Ecstasical Euphoria

It’s about time for another post.  I don’t feel like being creative though.  So screw you Nick Skenszickche.  It’s going to be a list of facts and events in chronological order.  Wow, it just took me forever to figure out how to spell that word.  Anyways, like I said this post is going to be no nonsense and purely functional, just like this jacket:  Coat Store.

I will be speaking this in a German accent–in my mind mainly, so do not expect me to be writing in a German accent because that would use up my time unnecessarily and would not be no nonsense; it would be an excess and therefore not functional.  If you do not have necessary German accent in your mind now, I trust you will click on the link provided above and watch you the video so that you do have a German accent in your mind to hear.  Then you must read this last paragraph again.  

Thursday last week.  Or maybe Wednesday actually, I went to the coast with mein father to look for a shipwreck.  The location and details are top secret, though.  So I cannot tell you them.  We took our kyakas, which are made for rivers but are functional in many conditions, to the beach and paddled out through the surf to investigate sea caves where we thought there might be shipwreck remains.  The idea was that the pottery shards, which is what we were looking for for evidence of the wreck, would be more preserved in the caves due to less weathering.  Unfortunately, there were no sand beaches or shelves in the caves like we had hoped (just vertical rock walls) and therefore no chance of us finding anything without using diving equipment.  But the caves were cool anyways, and we did a bit of surf kayaking afterwards even though the waves were tiny that day.

 

 My dad, who’s taking the picture, is somewhat claustrophobic and was happy to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

A few days later on Saturday, my brother and I went over to the coast again, this time to investigate some waves on our surfboards. It was our first time surfing at The Point in Seaside, and the waves were great. 8-10 feet with big intervals. We would have caught tons of waves if it weren’t for a couple greedy guys there that went for every wave in the set. This one guy with a blond pony tail and yellow gloves probably had 70 rides in the time we were there. I think I had less than 10. Actually, Yellow Gloves had more like 100 if I had around 10. He’d always be up on the wave first, and if you know anything about surfing, you know that you can’t take the wave if someone else catches it before you. He’d always paddle up and cut into the inside, take the wave right out from under your nose, ride it perfectly with however many cutbacks he felt like throwing in, and get back in time for the next set to beat you to your wave again. Every time.

Galen caught a decent amount of waves there, but we got out after 4 hours and ate lunch while discussing ways we would have liked to see Yellow Hands perish. A gray whale had come within 20 feet of us, and about 5 feet away from another guy out there, and I personally would have liked it if the whale had gone Pinocchio style on Yellow Hands and made him into a quick snack. We also would have liked to see him get smashed up on the rocks or attacked by a sea lion. In fact, if I had a sea lion pall, I would train him to go around and bite the leashes of everyone else’s boards.

After lunch we surfed the Cove, which is next to the point but closer to the beach. The guys surfing there weren’t as good, so we got plenty of waves and surfed until it began to get dark. I don’t have any pictures of us surfing, so I’ll paint a picture in your mind: it was at the ocean…there were waves in the water…it was kind of cloudy but also sunny. That aught to do the trick.

Sunday and Monday: Qwin (Quinn Keogh) came over on Saturday night to spend the night so we could get a mini training camp in over the next two days. By the way, I’ve stopped thinking in a German accent by now. I stopped a long time ago. On Sunday we did a nice little 5+ hour jaunt in the Sherwood/Newburg area. Bald Peak, Parret Mountain, a bunch of flats, and some other hills. It rained on us for a few hours and was super windy, but we got fairly lucky and had good weather for most of it. We ended the ride at his house in Beaverton, ate food and watched the Vuelta, went to bed, and got up the next morning to go on a ride with some other guys out to the Bridge of the Gods in the Gorge. Today, as you know if you spent any time outside, was not very pleasant for the most part. The pace was hard, for Qwin and I at least since our legs were loaded from the day before; and the the rain and cold drained them even more. Qwin got a flat on a giant pothole that I failed to point out while I was on the front, and that’s when we all got cold; while he fixed the flat. I had forgotten what that sensation felt like. Cold. Wet. It’s already becoming a distant memory, but I think it was unpleasant.

When one is cold and or when one is growing tired, in fear of bonking, has bonked, or just wants to drop a number of hammers,,, one should stop at an establishment that serves the beverage known as the Hi-Rev Mocha. One must fill a cup with the liquid, drink as much of it as one can in a short while so as not to be seen by the cashier, then fill it back up. While one is drinking a Hi-Rev Mocha, one must slurp loudly and quickly, so as to not let the flavor escape into the atmosphere, for the flavor of the Hi-Rev Mocha dissipates as one nears the bottom of the cup. It is not known why this occurs, but scientists believe that it is the mischievous doings of spirits and or fairies. Upon completing one’s cup and a half (or two cups if one is a very fast drinker and does not care if one burns one’s lips), one will experience a feeling of ecstasical euphoria. [Not to reader, the author just made up that word, which is derived from ecstasy but used as an additive]. The feeling will last for quite some time, as the sugar and caffeine content of the Hi-Rev Mocha is beyond measurement. During this time of ecstasical euphoria, one must ride a bicycle fast. Or attempt to do so.

I drank my hi rev mocha and we were on our way again. It had stopped raining, and the rest of the ride was nice. I felt pretty good during the hard efforts and had plenty of energy the rest of the way home to Sherwood to make it a 130 mile ride in a little over 6 hours. By the way, OBRA race promoters, I think (and everyone thinks) that the road season should NOT start in February, end in June, and pittle away with a bunch of crits in July and August. I like crits, but I’d much rather have road races or a weekly circuit race in the summer. Or both road races AND crits. Ok, at least some road races. At least 4. Or even 2. Please, at least 1. That’s not too much to ask for is it? And they’d be well attended because A) if you started the season 6 weeks later instead of in February people wouldn’t get as burned out so quickly and would still be racing in the summer B) road races are much more pleasant when it’s hot out than when it’s raining and snowing at Hagg Lake, and C) rats have good night vision and sturdy tails, therefore making them excellent at climbing during dusk. As evidence of people wanting to do more road racing, I present the Rapha race. Why are people so excited for it? Well, to answer that I’ll have to do another alphabetical list: A) they miss road races, B) they’re tired of short, 60 minute crits in parking lots, C) it actually isn’t a road race, but it’s kind of like one, D) it involves winning lots of beer, E) I don’t know why the moon does all the stuff it does, F) I imagine there will be lots of trees to look at. And studies show that walking through a forest decreases stress, G) stress is spelled with the same letters as trees, H) rats come in many shapes and sizes, but the most common is the black rat, which is black and shaped like a rat, I) just want to tell you how I’m feeling.

My next post will be about the Galapagos and I will include many pictures of sea lions and other Galapagos aminals.