What I Learned: An Introspective Journey

Being on a bike for the last several months has taught me a few things both about other people and about myself and has often caused me to feel things that I don't often feel while going about my prior normal life. 

Great Basin, WY.
96 miles of nothing (no water, no people, no trees).

The first thing I learned is that I am small. Sometimes I would be out in the middle of nowhere with no people and sometimes no trees with the sun beating down on me and I would look around and think that I am literally all alone in this great big world. I did not feel lonely, or scared, but I did feel some kind of realization that I am only a small part of the universe. It is a strange feeling and it makes me think of how we can sometimes feel alone while being surrounded by people. In this case I felt alone while being alone, but the feeling of recognition of that was very similar emotionally. 

Just me and a potentially dangerous lightning storm.

In addtion to that, being on a bike makes me realize how vulnerable we humans are physically. It would take only a millisecond for a car to clip me while I was riding for me to be dead in a heartbeat. Again, although I was not frightened of this happening all of the time, and it was not something I would regularly dwell on, sometimes I would get this shock of recognition that you don't really get when you are "protected" in the metal casing of a vehicle. I actually did not really have too many close calls luckily, but still sometimes I would be riding along and would think about how soft and fragile my body really is, even though it is strong and it is taking me so far. 

I have mentioned this before, but being out in the world makes me realize how kind people really are. I was thinking about this the other day, as I was walking down the street, because I would look up at the people walking toward me and smile at them, and most of the time, they would smile back. This is something I would have not really done that much in San Francisco or Oakland. However, while riding, I often wave at cars, smile at people and have had many people do the same back, or do it first, which is so satisfying! We are all in this world together and I think we often forget that, as we go about our busy days. For some reason, being a weird looking overloaded person in a rain jacket on a bike makes people friendly toward (or feel sorry for) me, and I like it. 

Weird looking overloaded person on a bike.

Speaking of being a weird looking overloaded person, in real life, I HATE drawing attention to myself. Hate it. I will wear black, and avoid eye contact, and I don't even like to cut my hair in fear that someone will announce, HEY YOU GOT A HAIRCUT, in a group of people and then everyone's head will swivel toward me. However, I am now getting used to being stared at, or talked to by random people, or grinned at, and its not that bad. I will probably still not cut my hair very often, and I will probably turn red if many people are looking at me at the same time, but I have (kind of) gotten used to being an anomoly on a bike. 

Obviously I have learned a lot of other things, like how to ride a fully loaded bike on a single track trail, how to fix a flat on the side of the road in the dark, in the rain, on a hot day, amidst a storm of mosquitoes, how stopping for a coffee in a rainstorm can really perk up your day, how having partners in crime can be priceless, and many, many more. But these views into my inner self are sometimes so enlightening! 

Just keep following the yellow shirt!

I feel like many of you are in situations where you do hard things and it gives you perspective on yourself or your lives too. I know runners have many similar reflections, or people with demanding jobs, and I am always amazed by parents and how vulnerable they are and how they have to make hard decisions every day and I wonder how they do it. 

So tell me: what situations in your life have made you see things or realize things about yourself that you don't always take time to think about? 

I hope all of my American readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow, and that everyone else has a great Thursday! 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my next ask me anything post!!

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

What I Learned

San Francisco Bay

Have you ever taken a flight that has been canceled? I am sure many of us have. Well, this happened to me in September of 2022 and I learned something on this trip that I am going to share with you. First, spoiler alert, I got cash for my troubles! The bad news is that I did not know the rules, and the same thing happened to me in 2019 and I did not get any reimbursement. 

In 2022, I flew from the US to Amsterdam, had a long layover in Amsterdam and then had a flight scheduled from there to Vienna. I was flying Austrian Airlines, and when I went back to the airport to catch my flight to Vienna, we sat for a while before finally getting on the plane, and then once on the plane, sat again, and then finally they deboarded us and sent us on our way. It was very confusing for me, as in the US, when this happens, we normally get in a long line at the airline counter to rebook our flight. 

In Europe, there are a few different rules about flights. First of all, instead of going to stand in a line to rebook once our flight cancellation was announced, they send you an email with your new flight details. Although this saved us waiting in line, it was a little bit of a pain to not have any control over the new flight and my new flight was scheduled for 6 am the next day AND had a layover in Dusseldorf, so would not get me to Vienna until later in the day (and I still had to get from Vienna to Maribor, Slovenia after that, but that is a story for another day). 

The second thing that they did was they automatically booked us into a hotel, so once we figured out what the heck was happening, we took a bus to the Sofitel near the airport, where many of my other flight mates were staying. When we got there, we just told the hotel our name and voila, we had a room. I did not get checked in until about 1:00 am however, as the bus to the hotel had taken a while to get to us. So 4:00 am the next day came fast! 

Long story short, I got to where I needed to go. However, once I got home, I emailed Austrian and told them that I would like to have my ticket refunded and also get reimbursed for the hotel that I had booked in Vienna and never used. They actually came back to me pretty quickly and asked for more info, which I sent them, and then they said it would take a couple of months to process. They kept following up with me when the couple of months had passed, but I did finally get a credit of €250.00 in the end, which I was happy enough with. 

I thought I was just really good at negotiating, but I found out afterwards that there is a rule in Europe (EU261). You can read all about it here, but basically if your flight is canceled, depending on how many kilometers/miles it was, you are entitled to compensation. FYI, they usually will NOT advertise this, and you have to request it! So if I had not emailed them, they probably would have never said anything! Here is the breakdown: 

Up to 1,500 km (930 miles) --> €250.00 

1,500 km to 3,500 (2,170 miles ) --> €400.00 

more than 3,500 km -->  €600.00 

You have three years in most cases to claim this under rule EU261, so think back and if you have a flight that was going to, from or within Europe, you may be owed money. Just as a side note, in the US, it may be worth emailing them too if your flight ever gets canceled, as I have gotten some money back by doing this too (as well as a hotel room and a meal usually). It does not hurt to ask!

Have you ever had a flight canceled? If so, what did you do? Have you heard about this rule? 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my upcoming ask me anything post!!

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

What I Learned

I know I talked about technology last week, but I have recently been shopping for a new laptop and I went down the rabbit hole trying to decide which one to buy so I have some things to share so that you don't have to do the same thing. I have only ever purchased one laptop in my life. It is the one I am using now, and I bought it in 2015 and I spent what I considered too much on it. The reason for this is that my boss, who is very impetuous about some things and liked to treat his family to nice things, told me that he was not going to give me a bonus unless I spent it on something "frivolous." I think he meant a fun trip or a nice hotel room or something, because when I showed him the receipt, he told me that my purchase was too practical. I am practical, but I spent nearly double on it than what I would have spent otherwise, so it was a splurge! Anyway, this has worked out, as I am still using this computer 10 years later, and it is still going strong. (PS many of the computers I looked at are well over what I paid 10 years ago! Sigh, inflation sucks). I cacluated that based on the amount of time that I have used it, it has cost me $0.27/day, well under the $1 per use rule!!

So why am I buying a new laptop? My current one is good for using the internet and word documents and things, but last year I bought a GoPro so that I could take some videos of my cycling and hiking adventures. This was great and the photo quality is excellent. However, it is so excellent that my poor old laptop does not have enough oomph to watch the videos. I will get into the details now. 

What does "oomph" mean? It means several things, and I will tell you now. There are three important things to look at, CPU, GPU and RAM. An honorable mention is disk space, but this is not as important as the first three. 

CPU (Central Processing Unit). Example: 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX You have probably heard of Intel or AMD, and you probably have a little sticker on your new laptop that looks like this (or if you have a Mac, it may be ARM). 

What does this do, why is it important and what do all the numbers and letters mean? This processes data, and is often referred to as the CPU and is measured in GHz. If you are just using the internet, you only need like 2.5 GHz; if you are gaming or editing videos, you may need more like 4 GHz. 

The i9 (i7 etc.) is the model number and the higher the number after the i, the newer it is, so if you have a choice between i5 and i9, you may want to go with i9 (same thing for AMD, but it is Ryzen 5, 7, 9 etc.) The 14900HZ is a SKU, but the letter(s) at the end do matter, as it is power efficiency and goes in this order from least to most efficient: Y, U, P, H, HK, HZ (you can see them all or read more here). 

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) Example: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. This processes graphics and other visual data on a computer, so if you need fast moving graphics, you need a better GPU. NVIDIA GeForce is known to be one of the best, but also Intel and AMD have options. The numbers at the end are higher quality or newer as the number goes up, so 4050 would be older than 4060. The least expensive NVIDIA which would still be good for games/video editing would be the 3050. 

RAM (Random Access Memory) Example: 16GB RAM. This stores data that the processor needs to access quickly to run applications and open files. It allows for both reading and writing data. The higher the number, the better the performance. My current laptop only has 8GB of RAM, but it is pretty standard for most new ones to have at least 16GB and if you want to do games/videos, you may want at least 32GB. This is my current computer. You can see from the "memory" section that I am using 5.6/7.9 GB of RAM, and what I have open is only a few Chrome tabs and Excel sheets. If I want to do anything more complicated, I will soon run into issues. 

So let's talk about the honorable mention, disk space! Most computers now have SSD (Solid State Drives) which store data for you. What does this mean? If you have ever bought an external HD in the past, you will note that they whir a lot and make noises and sometimes sound like they are spinning and spinning. Those are probably HHD, which have a lot of moving parts. SSDs don't have moving parts (hence the "solid") and so not only are they faster and quieter, but I can travel with one without worrying about banging it on something and one of the parts breaking (and then ALL of your data is gone!) I have carried both my computer, which has an internal SSD, and an additional external SSD with me on my bike trip with no issues. 

Most computers now have at least 512GB of SSD disk space, which is probably enough for most people who just have documents and some photos stored on their computer. If you need more space, you can either buy a computer with 1TB, or you can buy a 1TB external SSD drive for under $100 (I like this one by SanDisk) and I just bought a 2TB for $129. So if you are buying a computer and it is an extra $300 for a 1TB vs a 512GB, just buy the 512GB and you can buy an external SSD when/if you need more. 

In case you are wondering, my current computer is a Lenovo Yoga Pro. Since it lasted me 10 years without any issues, I decided to go with another Lenovo and ended up getting the Legion 5i 16" Laptop 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 -  32GB RAM. And now you know what all of that means! The only downside to getting better components is that they make the laptop a lot heavier than I would like. But you have to pick your poison! 

Oh! One last thing; I ended up getting mine at Costco because they have a 90 day return policy (vs. 30 days for most of the others) and the price includes a two year warranty (plus one of the perks of the credit card I used is an extended one year warranty), McAfee for one year and technical support. They also ship in 4 days vs. 9-14 days for many of the others. I have had great success with Costco electronics and my family has bought three other computers and a television from them in the past! 

To summarize, in case you fell asleep, do you just want to blog, save some photos in a file, watch YouTube videos and read the internet? If yes, just get whatever, but maybe be sure it has at least the highest "i" number you can find within your budget and 16GB of RAM. Probably GPU won't really matter as much. 

If you want to do any games or video editing, get an CPU SKU with H or HZ at the end, an NVIDIA GPU, and at least 32GB of RAM. (PS You can also buy a Mac, which do not use any of these, as Apple is making their own versions of all these things as a combined unit now, but information about that is beyond my pay grade). 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my upcoming ask me anything post!!

Have you ever bought a new laptop? What aspects did you consider? What did you end up going with in the end and why? 

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here.

What I Learned

I am a very curious person, or so I have been told. Some people like that about me, but I am sure that I annoy the crap out of others by asking too many questions. I just want to get to the meat of things, and if I have a problem to solve, I do not quit until I find the answer. This can lead to some pretty grim rabbit holes, and some frustration on my part, but the maximizer in me will oftentimes not let go. Many times, these searches or questions come because something goes wrong. Other times, it is my need for perfection that drives the search. I will give you examples of both. The first one on my list is the latter, and the second one on the list is the former. The third is one I learned a long time ago, but one that I find useful for blogging or journaling. So read on for what I learned, the computer shortcuts and blogging edition. 

Putting a hyperlink in a comment. I wanted to link a pair of shoes for Rick in Nance's blog about buying shoes for her husband, but I did not want that super long annoying link to show up; I just wanted a tidy hyperlink. I have done this before, but it is one of the things I promptly forgot afterwards. One thing that I am trying to do (#lifegoals) more is to keep track of things in an organized way so I can either find them later or use them again or not look up the same thing over and over (definition of insanity, right?) So now I (and you!) will have notes on how to do this right here: 

In the area you want the hyperlink, type this: <a href="PUT WEBSITE ADDRESS HERE">PUT WORDS YOU WANT DISPLAYED HERE</a> 

For example, you would type: why not hop over to <a href="https://www.travelspot06.blogspot.com">this excellent blog</a> for more information about coding? And what will show up will be --> Why not hop over to this excellent blog for more information about coding? FYI: This will work on both WP and Blogger blogs. 

Copy + paste clipboard. Sometimes I am commenting on blogs and when I click submit, I get an error and then sometimes I cannot go back and resubmit, so I have to type out the entire comment again and that is frustrating! So I researched how to get my clipboard (aka previously copied information) and it is super easy on a PC (sorry Mac users, you have to figure out your own issues). 

Just click the Windows Button + V, it will ask if you want to start saving your clipboard, say yes. Then what I do is right before I hit submit on the comment, I use CTRL-A, CTRL-C to copy the comment and then if I need to access it again later, I click Windows-V and there I have my list of saved items. To use it, just click on the one you want and voila! No repeating comments or other things. You can also pin ones you use a lot! This also works for clipped snippets (like the Excel clips pasted below!!)

A quick warning though: The Windows clipboard history is available until you restart your computer, except for any items you've pinned. The clipboard history only stores the last 25 items you've copied, and when you copy a new item, the oldest item is deleted.

Excel formula of the week. I love Excel; I use it for travel and packing lists and organization, collecting information, keeping track of things and obviously for adding up costs and doing budgets and things like that. The IF function is one that I use in various forms! You all may know how to use these already, and if so, yay! If not, here they are. And if these seem exciting, just wait until we get to nested IFs! Prepare to be wowed! 

SUMIF --> Used to sum by category when you have a list of numbers or costs etc. In the below example, I want to sum up costs by category. I am telling it to sum the list in column C if the category in column B matches the word in cell E3. 

COUNTIF --> in the same example, I now want to count how many of each category there are. So basically count how many in column B match cell E3. 

IFERROR --> Now that I have my counts, I want to calculate a per day cost. This all well and good but if I remove the word Motel, now I have an error (#DIV/0) for Motel because the count is zero. To fix that, I put the words IFERROR before the formula and then tell it what phrase or number I want it to return if there is an error. In this case I am being silly, but usually I just put 0, or "", which will return a blank. 

Once that formula is done, here is the result. Isn't that fun! 

Oh you want one more you say? Fine! I also love the shortcut ALT = (ALT and equal key) which is used to sum up a column instead of typing out =SUM(H3:H9). Just put it where you would normally put the formula and you are good to go! Okay, admit it; did your eyes glaze over? Or are you excited to share your favorite Excel tip with me? 

Do you use any of these tricks? Or do you have any other shortcuts you use while blogging or commenting? Do you have any fun Excel tricks you want to share? If you are a Mac (or cell phone) user, do you know where to find your clipboard? 

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

What I Learned

Welcome to the technology version of What I Learned. Over the years, obviously I have done a lot of things wrong for a long time and then I find out a trick and I am floored and I never look back. Here are a few things that I have found that make things so much easier when using the phone or computer. 

VPN: This is good for when you are using a lot of public networks and need security, or...if you are traveling and you want your app or website to think you are still in your country of origin. I have a good story about this which I will tell in another post but for now just know that your Netflix account does not have the same shows when you are in a different country. So if you want to have the same shows, or same subtitles etc. your IP needs to be in the country you come from. Also banking is much easier if you are "not" abroad! I use NordVPN, but there are several different options and they are not expensive, and it has saved my butt a few times!! 

Feedly Boards (Categories). I started using this when I first started using Feedly, but at the time, I only had a "favorites" category. Once I started having to use my phone to read articles, I quickly found that I needed more categories, as I like to go back to posts I have commented on to see if the author has replied to my comments. When I am on the laptop, I used to just leave the article open, then revisit it when I went back on the computer. 

However, with my phone, this is not as feasible. So now I have boards for the following: 

Commented: posts I commented on

Returned: posts I commented on and returned to and read the reply (once this is done, I remove the commented category)

Past due: posts I commented on, returned to and there is no reply after a certain amount of time (then I remove the commented category and don't go back again and waste time checking).

Book ideas: articles or posts about books that I want to add to my holds/loans on Libby

Vacation ideas: articles or posts about places I want to research more, go to, or review

Ideas: articles or posts about something that I think would be fun to write about at some point

You can bring up just the one category and see a list easily and you can also add or remove the category from the list or within the individual article or post. 

Google Reader Mode. If you use Chrome and you have any websites that use a lot of ads or photos and take forever to load or scroll, you will love the Google Reader Mode Extension. It breaks down the post into words only, and gets rid of all the pesky minutia. This also often works for posts where you can only see some of the post and then need to log in; if you hit the Reader button right away, you can get the entire article in Reader view. 

Here is an example: Purple travels a lot and retired early and I like reading her stories; however, I do not have the patience for the site to load due to so many pictures and inserts and ads! 

Big pictures! Too many ads and Instagram links!

So I pop it into Reader and voila. In Reader, you can also save, print, and read aloud. You can also change the font and size and things, but I have just left it on the default for this. 

So much cleaner! See top right for options.

Camera shortcut for phone. This may seem obvious to some but when I was on the Tour Divide, a guy I was with told me how he wasn't taking a lot of photos because it was a pain to get his phone out, swipe to open, push the camera button and then take a photo. I told him that he should have a shortcut to enable him to do it without all that fuss. For my phone (Pixel), you have to double click the power button. You can then take the photo using the volume button (either one) therefore enabling you to do it fast, or when it's wet outside, or when you have gloves on, all without touching the screen. My parent's Motorola is a quick wrist twist back and forth to activate. Also, in case you are scared, if a stranger does this, they cannot access any prior photos or other things on your phone, so you can have someone take your photo at Yosemite without worry. What is your phone's camera shortcut? 

Schedule send for text messages. Since I am often up at the buttcrack of dawn, and this is when I have time and motivation, I often set up a bunch of texts to go out later in the day when normal people are actually up. I also do this for birthday texts if I think of it the day before, I will schedule it for the next day so I won't forget. The only downside of this for me is that if I am not in service at the scheduled time, it won't go out, so it doesn't help me in that case. In Android you hard press the send button and it will give you an option for times; once you choose your date and time, you hit the send button again and it will be set! I am certain iPhone has something similar; can anyone confirm?  

What method do you use to check responses on comments if there is no auto email feature? What tricks to you use to keep track of ideas, future books to read or vacations to research? What tips and tricks do you use to save time with technology, the internet, or your computer? If none of the above, do you have any tips or tricks you often use in life? 

You Can Do It!

The most common thing that people say to me, aside from where I am going or where did I come from, is that they wish they could do what I am doing. I always say to them that they can, and I do believe that is true. For those of you who don't already know, I am currently riding my bike around the US and Canada, mostly camping, and trying to stay off the paved roads. 

I wanted to break down this comment a little; do these people really mean that they wish they could do it? Or is this just a figure of speech, an automatic response, a compliment to me, or a placation? 

I would like tomatoes as plentiful and as delicious as my brother's. However, the truth is, I don't want to spend the time prepping and planting and watering and I definitely don't want to spend my summers harvesting and canning and preserving. So I leave that to him and I go off and ride my bike and when I go home, I get to go to his house and eat delicious sauces. I think most people who make this comment just want to go home and eat delicious sauces, or in the case of a bike, have it ready to go for when you want to do a few mile, preferably driving to the best spot and enjoying the best part of the ride, with good weather and views around ever corner. 

To do new things, it takes work. You have to get out of your comfort zone and cede some control to other people, the unknown and life in general. I literally do not know what's around the next corner most of the time, and this is hard. I am a type A planner, but in this case, I am often going day by day, because (a) you will just disappoint yourself if you have too high of expectations or you try to control every moment and (b) it's actually part of the fun. I sat in Tim Hortons the other day talking to an old local man, but I really really needed to charge my phone and book that night's accomodation, which is why I went in there in the first place, and afterwards I needed to go grocery shopping, and it was supposed to start raining soon. However, we had a great chat and this will be a story that I tell later, and it did not really take away from my day, except that I got rained on a little and arrived at my accommodation later than I wanted to. But! It was still light and I had plenty of time to set up and eat and enjoy the sunset, so really it did not change my day for the worse at all. 

However, people, including me, have a hard time doing new things because we do lack that sense of control and we do have unknowns lurking, just waiting to hit us when we are down. However, I think the positive unknowns outweigh the negative ones by a long shot. 

So, people, I am here to say that you CAN do it! Two years ago, I had only mountain biked once in Bolivia, and they did not provide me with any instructions, so basically you could call that a non-event. I had never owned a mountain bike. I had never ridden any bike, mountain or non, more than 40 miles. I had never done any bike maintenance but change a tube. 

I get embarrassed easily; I am afraid of looking or feeling stupid. I know this has kept me from trying some new things. Puedo hablar español pero tengo vergüenza cuando hay la gente circa me! I listened to a podcast with a writer from Outside magazine, who is in his 50s, and he said he is going to try all kinds of new things, and be that 50 year old looking stupid, and also help those 50 year olds who want to try new things but have fears that it is too late or that they will look dumb or embarrass themselves. It is not too late, but it is not as easy now as it was when we were 20 and fearless. 

For this trip, I had to learn a lot of things, and I had to have some bad days, and I had to fail before I could succeed sometimes. I've definitely used a lot of swear words, many more than I did in years past where I was living a more comfortable known life. But I can do it, and am doing it, and you can too! 

Here's a photo of me fixing my eleventh flat tire on the side of the road in Wisconsin (I think. I may have lost count):

On the flip side, here are a few beautiful sunrises! 

And when I say that you can do it, I don't just mean riding a bike. I mean all of those things that you really do wish you could do. Starting a side hustle, growing beautiful tomatoes, raising kids, learning Spanish. You can do it if you put your mind to it (or your back into it, if you are Ice Cube) and embrace the unknown, and the fear, and the lack of control. and once you are done, you will look back and say, hey, that wasn't so hard after all (right?)

What thing have you always wished you could do but haven't tried yet? What new things have you tried lately? What's your trick for getting over the uncomfortable parts of a new venture?

What I Learned: 23 New Things

Happy Boxing Day! I hope that everyone had a great weekend and a great holiday with their loved ones. This week is a short one workwise, plus we have another three day weekend to look forward to next weekend! I thought that I would start wrapping up the year early by getting started on some of the year end lists. Last year, I went over 22 new things I had learned, seen, done and new places I had gone over the year. I really like injecting new things into my life, as it keeps things fresh, even if it is sometimes a little uncomfortable! I liked the list so much that I decided to do it again, so here we have, in no particular order, 23 new things from 2023. 

1. Alaska. This was one of the 50 U.S. states that I had not yet been to. I had a great time hiking, running, looking at mountains and glaciers and experiencing light basically all night. I did not see the Northern Lights though, so this is still on my wish list for now. 

Hiking the Bomber Traverse

2. Overnight bikepacking for the first time. At the beginning of the year I finally took Bob out for his first off road experience. I biked from my house to the Samuel L. Taylor state park, which is a cool camping and hiking area in the redwoods. I spent the night there and then biked back home the next day. It was very fun, a little harder than I thought it would be, and it made me want to do it again (see #22)! 

3. Selling stuff on the internet. Before this year, I had never really sold anything on the internet. As I have mentioned before, I broke the seal with shoes as they are rectangular and easy to ship, and then moved onto other things. Are there scammers and bots and people from Nigeria messaging you? Yes. Can you ignore/mute them? Yes. Was it as bad as I feared it would be? Nope, in fact it was not bad at all. As an added bonus (?) I also am now quite proficient at Venmo, which I was not really a user of before. However, if you want to sell on FB marketplace, you gotta get used to using Venmo. 

4. Hiking the Arizona Trail (AZT). For Easter weekend, I took an extra day off and spent five days hiking on the Arizona Trail. It was much different than what I am used to in my neck of the woods, which was fun. Also, I got lucky that it was a high snow year and so I had enough water and it was not scorching hot. For those who don't know, this trail is normally hiked in the spring or fall, as the summers can get into the 110+ range at times. 

Picketpost Mountain - AZT

5. Life on Mars. I have a friend who is doing a Mars simulation, meaning that she is stuck in a habitat for a year as if she were actually living on Mars. This deserves a post of its own, but for now you can read about it here if you are interested. Being on Mars means that there are no phone calls, no video calls, basically no real time communication. Even emails are delayed due to the "distance" from Mars to Earth. Luckily we can send emails up to a certain size, so I have been sending her voice recordings so that she can hear my voice from time to time. I never really liked the sound of my voice, but I have gotten used to it, as I often listen to my last recording before sending a new one so that I can remember what I already talked about. 

6. Not quite a century aka 97 miles in one go. Bertha and I completed a century minus three this fall. I know, I know, I should have just ridden another THREE miles to get to 100 but I didn't feel like it. I know that if I can do 97, I can do 100, and I will do it eventually. This was from Davis to Oakland and it was quite a journey. What I learned from this is that I prefer non-city riding over city riding. 

7. Ninth (and penultimate?) Quad Dipsea. After you run the Quad Dipsea ten times you get a fancy finishers jacket. I keep telling myself that I just have to run it one more time and then I am done!! We shall see though, as I know many a friend who has said that and is now on their 13th or 14th time. 

Headed downhill to Stinson Beach during the Quad Dipsea

8. Watch a Japanese movie. I do not know what the style is called, but I watched The Boy and the Heron. My brother loves this style, and so do K's kids, but I was just ho hum on it. I am not opposed to cartoons; I love Finding Nemo! However, I am not sure the two dimensional drawing style or the pace of the movie was my favorite. When I said this to my brother he said that this style is "very beloved" and he was sad to hear that... 😞 I guess one thing I did like was the background scenery drawings, as they resembled watercolors. 

9. Hike to Lake Aloha in the snow. Last winter was a very high snow year and this meant that even in July, hiking was very snowy! However, although it was difficult to get to, we had Lake Aloha basically to ourselves and it was beautiful. To top it off we had to jump in for a swim, even while avoiding the icebergs! 

Camping above Lake Aloha

10. Switch from Comcast (Xfinity) to Sonic. My Comcast was getting very expensive, at about $75 for just internet. So I decided to finally take the plunge and try a new carrier, Sonic, which has fiber and was only $39 per month. My first three months were free, the speed was great, and then it got bumped up to $39 BUT...as it always is, the price was more than I thought. They charge $10 for a voice line, which I do not use but cannot cancel, and with the taxes and the router rental (which I could not use my old one for), it ended up being $70!! Haha. I guess I am saving $5 and it IS fast, so there's that. 

11. Mendocino. I had driven past Mendocino before but never stayed there, and it was a treat. It is a small coastal town and you can walk along the bluffs. It was a rainy weekend when we were there, but we had fun walking on the beach, eating and riding on the skunk train! 

Pacific coast near Mendocino

12. Ride to Santa Rosa for the weekend. On New Years Day I rode to my brother's house in Santa Rosa from Richmond, which was my longest ride ever at the time, and was about 55 miles each way. Later in the year, I beat my own PR by riding from my house to his, which was about 75 miles each way. 

13. Ride the Amtrak with a bike. The weekend that I rode 97 miles was part of a journey I took where I took the Amtrak from Oakland to Auburn and then over the next two days rode from Grass Valley back to Oakland. The experience was good and I would like to do some more train rides, and knowing I can put my bike on them fairly easily was a relief. Maybe one day I will just ride off into the sunset and if I get tired, I will take the train back home. 

The bike car on Amtrak

14. Throw away all old Christmas cards. I was saving these because now a lot of them have photos and those are memories! However, now there is Facebook and other places on the internet where I can find photos of people so I decided that I did not need to keep them in a box that I never look through. I have to say, it feels like a weight has been lifted. I am sure I will have moments where I wish I had that cute photo of three year old soandso, but right now, it feels good. 

15. Three Michelin star dinner. For a client dinner, we went to SingleThread, a three-star Michelin restaurant in Healdsburg, which is part of the Sonoma county wine region. I am not going to lie, I don't think the bang was worth the buck. I am glad I got to try it, but I will probably not go there again. 

16. Complete a snowshoe race. In February, I went to see Lisa for her birthday and we did a snowshoe race. It was fun but we used old school snowshoes and there are actually running style ones that would be easier to run in. However, we had a great time chatting and staying warm by moving as fast as possible and drinking the (warm) water at the aid stations! 

Lisa getting it done! 

17. Gluten free biscuits and gravy. B&G is my favorite breakfast item. However, in 2022 I realized that wheat gives me some tummy issues so I have been avoiding it ever since. I was very sad to give up both biscuits, which are obviously made of flour, and good sausage gravy, which is thickened with flour. But Lisa and I found a good GF bakery near the snowshoe race and they had B&G and they were really good! I meant to try duplicating it on my own, but I have not gotten around to it (however, I have done a bit of GF baking and I find that the results are actually pretty good!) 

18. Bike accidents. I am very careful on the bike, but I would be amiss if all I did was talk about the good. In Spokane, I hit a goat head thorn, blew a tire, and tumbled (and skidded face first) right on the pavement. Luckily I was wearing gloves and the car next to me was stopped. In Oakland, I got hit by a car turning right. Luckily, he was not moving fast and I just bounced of his passenger door and onto the ground. I took a trail ride and went over a bump and accidentally squeezed the front brake too hard and went ass over teakettle over the handlebars. Luckily all of these have been minor, but accidents do happen! 

19. Driverless cars. I knew they were around, but it still made me do a double take when I saw my first driverless car in San Francisco. I signed up to try it, as they offer ride shares, but still have not had a chance yet. There have been some controversies over these, but aside from a couple of kinks, I think a robot is probably better suited to driving than many of the humans I see operating motor vehicles. 

A Cruise car with nobody at the wheel. 

20. Hike in Castle Crags State Park. I have driven by and even hiked near Castle Crags, but had never been inside the park before. In June, for my Dad's birthday, my family went and hiked up to the Crag Dome, where we had a great view of Mt. Shasta and the surrounding area. For those who don't know, Mt. Shasta is about 14,180 feet high, which I think makes it the 5th highest mountain in California. It is volcanic and is part of the Cascade Range, which extends all the way to BC and includes well known mountains like Hood and Rainier. 

21. Drive through the eastern part of Oregon. Once you leave Bend and head east, it just gets more and more sparse and the trees go away and it gets hot and there are no amenities. Really, there are none! We almost ran out of gas. We also camped off the side of the highway and there were these huge crickets, which could be Jerusalem or Mormon crickets, but whatever they were, they were gross and they hitchhiked in my car and I kept finding them in random places for days afterward. 

High desert of Oregon

22. Bike across Washington state. K's daughter A told everyone that I rode across the US, but I had to tell her that I may someday, but this trip was only across WA! It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed the Olympic Peninsula and the varying scenery of the state as a whole. This trip had a lot of firsts: longest multi-day ride, first time taking the bike on the ferry, lots of new rail trails, riding through Seattle and riding through a two mile long tunnel! 

23. Soccer mom duties. Once a week I go and spend time with my friend K and her daughters A and L and often on weekends I will chauffer and spectate whatever sport is happening for the season. This has now been a regular thing for a couple of years, and it has been fun to be chauffer, confidant, game buddy, soccer/lacrosse "mom," bike instructor, cook and friend to all three ladies. Even though sometimes it is hectic and we don't have time to chat, more often than not, it is a chance to catch up a little with what is happening in each of their lives, which is priceless.

So there you have it, 23 new things in 2023. There were many more than this of course, but these were some of my favorites. 

What new things did you do/learn/try or places did you go in 2023? How do you feel about driverless cars? How do you feel about the Japanese drawing style? 

North Bay Overnighter: My First Bikepacking Trip

You have already met Bob, and you know that I have not really had a lot of experience with mountain biking, but that did not keep me from deciding to try bikepacking out as soon as the bomb cyclone had passed and we had a sunny weekend. I figured why not, since I already have a lot of backpacking and camping gear, so all that I needed was something to put the gear in and attach it to my bike and I would be good to go. I figured I could learn the rest as I went.

Bolinas Ridge Trail

What is bikepacking? It is basically the same as backpacking except instead of carrying all of your stuff on your back, you carry it on your bike. Your stuff includes a tent (unless you are going to cowboy camp, aka lay out your bedroll under the stars) and sleeping gear at the very least and can include a stove, pots, food, bike tools, extra clothes, electronics and toiletries. So, like I said, pretty much like backpacking. Usually the route consists of more trails than pavement, also like backpacking, but can be on highways, gravel roads, bike paths, logging roads, forest service roads or fire roads. 

Here is Bob, all loaded up and ready for adventure!

How did I find out about this? I have no friends who do this. To be honest, and I am a little embarrassed to admit this, I found it on YouTube. I was looking for ideas for summer hiking/backpacking and I stumbled across this channel where two regular people completed part of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) and I thought, "I want to do that!" and I started looking into it. I found a great local route that I could get to without driving and off I went. Of course, before this, I went pretty deep into a YouTube wormhole. You know how that goes. 

The route that I found can be found on Bikepacking.com and is called the North Bay Overnighter. It is an 80 mile route that goes from the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB) through the Marin headlands to Samuel P. Taylor park near Point Reyes and back a different way to the GGB to finish the loop the second day. These are mostly trails that I have run on before, so I felt pretty comfortable with the route-finding aspect of the trip although this also meant that I knew exactly what I was up against in some cases, which was a little bit daunting! 

Day 1: The official route starts and ends at the Anderson parking lot on the Marin side of the GGB. However, since I live in Oakland, I decided to get there by bike rather than driving. I started off by riding my bike from my house to the BART, which I took to the Civic Center station in the city. It was pretty early in the morning and the only people on the street besides me were the homeless, the druggies and the prostitutes. This is not the most beautiful part of the city, let me just say that. From the Civic Center, I rode down to Fort Mason and then went past Chrissy Field to the end of the GGB. I crossed the bridge in the fog and wet and finally got to the official start around 8:00 am with about 9 miles under my belt already. 

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the headlands

From there, the route goes up the road to the Coastal trail, and the sun was just starting to break up the fog and I had some really nice views of the bay. I then cruised down the Coastal trail, which is a very gradual downhill, although there were a few rutted areas that made me realize that I had no idea if was best to ride in the rut or try to stay on one of the side lumps, and at one point I heard another bike behind me and I was not sure if I should pull over or get off to the side or...what the rules were! The route goes down, crosses the road and then heads back up Bobcat, which is really just one big mile and a half long uphill and is a trail I have run many times, but have never been able to run the entire uphill without walking a little. However, I rode the bike without stopping the entire time and I was so proud of myself that I stopped at the top for a snack before heading down towards Tennessee Valley. 

From Tennessee Valley parking lot, the trail goes back up the Miwok trail, which was my first experience with the hike-a-bike! Also by now it was actually getting warmer and I shed yet another layer on my way up this hill. After the uphill, Miwok is a nice gradual downhill that crosses highway 1 before going back up towards Dias ridge. Dias was my first true single-track and I had "fun" learning how to manage the hairpin downhill turns, although I did  have one slow speed fall in this section. Side note: the completely packed bike is probably about 50 pounds, which is hard to control on the curves! You live and you learn, I guess. 

Dias Ridge Trail

After going down Dias you get to Muir Beach and this is where I had to break out the GPS. The trail was hard to find, as the route takes you basically up the side of a hill in what looks like someone's backyard, but I think it is just an attempt to not make you ride on the road for that section. However, it is a little strange, as you come out at the top on the road, which you then have to ride on for about a mile and a half before you go back onto the trail again. I was a little afraid of the road as I have driven on it and seen cyclists and it seems a bit scary (it is a windy coastal road) but people were polite and the traffic was still not yet too bad. 

Getting off the road and back on the trail toward Cardiac/Pantoll

The trail takes you to Cardiac and you cross the Dipsea before heading to Pantoll, which is a parking lot, bathroom, water fountain and camping area. Apparently there is hike in/bike in camping here but I was only about 21 miles into the official 40 that I was supposed to do this day, so I kept going. From Pantoll, you ride on the road uphill for about 2 miles; again, this was with cars, but there were also a lot of bikes and the cars were pretty polite. Then came one of my favorite parts of the ride: Ridgecrest Blvd. This road was mostly downhill and is very flowy, with barely any cars AND a view of the ocean for days, and then you go into a redwood forest and it's dark and moist and magical. It is super cool! It was so SO fun. 

Ridgecrest Drive

After four miles, you turn off on the Bolinas Ridge trail, which is dirt but doesn't have too many steep ups or downs and goes on for several miles. However, the very end, when you are headed down toward the turnoff to the camping, is a lot of bumpy downhill, which was quite jarring at times. When you get almost to Point Reyes, you turn off and go to Samuel P. Taylor park, where there is a hike in/bike in campground and for $7 you can put up your tent! I got there around 5 pm, put up my tent, made dinner and then spent a wonderful few hours listening to my audiobook before heading to bed. I did this trip in January and I was the only person in the shared campsite! 

Bolinas Ridge Trail

Samuel P. Taylor hiker/biker camping

Day 2: The next morning I got up early, realized I was out of fuel, drank a cup of cold coffee, strapped on my headlamp and hit the road. Well actually it was a nice flattish paved trail at first, but very soon afterward, I went straight uphill into the fire roads again. Seriously, my first 2 miles were flat, then the next 8 miles were about 3,000+ feet of climbing. Again, I embraced the suck of the hike-a-bike, but I spent a long time wondering when the joy of the downhill was going to come. When the downhill finally came thought, at first it was not very joyful. It was very rocky and rutted and I actually had to push my bike on some of the downhills! 

View from the top of the hike-a-bike near Kent Reservoir

When I got back to the Bolinas Fairfax road, I decided that instead of going into Fairfax and then back up the hill to Tam and then down again to Tennessee valley and then up again to the start line where I would then have to cross the bridge and ride the BART, I would rather skip the extra hills and the public transportation and head back home via the Richmond bridge. So I went through Natalie Coffin park into Ross and from there I took a series of bike paths into Larkspur, where I rode out onto the Richmond Bridge. Once I got to Point Richmond, there was only about a mile of street riding before I got onto the bike path along the bay. A lot of this part of the route was on the San Francisco Bay Trail, which is a trail that goes all the way around the Bay Area. Some of it is on an actual dirt trail and parts of it are on roads and bike paths, but all together I believe there are over 500 miles! 

Larkspur bike path

View of the city from Richmond (SF Bay Trail)

Once I got to Emeryville, I had to go back onto the streets to get to Oakland, but I have to say most of them have pretty good bike paths, so it was not too intimidating. However, I was definitely ready to be done and I even briefly considered taking the BART although by this point it would not have saved me any time or even very many miles! To add insult to injury I let Google maps tell me which way to go and it took me right up a hill that I normally try to avoid (MacArthur Ave.) However, avoiding it would have added a mile probably, so maybe in this case it was really half a dozen of one and six of the other. It sure was nice to get back home though and I celebrated by taking off my bike shorts and walking around without pants for a few minutes before making myself something hot to eat. (TMI? Too bad!) 

Thoughts/What I Learned: Sometimes riding on the road can be fun. I need to bring more food next time. I am stronger than I think I am. When riding down hills, lift your butt off the seat unless you want to be sore later. Samuel P. Taylor is very beautiful. Pushing a 50 pound bike up a hill makes my arms feel like noodles. It also makes me VERY hungry. I probably need different shorts (I am wearing hiking shorts over bike shorts). A screw top water bottle is a lot of work (will bring squeeze bottle or hydration bladder on next trip). 

Comments: Bikepacking.com says that this route in 99.9% rideable with a difficulty of 4/10. I would agree with the latter, as is it mostly fire roads and there are not too many rocks or things to avoid, so even a beginner like me can do it. However, 99.9% rideable is perhaps a stretch as I don't know who can ride up the 14% - 20% grade at the beginning of day two. Maybe I am just out of shape, I don't know, but 99.9% would mean that less than a tenth of a mile is not rideable out of the entire 80 miles. 

Total Miles: 98.3

Total Elevation: 11,300 ft.

Total Time: 15 hours

CalTopo Route

Download the Ride With GPS GPX file here. I get ideas and inspiration from: Bikepacking.com, Ryan, Chris and his buddy Rob, John and Mira. 

Have you ever gone bikepacking? Tell me about a YouTube or internet wormhole you have found yourself deep in, and how did it turn out? 

What I Learned: 22 New Things

Happy New Year! Each year, a goal of mine is to try new things! This can be going to a new place, trying a new restaurant or food or activity or learning something new. I don't really have a certain number in mind, but I thought it would be fun to talk about 22 of them, in honor of 2022. Here they are, mostly in the order that I did them.

1. Emigrant Wilderness in the snow: I usually go to Emigrant in the summer for hiking but this time we decided to go for some winter sports. We stayed near Pinecrest and spent one day skiing and one day snowshoeing and then one day taking a hike around the lake before going home. It was beautiful and we liked it so much we may go back this year and do a longer snowshoeing trip! 

2. I threw out all of my instruction manuals. I know this is not that exciting, but I finally decided that if I need to, I can look up product information or instructions online and I do not need to keep the heavy booklets for everything I have ever bought in my life. It freed up my file cabinet a lot and I have not even missed them! I did take photos of some of the more  pertinent details but otherwise I am basically manual-free! 

3. I added a few new travel destinations to my list, which also added a LOT of new things which I will not list separately. Austin: Texas BBQ, kayaking on Lady Bird lake and live music! Lost Coast trail: many miles of hiking in the sand, cool shells and creatures and the rising tide! Amsterdam: bikes and canals and legal drugs, oh my! Slovenia: this deserves a post of its own, but hiking and dragons and sausages abound! Mt. Hood: circumnavigation on the Timberline trail. Washington: Enchantments (a must see!) and section L of the Pacific Crest Trail (the most northern of the PCT). 

Lost Coast

4. I tried some new foods. Shakshuka. This is something that never appealed to me since it involves cooked tomatoes, which I did not really like as a kid. However, as an adult, and when REAL tomatoes are used, I realized that they can be pretty good actually! And this includes my favorite breakfast item, the egg! I would eat it again. Cioppino. Same story regarding the tomato, but this is also pretty good. I would still rather have a bowl of creamy New England clam chowder however. Homemade yogurt. This is so easy and so delicious; I actually prefer it to store bought and it is way cheaper. It does take about 24 hours to make yourself, but I think it is worth waiting for!  

Yogurt

5. FODMAP elimination diet. This deserves a post of its own, but the short of it is that I was having some gastric issues and was put on this diet which consists of several weeks of elimination and then several more of reintroduction. I am still not 100% sure what is ailing me, but have a better idea than I did a year ago. 

6. Ran through Harvard Yard. I have looked at Harvard from the other side of the Charles but had never been on campus. While visiting friends in Sommerville, I took a run and went and explored Harvard. What a beautiful place! I thoroughly enjoyed it and it also gave me a chance to go inside and use the bathroom! :) 

7. Participated in a 30 day fitness challenge. This was a good way to reset my fitness plan, which sometimes gets a little blah. I did this with a few friends and I don't think that any of us actually finished it, but it was really fun trying to! The issue for me was not the exercises themselves, but the regularity of doing it every day. I would find myself forgetting or while in bed at the end of the day realizing I had not done it so then I would tell myself that I would just do two of them the next day....etc. 

8. Chopped off and donated my hair. This is not a new thing but I did send it to a different charity than I normally do as I was told that Locks of Love, the one I have sent hair to before, actually sells their wigs! Shame on them! So this time I sent it to Wigs for Kids, which I was told does not profit from my donation. They make it really convenient too; you print out a barcode so you can track where it is in the process after you send it. 

9. Tried to sell shoes on Ebay. Total and complete failure. I started with only a few pairs but I did not even get a nibble. I even lowered the price, but still nothing. And then I lost hope and kind of gave up on that project. However, I have a bunch of barely or never worn shoes that I really did not want to just give away. Does anyone have any tips for me about this? 

10. Did an almond croissant challenge. While in Brooklyn, I tried all of the almond croissants at all of the bakeries within walking distance from my hotel. I tried about 7 or 8 different ones! Some of them were just meh, but there were a few that I liked and my favorite was from Julien. Shortly after this, I learned that wheat may be a contributor to tummy issues that I am having, so my croissant days may be limited, so I am glad that I lived it up while I could! 

11. Went camping at Lake Sonoma. This is so close to where I live, yet I had never gone camping at the lake until 2022. You do have to hike or boat in to some of the spots, but we did both and had a great time. Plus, you have to love the California coast, where you can camp outside in April and even get a little hot! 

12. Tried to summit Mt. Whitney in the snow. In April, my brother and I tried to summit Mt. Whitney but there was a late spring snowstorm and we decided to be safe rather than sorry and we turned around early. However, it was really beautiful to see some of the normally bare places covered with snow. 

Photo Rock

13. The year of the bike! In 2022, I waited until everyone who bought a bike during COVID got tired of it and then I bought a used stationary bike. I have used it a handful of times, but now that it is winter and raining, I think it will be getting more use soon. I also bought my first mountain bike and am still dialing in the adjustments and I can't wait to go out on my first ride! I also completed my longest bike ride ever (to date) of 42 miles, surpassing my 2013 record of 40 by two miles! 

14. Cowboy camped in the NV desert. On a road trip to Wyoming, we stopped outside of Reno and lay down by the side of the road under the stars! It was a little windy and dusty, but I actually slept great! 

Somewhere near Reno, NV

15. Backpacked in Grand Teton NP. Although permits were a little difficult to get (you have to get online on a certain day at a certain time and know exactly the dates you want and the campsites you want to stay at) once we were there, this was a great experience. It was beautiful and not as crowded as I expected and the views just kept on coming! I have been to Wyoming a few times and this park once before but I have never done any overnights and it did not disappoint! 

16. I got a new job. This probably deserves its own post, but basically my whole team went from one firm to another. We are still learning some of the rules and systems and things like that, but we are pretty satisfied with how the whole transition went overall. 

17. Summited Mt. Elbert. While not my first Colorado 14er, this is the second tallest mountain in the continental US and the highest in Colorado, so it was fun to check it off my list. Also it was fairly easy (as the 14ers in Colorado sometimes are) logistically. We were staying in Twin Lakes so I just hiked up to the top of the mountain and back down again to our AirBnB! Easy-peasy! 

The Collegiates as seen from the summit of Mt. Elbert

18. Discovered Octowordle. If you love Wordle, you will love Octowordle. You do not need to download an app and it is free and you can play games from the days before, so if you feel like more than one, you can have it! You have to solve eight Wordles at the same time and it is super fun. 

19. Got a bidet. I will not go into too much detail here but I bought a Tushy and I love it. The end. Seriously, it is easy to install and it does the job. 

My Tushy

20. Cross country backpacking Emigrant. I always wanted to do this cross country route near Cherry Creek in Emigrant but it was never on the way or convenient and we finally did it in October. It was great because the water was low so we could basically walk on the creek bed which made cross country travel very easy. Plus it was beautiful and we had the place all to ourselves since it was so late in the season. 

21. Went to a David Sedaris reading. I have never been to a book reading before and I do love listening to Sedaris books as he is a good narrator, so this was the best of both worlds! I also brought my brother and his girlfriend along, and although neither of them really have read Sedaris, they both enjoyed it. 

22. Finished my Death List. Maybe this needs a better name, but it is basically getting all of my "affairs" in order just in case something happens. I have had most things pretty dialed in (advanced directive, POA, beneficiaries) but wanted to put it all on one list so that people can access it easily. I started working on making a more detailed list last year when my grandmother died (nothing like a dose of reality to get you moving, eh?) as her list made it so easy to take care of her affairs after she passed. 

Wow, I did not mean to make the last one so dreary, but it is the most recent! Also, happily, I did a lot more than 22 new things in 2022, but I like the sound of 22 in 22 so I will leave it at that! Here's to many more new things in 2023! 

What new thing did you learn, place did you go or experience did you have in 2022?