Weekend of Wonderment

That's me on the right and my brother John on the left. I think the pictures in this post do a decent job of showing what my brother and I accomplished.

I for one have been actively into mt biking for going on three years now and this was my first trip to Moab. In past years I have unsuccessfully tried to get a friend or two to journey to mt bike Mecca with me. A group of people had planned a trip to Moab and I jumped at my chance to enjoy the world famous "red rock."

In order to obtain maximum enjoyment I knew it was important to get another person to go riding with me. I contacted all of my mt biking friends and all of them wanted to come, but for one reason or another were unable to make it. As I had done in the past when I had no one to ride with I decided it was necessary to introduce another person to a hobby I have come to love. Since I live with John he was an easy target and I new he felt bad for me on account that I was so excited to bike and as of yet no one was willing to join me. As you can tell from the picture John did mt bike with me in Moab.

Even though I had never ridden the infamous "Slick Rock" trail I have heard many tales from those who have. I new it tried even the best of riders and I chose not to disclose this to John. We embarked on the trail and things were a little rough to start out with. John was rediscovering how to ride a bike on a some what unforgiving surface of jagged red rock. As we climbed on hill after another and weaved from ridge to ridge I began to feel a great amount of satisfaction. Not only had the two of us ridden where several Moab patrons only reach on motorized vehicles, but John had expressed on more than one occasion that he couldn't believe how much fun he was having despite feeling physical fatigue and saddle sore.

We had reached the just over the half-way point of the trail and we actually started to pick of the pace. The adventurer within John had begun to push fear aside and he began to let go of the brake lever. We covered 3 or 4 miles in a fraction of the time it initially took us to cover the same territory.

As we sat on top of the highest ridge the only signs of civilization you could see were jeeps and off in the distance doing there thing. As we made our way back to the trail head we stopped a few times to enjoy some fine pieces of machinery climbing what seemed impossible terrain. We didn't see any jeeps roll, but I think I saw a couple of truck bumpers destroyed in the vast red rock back country.

We rode on Friday and a little bit on Saturday and then we drove from Moab to Logan to attend a concert featuring MxPx. This concert was amazing. I tried to take a picture with my phone and it turned out to be nothing but a blur with a streak or two of light in it. At some point during the concert I got lost in the moment and the hour plus of intense concert happenings seamed to end in a matter of minutes.

Although I don't have a picture to prove it on two separate occasions, I'm not even sure how it happened, the lead signer and I pounded fists! Both times, it seems, right before and after I was kicked in head by an innocent body surfer.

The Weekend of Wonderment ended with a night at Angie's restaurant in Logan and I consumed four large glasses of water and a Belgian waffle smothered in strawberries and whipped cream.