Author: Bill

“I just can’t do it … I just can’t, my brain just is not wired that way. I give up”, snuggles was just off the trail looking completely demolished.

“I think it is just fear, you have to make that connection to trust”

We walked the drop again. The roll-in was a bit squirrely and to set up for the drop one should give the bike a flick up onto the edge of the trail.

After a bit, a couple of young dudes rolled up with full-face helmets and stopped. Terror washed over their faces. I gave them tidbits of advice, this coming from someone who hasn’t conquered the fear yet. They went around and one of them rolled into the smallest one.

“Just roll off of it the first time”, I yelled down to him.

He retreated rolled up to it and let go.

“Holy shit that was easy”, he yelled back as he disappeared down the Redline, a run in Acton Bike Park.

She looked the entire spectacle over and agreed that there is absolutely nothing that could go wrong. Nothing.

“I don’t know why but I just can not do it, I can’t let go”

I knew this particular section was a wash. I wasn’t going to do the big drop and snuggles was just comfortable riding awesome single track and keeping the damn knobs on the ground.

I turned back up the trail to give the big drop one more look. As I peered over the edge I knew this was not my day to do the big one. I walked my bike to the top of the b-line. Suddenly, something felt wrong. I hear a thump and whoosh. I turned around and looked down the trail.

“Snuggles”?… “Hello?”

What had happened? I ran down the trail looking feverishly onto one side of the drop and then the other.

“Holy F%^&# hell, what happened”, I yelled down the hill.

Silence … until the sound of squabbling dirt came to an end. Sounded like someone finally putting on the brakes way down the hill.

“I sent it”, words lofted up the hill.

This may just be my weirdness slipping out. Living in Livingston one finds out pretty quickly that they must wave to everyone and for goodness sake always stop to talk. When we lived in other communities people wouldn’t even acknowledge us.

Now I am starting to think. I’ll bet that built into us as humans and animals this is a primal way of survival. We’re like deer in that when you see another and they wag their tail or wave it means everything’s a-okay and everyone is a friend. But if you don’t see anybody wag their tail or wave, you get a little release of adrenaline. Because deep down we are wondering if it is an enemy and if they are going to kill us? Is it a threat? Am I about to be eaten or pillaged?

I know this because it is how I feel in Livingston, I feel at peace when everybody waves. I think everything’s okay.

But in a previous town. People would just stare right through us and so we stopped waving after about a year. And I noticed that every confrontation on a trail and every meet up was this hostile staredown.

And I think it’s because people stopped waving. People stopped smiling and people stopped talking. It takes moving to a small friendly town to realize this. Sure there’s a lot of characters in Livingston. A lot of characters and a lot of different people. People that don’t fit in in the big communities.

But you know what? I have never felt safer as I do now.

Every morning I go out for a walk. The weird thing is that I get this hankering to take my shoes off and walk through the park. And today I was wondering … Why is that us humans do everything possible to get away from the earth? We make sidewalks, we have cars, and our houses are so comfortable. What is it that are we are trying to get away from.

Discomfort? Really? I don’t know about that but by the time I get to the park, I can’t wait to take my shoes off. I want to feel the contour. I want to get connected again. I want to feel the pine needles poking my feet tender parts. I want to discharge all this negative electricity.

It’s been a month since my birthday. Right smack dab at the start of the lock-down.

I have to say that even with being chained to a cell I have things to appreciate. Like the person who made me a flour-less and sugarless cake, which I may add is my favorite treat. And I am thankful to the person who makes being locked up fun.

It’s nearly over. They are about to release us back out into freedom.

This morning’s walk is a little bit more enjoyable. I’m seeing the beauty. I’m seeing spring elements. I am seeing hope.

Everything is more beautiful. And everything is more positive. And we are going to pack #buttonsthevan. And go camping.

The gravel has been wet but insanely delicious. Weirdly enough it snows every day but then it dries. We go out to a gravel haunt and it is dry. So all the while it is depressing to be on lockdown and consistently look out the window to a depressing scene, the afternoons seem to work out with short excursions.

We are loving the opportunity to get out. But … just … it would be nice to go mountain biking someday.

Three days ago there was a knock on the door. Would it be the testers. Comming to find if you HAD IT and if you did cart you away to a cell in solitude. Today we are now opening the box that the delivery person left at our door. IT was extremely relieving that it was not the testers.

Now out of package quarantine, we opened the box. It was our lockdown bunker supplies. A summers supply of sourdough.

Outside the devel dust started to fall. I am responsable for the ignorance that landed me here. And now with the enimy dust outside I had to deal with my decisions.

“Should we go for a ride today”, a voice said as I cam out of my denial meditation.

“sure”

Of course, our couch is a bike seat. And tv, well it is the outdoors. We are not traveling but we do travel. On two wheels.

Livingston is a paradise for gravel grinding. And here in Montana, our counties are HUGE. We can go out all day and not leave home.

Yea, binge-watching at the moment.

I am in #buttonsthevan. Been here for two days. I just had to get out of the apartment. I’ve been working on a couple of things. I’ve insulated. One wall and the ceiling. I have created more headspace by taking out a wall and using the window covering. I’ve installed lights and a bike rack.

Yeah, a complete overhaul as you will. I’m exhausted now and I sit back.

And I try to think back to the last time we went camping the last time we were able to go out and do an adventure. I think maybe Lewis and Clark Caverns. Was that a dream? Will it ever happen again? I wonder.

We will be closed for a while said the sign at our favorite movie theater. I remember the empty stores as I pull the last sheet of toilet paper. A concerned look washes over my face before changing to complete bliss. A challenge.

We will go out and make our movies and adventure. And we will use the outdoors to poop and some bark to clean up. Most residents of Livingston is doing the same. I have seen more people out making their adventure than before lockdown.

Disclaimer … we have a storage shed full of paper products and google play has some pretty good deals right now.

Three weeks ago Snuggles went to Costco to only find it gutted. We knew something was afoot. Then the Governor told us to stay home. Besides my daily attempts to escape via adventure bike, this is what we have been doing.

Every day it is the same. I head out on Orca only to succumb to fatigue. I sit for a while on the tundra before heading home to rustle up some grub. 

The snow continues to fall as I work from home, our 200 square foot studio. The clock turns to 3 and I prepare my daily escape. 

One day we will drive away from this place. And never come back. As it has been for every place I have lived.

In separate news, who wants to do a https://hangouts.google.com/ for Snuggle’s birthday?

With things the way they are it is really hard to think back to a time when adventure was so easy. An idea was born. Then executed. Just like that. Now it is like we are not allowed to go out to explore. And we slip into a convict mentality. How long would it take before anyone realized that we are not in our cell?

A lot of firsts were obtained during one of our last adventures. First overnighter in a rest area and Walmart parking lot. First mountain bike ride in Great Falls. First time seeing the falls … er … what is left of them. First time seeing a carp raise out of the water to watch you walk down the road. First big sunny day.

Okay, it was not the first big sunny day. It always seems like when I see the sun I am amazed. Every time I see a photo with the sun I think it was the last time I have seen the sun. In any case … when you experience so many firsts. You know you have adventured. You’ve gone out into the new. First experiences.

It indeed seems we can’t do that anymore. But isn’t the situation the first time we have experienced this? Isn’t this just another big adventure. I have to say though. IT is getting old and it doesn’t seem like an adventure anymore. Isn’t it about time to end this one?

Quarantine is hard. Simply the most difficult thing to give up is our freedom. So today I’m thinking back to a time when we just jumped into buttons and took off for some Adventure. Freedom to Adventure. Adventures to Freedom. I miss Adventure. I missed the freedom to Adventure.

I’m up early and nothing much to see here. Only disgruntles with their loud pickups driving the streets looking to run down violators. I’m too fast for them. Slipping in and out of alleys.

I make it to the tracks were Honkie, our friendly engineer honker, lays on the horn to wake up Livingston. I put my head down and march up Park Street. I turn the corner to the home stretch and compare the bank signs. One says 28 degrees and the other is reporting 30. Wow … we will be in the 30s today? I sprint for the front door and duck inside. I made it today. I made it.

Deadman’s Basin. It’s a reservoir just outside of Shawmut Montana.

As a child. I don’t know if I was told or what, but I thought that people would die in this lake because the winds would kick up and capsize fishing boats. And that people will get swept away in the overflow drain. But the fact is that the reservoir was named after a hanging.

People back in the day thought that this guy was stealing horses and so for that, they hung him. For being a horse thief. Thus dead man’s basin.

It was fun to revisit my childhood playground. A place that my aunt and friends used to take me to party and swim and. Try to learn to water ski.

As a child, I always thought this was a huge sea. But now as an adult, it’s just a reservoir. Also as a child, I never saw the mountains. I thought this was the plains and nothing exciting. It was just so boring. Just a place to go party and get drunk and swim. Come to find out that if you look to the north there are the Big Snowy Mountains. And to the South, there is the Crazy Mountain Range. Huge mountain ranges that make this place absolutely beautiful.

Revisit the places you remember as a child because when you do it will be a different experience. Too bad we can not do that with people … ha.

Living … in … a … van … down … by … the … river. That Saturday Night Live skit was hilarious. But really what if someone we knows does actually live in a van down by the river.

I have been hearing the word “old” a lot lately. “My teacher is so old they cant teach me without a classroom”. “Your the oldest one here”. “your so old”. Well if we are measuring metabolic age I will bet I am younger then you. And if your so fucking stupid that you just do some simple math to determine my age. Then I certainly do not want to tell you where I live.