dessert.

Back at KB’s house, we all fell into bed knowing we would be back up at 5 the next morning. I was in bed around 1:30.

Up at 5, we had a tough time getting going. We dragged around loading Kathleen’s gear and getting things ready to go. Around 5:30 we headed off only to remember that we hadn’t printed our release waivers. So we headed back to the house and installed printer drivers and printed out the waivers. (we never needed them but we had them) We got back on the road before 6 and started off heading down through the Gorge.

Once we entered the canyon I clicked off the cruise control and slowed down a bit. Being tired and not paying attention, I was just cruising down the road. In the Arizona section there is construction going on and we were down to one lane with barricades on both sides. Out of the darkness of the morning, I saw pig lights and said, “What the hell is the speed limit?” and hit the brakes. About another mile down the road another fascist flashes his light at me and I still have no idea how fast I am supposed to be going. Once we got out of the construction the limit was 55 and we proceeded at that speed. I noticed a car was tailgating me and following my every move. Yeah, it was the cop and he pulled me over and proceeded to rape me giving me a ticket for 70 in a 35 construction zone. I’m scared to even know how much it’s gonna cost.

After that, we went the speed limit and were especially careful in construction zones in Arizona. Apparently they are redoing the entire state’s infrastructure right now and we drove through construction for the entire 400 miles to Tucson.

Having three people in a car all day lends itself to multiple stops for any reason that you can find. Our little trip was no different and we averaged a break about every hour. As we got closer to Phoenix, Kevin began to check the weather and we found that there was a sever weather warning for the Tucson area with possible snow storms. Great. It was raining by the time we reached Phoenix. By this time I was about dead. We stopped for dinner and sat down. I fell asleep half we through my pasta. After my 5 minutes of sleep. I jerked awake, got the check and headed back down the road with my comrades.

The closer we got to Tucson the nastier the weather got. Just out of Phoenix I recieved a call from Doug Roether to let us know that it was snowing and that we should pack warm clothing. I told him we were almost there and would just have to deal with it. We turned off of the freeway and made our way up Oracle highway towards the venue. We turned off Oracle onto a dirt road, er mud road, er water over mud road. We had to rally the Element a little bit, and she handled it like a champ. One hour down the road and we finally made it to camp.

Camping

It was raining and snowing. It was cold. Doug Roether set up his pop up tent and then tarped it all off and tried to heat it with a propane heater. Kathleen and I set up our tent and put all of our gear in it and then made our bed in the car. Kevin set up his tent with frozen, aching fingers. Cimarron and Bryce set up their tent under the IMBA pop up tent that was connected to Doug’s.

We all huddled around the propane heater and hoped the cold beer would somehow make us warm. Our hands, feet and faces slowly got colder and colder. The sleet turned to snow and we decided to turn in for the night. I turned the car on and warmed it up before bed so we wouldn’t freeze. About half way through the night, as is expected on a cold, miserable night, I had to pee. So I turned the car back on and got things cozy again and stepped out. Our tent was no where to be seen. I walked over and saw that it had collapsed under the weight of the snow that had accumulated. So I had to go and get the tent back up and I got anything that we didn’t want to be wet out of the tent and put it in the car.

We woke up just before 8. I had no desire to be in camp, in the damp. So we ran back into to town, driving the mud road. We went and got some more supplies, refueled the car so we could stay warm and grabbed some breakfast burritos. The sun broke throught the fog and things felt good, but we weren’t at camp and the fog was still hanging where we had to return to. We drove back into the moist air and through the mud to get ready for the race. We were happy to be warm, dry and fed.

Stay tuned for the second part, I’m going to bed.

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