Category Archives: Education

Palm Desert To Hemet

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There are better ways to start your day. I was maybe a mile in to today’s stage when this flashed across the bottom half of the Hammerhead Karoo head unit, “Climb 1, 24 miles, 5,000′.” Mother sucker. Or something of that sort.

Beautiful desert/mountain scenery that I was working way too hard to fully enjoy. Working hard doesn’t mean going fast. I was more conservative than your MAGA uncle who ruined last Thanksgiving. At one point, Matt, one of the Bay Area Boys, passed me like I was standing still.

No real shoulder to speak of. Cars flying by. Death grip on the bars. And you may not know this because you’re way faster than me, but it’s hard to hold a line when you’re doing 7-8 mph.

Three hours to get to the top where several guardian angels appeared in succession. First, Skip, today’s van driver, materialized out of thin air about 4 miles from the top with water right as I emptied my second bottle. Then, he drove ahead to the small/rural restaurant that doubles as a mail station for Pacific Coast Trail through hikers. There, Linda split her amazing breakfast with me. Then Skip split his with me too. Then some bikepacker who couldn’t finish his breakfast burrito at a nearby table, offered it up. Then Chucky Chuck gave me one-fourth of his tuna melt. I just sat there and vacuumed everyone’s sloppy seconds for an hour! It cost me the stage victory, but was SO worth it.

Griffin loved the descent. My bod is too broken down for me to have fully enjoyed it. Wrists hurt from all the braking, bony ass screaming for relief, lower back uber tight. Plus, I was thinking of Jeanette who told me, before I left, it’s “different having one parent”.

Following the 12 mile descent, the flat, hot run in to town was pretty uneventful except for Linda’s flat which was difficult to fix. No doubt Griffin’s fault. Once he flatted yesterday, others thought they’d join in. Since I smelled the barn, or in this case a gritty hotel, I did all the work. And no, to answer your question, neither Marky Mark or Chucky Chuck thanked me.

Couldn’t have completed today’s stage without last night’s desert. Hayden’s for the win.
Griffin’s desert game similarly strong.

From whence I came. Halfway to the top.
How do you spell guardian angel? L-i-n-d-a.
Packages awaiting PCT-ers
Pic across from the packages. WHO is this woman? I only ask because of the red hair.

Postscript. So disappointed in all of you. Walter and Jesse weren’t making cocaine in the desert in their RV, they were making meth. Let’s all commit to reading a little closer.

Prologue

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Sunday not fun day. Shot down the I-5 for 8+ hours. Had my first fast food since forever and somehow managed to keep it down. Rallied and had the best chicken carbonara of all time for dinner at Giovanni’s. With half the crazies. Turns out some peeps looked at the weather forecast and bailed, so we’re 12.

Which increases my odds of finishing on the podium.

Today, starting in a few hours, we ride east for 50 miles. The second half all uphill. Let’s effin’ go!

When are the midterms again?

All The Feels In The VAC

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The Victoria Athletic Club is a smallish, but nice fitness center underneath the Hotel Grand Pacific.

My first widowed travel decisions have left a lot to be desired. Trip two is turning out to be like cognitive behavioral therapy, real belly of the beast grief shit. Last night, on the way to the Fish Market for a halibut burger and very large fries, I kept thinking of all the restaurants that dotted the way that the GalPal and I ate at.

This morning, sitting atop a bike in the VAC, I see visions of her in the pool area. Then remember our lap swim routine where she’d start out swimming in the lane next to me, but then lay in wait under the lane line waiting to see what she could grab as I went by. The second or third time, I’d pull up and say, “DUDE, STOP! I’m trying to workout!” And. She’d. Flash. Her. Smile. Which was her way of saying, “You know you like it.” No more VAC horseplay. No more smile. Ever.

Silver lining. At this rate, I’ll be done grieving in no time, and be fine. Right?

The bike I rode was parked right outside the glass encased squash court. While spinning, I watched a woman, guessing early 70s, do the most badass core routine, on a mat, on the empty squash court, I have ever seen. Pushups, every dead bug variation known to humankind, bridges, and on and on. She’d get up, walk out of the court, over to the pull up bar and rip off a bunch of pull ups. Grab a dumb bell, return, and get after it with more core exercises. This went on and on. I was so intrigued I wanted to chat her up, but there was no way, she was locked in! Each time she approached the door, I thought to myself, okay, this is it, she’s gonna make eye contact. Wrong.

I think to myself, it’s really not fair that a 70-something woman can be THAT fit when, what seems like yesterday, I was pushing 64 year old Lynn around the Plum St YMCA weight room in her wheelchair. Helping her on and off machines and giving her 2.5 pound dumbells to do bicep curls.

Fortunately, no one noticed the anonymous American cyclist tearing up on the bike. Which was good because crying would inevitably sink my application for citizenship. This is a country where people bodycheck one another against the boards. Routinely. I think the official national policy is, “No crybabies allowed.”

Foo’s Carmel Chicken with Asian Greens for the win.

Really Nice Knowing You

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Okay, pushing off from the Coho Ferry Terminal in Port Angeles. When I woke up at 4:30a.m. my ancient bedside digital radio was flashing 3:30a.m. Damn, forgot all about the springing forward.

The drive was trippy. I literally didn’t see a car on my side of the road for 90 of the 120 miles. And only ones going in the opposite direction every 15-20 minutes. It was like the road was closed just for me.

It’s hella windy so the crossing is going to be a challenge. I am supe prone to sea sickness. When my sibs and I spread my mom’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean near the Long Beach, CA port a decade ago, they took great joy in my suffering. The worse I felt, the better they did. There’s no substitute for sister and brotherly love.

A peek inside my birdbrain for the next 90 minutes. “If against all odds, this giant ferry boat capsizes, I can no doubt can swim circles around everyone else on board. Yeah, but then again, given my lack of body fat, I will be the first to succumb to hypothermia. So yeah, definitely gonna die.”

JJ For The Win

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JJ and I were having another meaningful convo in the kitchen recently, which has become Deep Convo Central since our lives have been turned upside down. We weren’t thinking the same about whatever it was we were batting back and forth. Finally, a little exasperated with your humble blogger, she said, “Dad, I can hold two opposing ideas in my head at the same time.” Touché.

That’s what my mind returned to when she texted me this picture yesterday. To explain more fully, a few days ago, I got her monthly newsletter which lately has been mostly, but not exclusively, a beautiful, heart-wrenching reflection on her grieving process.*

Dig this flavor flav:

“The last two years were marked by such a different version of the mom I had had for the first 28 years of my life. She was so sick, she was so burdened by her illness and her symptoms. That has been the version of her most readily accessible in my memory. That has been the version showing up in my dreams, night after night, adding salt to the wound. If I can only see her in my dreams, can’t they at least be happy? Can’t she be healthy? Can’t I have the mom from that green couch? I believe one day they will be happy. One day she will be healthy again and she will visit me at night and whisper in my ear that she loves me, whisper that she misses me, that she’s still with me, if in a different form than before.

I still don’t feel normal, I still feel all sorts of wrong, I don’t recognize many aspects of life right now, I have a limited capacity, I don’t ask as many questions, I don’t beep bop around town. So it goes I suppose. I have such a greater understanding for the people in my life who have lost a parent and the hard work they did and continue to do to survive it. This is truly such hard work. And also, when I look, I see a slowly but surely improving ability to do more things in the day, a desire to socialize a little bit more, and flickers of a self that I recognize. When I am in the space to see them, there are some beautiful corners of grief – richer friendships, increased empathy, and a deeper understanding of the things that are important to me.”

All sorts of wrong coupled with a warm smile. Two opposing feels. At the same time.

*I told her she should be writing books, not selling them.

This Just In

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From the Office of Diversity, Justice, and Sustainability.

The “Lutes Meet & Greets” are back. I am pro “meet and greet”; however, at least one significant underrepresented group is missing. If the goals of these are, as I suspect, to improve retention, the missing group represents serious, low-hanging fruit. There are several possible answers, but only one correct one. Can you guess it?



The Winter Of Grief II

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My mom was 64 years 10 months old when my dad died from a heart attack while driving to work in Tampa, FL.

I’m 63 years 10 months old.

I wish I could go back in time and interact with my mom with the wisdom gained from what I am experiencing. It’s not that I wasn’t compassionate, it’s just that my compassion would be on a whole different level.

One painful insight that I’d bring to our relationship is the knowledge of how the person’s life lingers and how the trail they left offers constant memories which both deepen and lengthen the grief.

For example, today, after visiting Lynn I went through her collection of papers and books from the last few years. A literary tower balancing precariously on the piano bench.

And I stumbled across the attached picture. The crossed out “2020” speaks to some procrastinating, but I love how dang aspirational her list was. Ward Lake laps, haha. The “Oregon hill” is McKenzie Pass which I raved to her about after each of my ascents.

“Surf in Gull Harbor current” meant kayaking to the mouth of the harbor then riding the current into the harbor. Sometimes in the boat, sometimes not.

“Hike a lot” unchecked. “Hike Mt. Eleanor” unchecked. Fuck, why didn’t we go on more hikes?

The wisest thing anyone has said to me during this ordeal was a hospice chaplain who said don’t focus so much on Lynn’s mortality that you ignore your own. That was piercing. And stuck.

I wonder, what if things were reversed and Lynn had to interact with my material wake. Would she take the seven iron out of my golf bag and hold the grip seeking some sort of cosmic connection? Yeah, I think she prob would.

Here’s what I think about my own mortality. Lynn had just over four years left when she cobbled together her “Summer Fun” list. I’m guessing she assumed she had more than four summers left. I know I did.

I do not want to save up for the future, to put things off, to assume a long, healthy future.

One of the simplest ways I’m doing that may seem silly. These days, my uniform is t-shirts and jeans. I have about 10 t-shirts, some that I like to wear more than others. And I have one fave, that I used to reach for and then stop and say to myself, “I should save that for next time.” Now, I look for it and wear it whenever it’s clean. Because of Lynn.

Without being morbid, take your mortality seriously. Don’t wait. Hike. Cycle. Be on or in the water. In your favorite t-shirt.