A winters rain

The words of a thousand poets could never describe the beauty of a winters rain in the Sonoran desert....we set to ride into a winters storm....such a rare treat upon two wheels....

Closer inspection brings perspective to the sepia world reflected back on a rusted plate of iron covered in the thin collection of a winters rain.  The predictable bend of light along the edge of matter....photons warping around the meniscus.....stretching what is seen into a swirl beyond the edge of what is apparent....what is seen...what is reasonable......it draws us closer to inspect what we know with our own eyes, yet see in a different light.....

Studying just a small portion of what I'm about to ride.....I see in a new light, the raw numbers and perspective of what I'm to climb.  It sounds absurd....and it is absurd....I much prefer it in the flesh, the experience....which will truly define how it is vs. how it is graphed into the intangible experience of my memory.  Never look beyond the horizon....one pedal stroke at a time.....never predict the future....for if you do, you'll be sorely disappointed......we ride now, we ride here....we live.

.....et voila....ici.....laissez bon temps roulez....

The cold world of winter brings flat light, and yet the opportunity to work in a softer pallate....with the sharpest of subjects....is welcomed with healthy appreciation of the things that bring us pain.

My ole' workhorse, LaFawnduh, seen in the beauty of her worn appearance......she's taken me through more than you could imagine...more than what should be tolerable...perhaps more than what you'll ever see yourself.  She's never faltered....a testament to this valley of the sun and the folks that call it home.....

In a light hearted moment.....I capture a smile against the boulders.....

.....but I must keep it real....so I sneek some pics of chollaball pushing through the reality of a 20 minute HAB up the East End to Toms Thumb.....through an unexpected snow flurry......

My wonderment in our luck is expressed in vocalized "wow's" and "awesomes" which reverberate into nothingness...for in the humid environment...all sound is absorbed within the air itself leaving nothing but the sound heard in our chests and ears as we push onwards in an anerobic world....We are lucky to be here in the rain and snow, for any fool can be here on a sunny day and see what the rest would believe you to be real......

....our "real"........right now....is a rare....."real".  Right now, it's the only "real".....and for a few....the prefered "real".

Descending off the face of the earth, back towards the festering neon distraction....a crimson carpet twists and turns against gravity and the newly found greenness of a seasonal rain...

.....as humans....we merely try to follow the path drawn for us....

.....paths hewn from the inevitability of thorn, slope and rock.........

........paths which claw their way through the improbability of reason.....

...paths which have been forged by those before us......

But as we approach each turn in life, we are each afforded an opportunity to make it our own....to cut corners....or to go long........

...and it is from those turns in life, we are given a new chance.......

......a chance to ride a new line.....a chance to redefine, what we call our own.

And yet through all of this....we still climb....onwards and upwards....we climb.........

6,000 vertical feet, 4 summits, 25 miles.....