Date: May 28, 2015

Yo, this is my blog for the ride.  Enjoy the grass and walk on it as you please.  

Honestly, this is one significant event.  It has sat on the horizon for some time now and I’m pumped to get it going.  Walk back 2.5 years and you’ll find me passively engaging life.  Yes, there was some active pursuit of challenge, but the sum of my existence seemed centered on merely getting by.

That was, until Fall Break 2012.  I sat on that bench in that park and contemplated that drilling thought: Here is where I am but am I actively generating meaning in my life?  

Upon return from that bench in that park with that thought, I found myself in Phoenix, casually letting Darren Heibel know that I wanted to bike up South Mountain with him after school.  Graced with my giant woman’s sunglasses, clothing XXL, and no bike gear save the bike, I bowed down before that glorious hill and sweated dying mints from my flesh in that autumnal Phoenix heat.  

Thank you Darren for waiting for 45 minutes at the top for my shadow to crawl into the evening there.  

Months later, I am in the ER, pounds lighter and bones ruined pending a gashing fall that collapsed my lungs and broke mighty bones in my body.  Mighty it was to sit in that hospital bed sucking morphine through the air and wondering what the hell I thought to ride a mountain bike down a hill.  God, it was like being in middle school – friends achingly pleadingly encouraging you – you obliging of course.  Hilarious to watch on the iPhone in slow-mo repeat.  No matter.  I could submit to the moment, recall the past, relive it…or I could push hard and go for that dream far imagined.  To regrow those bones and push further.

Years later to the now, I sit a more polished rock than that first ride on SoMo.  I have owned my life much more and I am ready to crank it.  This only opens doors for more.  First stop Salt Lake City.  Next, into the Boise.  Finally Seattle with some Vancouver.  Then, time to fall down the coast southward on bike until I stand on the beaches of Imperial and gaze at that border to Mexico.  Red woods, water, rain, and evergreen.  This only opens doors for more.