The Long Way Home
Thirty Miles of Spite Therapy
Yesterday started with disruption. Our landlord decided we needed a dishwasher, which we hadn’t asked for and didn’t particularly want. My best guess is they’re improving the place as a quiet excuse to raise the rent. Whatever the reason, it left me feeling dislocated, so I packed up and spent the day working remotely from my van in the parking lot of Snuggle’s workplace, which sounds sadder than it was. We got a lunchtime walk and went out to eat, and that small reset turned out to be exactly right.
Afterward I headed out on my bike with a slow leak in my tire, curious how far I could get before reality intervened. I made it to the trailhead, still had air, so I pushed up Snow Bowl Road. Then back down to Grant Creek. Still had one pump left, so I figured, why not Ravine? Up and over, into the Rattlesnake. By the time I used that last pump I could hear the battery fading with every stroke, the pump slowing like it was also having a hard week. I drank my last water and pointed myself home.
I made it. Barely. Rolling in on the rim, the tube completely finished, the ride clocking in at over 30 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing. The wildflowers along the trail, the yellow arrowleaf balsamroot, the Indian paintbrush burning red against the green, the bear grass standing tall in the filtered light, none of that felt incidental. It felt earned.
Some days you need a controlled disaster to remember what you’re actually made of. Not the dishwasher kind. The other kind.
June 13th Keeps Showing Up
Twenty years of June 13ths, and the through line is almost too obvious to ignore. Trails, crashes, boredom, bears, and the stubborn insistence on showing up anyway.
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