im not dead!!!!!
Who would have thought that i would have had the time of my life in arkansas......
yes arkansas, i owe it all to you. The ozarks are beautiful, and the people compliment it greatly.
well i wrote to my roomie a few days ago, and it was long and summed up my time here well so i am going to copy paste it with minor modifications.
Here it is:
Ya, as you guessed, life has been jam-packed these past few weeks. Lots to talk about.
Firstly, I finally did it. I went off a 4 foot drop and totalled my bike during a race pre-ride. You know what this means? I get to buy a new bike!! actually 2!! because i need a regular mountain bike like the one i had and I am going to buy a beefier one so I can do all of this crazy jump stuff without worrying that it is going to fail on me. I think I can salvage the frame of my old bike and make that a trials bike. So in effect I am going to have 5 bikes.....
Anyway, here is the offical arkansas report in the most compact form possible:
Biking:
I have been doing lots of this. The first thing I did when I got here was befriend the local bike shop...I have since been adopted. I am really good friends with most of them, and I am on their shop team now. We hang out and eat pasta and do trail work and ride all the time. I, uh, also started dating one of them, a flaming red haired irish kid named guess what? Yes Dan. More on him later. I have entered 3 races. Results?
The "dead dog downhill" race: 1st
The "One-eyed dog" cross country race: 2nd
Eureka springs fat tire festival downhill: 1st
Eureka springs fat tire festival trials: 1st
Eureka springs fat tire festival cross country: 4th (i would have done better had i not
gotten a flat tire during the race)
Eureka springs omni (best overall): 1st place overall women
I got 100$ at the eureka springs race!! yay! that can go toward my new bikes!!!I broke my bike at the beginning of that weekend, so I raced all the races at eureka on a borrowed bike. I love the biking scene here.
Dan:
Yea, it was probably not the best idea to start a relationship when I was going to move away no matter what, but, hey live while you can, no? We both get along famously. He was homeschooled his whole life. His parents were nappa valley hippys. He is pretty smart but he doesnt go to college. He says he likes learning through apprentinceships (sp?). He does freelance photography and cinematography (sp? sorry it's late) and works at the bike shop. He is 20 just like me. He loves npr and bikes and he is one of the fastest people i have ever met. He almost always podiums in the hardest racing category. He just left yesterday for a national bike camp thing in durango, and if he wins the qualifying races there he will go to some training camp at the olympic training center in california, which he did last year. Anyway he left yesterday, and i wont see him before i leave :(.
we arent staying togther, against our will, because we are poor and dont know when we will be able to see each other again. But he is kind of a wanderer (he has lived in tahoe, durango, etc for a few months these past years) so he said he might show up in florida one of these days if he gets money. So we are definitely keeping in contact.
internship: I love what i am doing here. I am working with the side scan sonar and the echosounder at a local lake, and will be using them at yellowstone next week. I actually worked alot more with the echosounder than with the side scan. I am actually doing a project for a local citizens group. They are afraid their lake is drowning in sediment from construction. I am imaging the bottom of the lake and finding out if this is the case. Its really not that hard to use the sonar and process the data. Its kinda fun to try and interpret all of the results. I also got to learn to drive boats. steve (the prof) is really laid back and nice. He doesnt care when I come in or leave as long as i get stuff done. Barb the grad student is just as cool. All of the other geology kids in the program are nice. We have gone caving alot. That is one of the scariest things I have ever freaking done. But it was fun. I felt safe cause dan was there and he is nature boy and knows what he is doing. I cant wait for yellowstone!! hopefully i wont
get mauled by bears.
That is what i wrote my roomie. Since then, I have presented my final project to the department and the lake fayetteville watershed partnership representatives. They thought it was good. I got alot of questions. It felt nice to do something useful for the community. Steve told me that I am going to present a poster about what i did at a gsa undergrad symposium in denver. I had to submit an abstract and everything. That should be interesting....I really really love it here. I am going to miss it. dan is gone, but the bike family takes care of me. We had another giant pasta party and we watched the tour and talked about bikes and wrestled with peoples kids. I wish i could bring them home with me. Oh well. Maybe you will get to meet dan one day. i miss him alot. I am leaving for yellowstone tommorow, and so no comp for me for the next three weeks. I cant wait to see the west!!!
some pictures:
dan: http://www.ozarkoffroadcyclists.com/oorcmeeting.jpg (in the middle, smiling)
me sitting next to dan: (he is in sunglasses lying down in green pants)
http://www.somefeargear.com/ADHCS/Casspix/59.jpg
me: (sorry this is from some photographers website so there is alot of extra crap you have to ignore, but i thought it was a killer picture of me jumping an 8 ft gap jump at the finish line.....)
http://www.picquest.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BRFTD81e&Category_Code=DH1
me racing downhill again:
http://www.somefeargear.com/ADHCS/Casspix/50.jpg
So ill see you soon, and hopefully ill have lots of cool geology adventures and hilarious anecdotes that involve beer, bears, and drunken professors and grad students (not teresas. teresas just laugh and eat smores).
See you guys soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i love you all. I wish you could see arkasnas. If you get past the red-neckness, it is very very beautifull. Oh, and i think the weirdest thing i saw here was a skunk killing a bunny. Dan saw it happening and pointed it out to me.
It squeaked like a dog toy. I also didnt know that skunks ate meat.
~ter-ror
yes arkansas, i owe it all to you. The ozarks are beautiful, and the people compliment it greatly.
well i wrote to my roomie a few days ago, and it was long and summed up my time here well so i am going to copy paste it with minor modifications.
Here it is:
Ya, as you guessed, life has been jam-packed these past few weeks. Lots to talk about.
Firstly, I finally did it. I went off a 4 foot drop and totalled my bike during a race pre-ride. You know what this means? I get to buy a new bike!! actually 2!! because i need a regular mountain bike like the one i had and I am going to buy a beefier one so I can do all of this crazy jump stuff without worrying that it is going to fail on me. I think I can salvage the frame of my old bike and make that a trials bike. So in effect I am going to have 5 bikes.....
Anyway, here is the offical arkansas report in the most compact form possible:
Biking:
I have been doing lots of this. The first thing I did when I got here was befriend the local bike shop...I have since been adopted. I am really good friends with most of them, and I am on their shop team now. We hang out and eat pasta and do trail work and ride all the time. I, uh, also started dating one of them, a flaming red haired irish kid named guess what? Yes Dan. More on him later. I have entered 3 races. Results?
The "dead dog downhill" race: 1st
The "One-eyed dog" cross country race: 2nd
Eureka springs fat tire festival downhill: 1st
Eureka springs fat tire festival trials: 1st
Eureka springs fat tire festival cross country: 4th (i would have done better had i not
gotten a flat tire during the race)
Eureka springs omni (best overall): 1st place overall women
I got 100$ at the eureka springs race!! yay! that can go toward my new bikes!!!I broke my bike at the beginning of that weekend, so I raced all the races at eureka on a borrowed bike. I love the biking scene here.
Dan:
Yea, it was probably not the best idea to start a relationship when I was going to move away no matter what, but, hey live while you can, no? We both get along famously. He was homeschooled his whole life. His parents were nappa valley hippys. He is pretty smart but he doesnt go to college. He says he likes learning through apprentinceships (sp?). He does freelance photography and cinematography (sp? sorry it's late) and works at the bike shop. He is 20 just like me. He loves npr and bikes and he is one of the fastest people i have ever met. He almost always podiums in the hardest racing category. He just left yesterday for a national bike camp thing in durango, and if he wins the qualifying races there he will go to some training camp at the olympic training center in california, which he did last year. Anyway he left yesterday, and i wont see him before i leave :(.
we arent staying togther, against our will, because we are poor and dont know when we will be able to see each other again. But he is kind of a wanderer (he has lived in tahoe, durango, etc for a few months these past years) so he said he might show up in florida one of these days if he gets money. So we are definitely keeping in contact.
internship: I love what i am doing here. I am working with the side scan sonar and the echosounder at a local lake, and will be using them at yellowstone next week. I actually worked alot more with the echosounder than with the side scan. I am actually doing a project for a local citizens group. They are afraid their lake is drowning in sediment from construction. I am imaging the bottom of the lake and finding out if this is the case. Its really not that hard to use the sonar and process the data. Its kinda fun to try and interpret all of the results. I also got to learn to drive boats. steve (the prof) is really laid back and nice. He doesnt care when I come in or leave as long as i get stuff done. Barb the grad student is just as cool. All of the other geology kids in the program are nice. We have gone caving alot. That is one of the scariest things I have ever freaking done. But it was fun. I felt safe cause dan was there and he is nature boy and knows what he is doing. I cant wait for yellowstone!! hopefully i wont
get mauled by bears.
That is what i wrote my roomie. Since then, I have presented my final project to the department and the lake fayetteville watershed partnership representatives. They thought it was good. I got alot of questions. It felt nice to do something useful for the community. Steve told me that I am going to present a poster about what i did at a gsa undergrad symposium in denver. I had to submit an abstract and everything. That should be interesting....I really really love it here. I am going to miss it. dan is gone, but the bike family takes care of me. We had another giant pasta party and we watched the tour and talked about bikes and wrestled with peoples kids. I wish i could bring them home with me. Oh well. Maybe you will get to meet dan one day. i miss him alot. I am leaving for yellowstone tommorow, and so no comp for me for the next three weeks. I cant wait to see the west!!!
some pictures:
dan: http://www.ozarkoffroadcyclists.com/oorcmeeting.jpg (in the middle, smiling)
me sitting next to dan: (he is in sunglasses lying down in green pants)
http://www.somefeargear.com/ADHCS/Casspix/59.jpg
me: (sorry this is from some photographers website so there is alot of extra crap you have to ignore, but i thought it was a killer picture of me jumping an 8 ft gap jump at the finish line.....)
http://www.picquest.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BRFTD81e&Category_Code=DH1
me racing downhill again:
http://www.somefeargear.com/ADHCS/Casspix/50.jpg
So ill see you soon, and hopefully ill have lots of cool geology adventures and hilarious anecdotes that involve beer, bears, and drunken professors and grad students (not teresas. teresas just laugh and eat smores).
See you guys soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i love you all. I wish you could see arkasnas. If you get past the red-neckness, it is very very beautifull. Oh, and i think the weirdest thing i saw here was a skunk killing a bunny. Dan saw it happening and pointed it out to me.
It squeaked like a dog toy. I also didnt know that skunks ate meat.
~ter-ror