A beautiful distraction

When you focus on a goal for so long you can develop what experts call "target fixation". Blindly focusing in on a single object, all other things around that object fade out of existence until the goal is reached, or failure.....with failure being the most likely endstate. Tunnel vision takes over....all dangers and concerns are ignored save for the single object of fixation. The past few weeks saw me starting a new job which brought a new operational tempo to my ride. A necessity which pulled my attentions away from the old horizon and onto a new one. No longer feeling a need to wander the landscape in search of long mental miles, I've defocused and have found a beautiful distraction....the fun ride.

The beautiful distraction is the ride where I don't look at the clock. How many eons did it take for the patina to develop on this piece of weathered rock....lichens taking hold of it's exterior and bleaching the surface a cold grey....yet when fractured, she shows her heart....a rosy hue which tells the real story of how this became, why it is and who it will always be.....

....and like that....she slices open the sidewall of BGR....it's been a long time my friend...it seems like just last season when I listened to the Navajo radio station in your snow cave......

During this down time, I focus on the other rose colored hues around me....following the tangent that presents itself to me when I wander down that rabbit hole I enjoy so much.  This picture makes me long for a fisheye lens...but I wind up creating a ghetto fisheye shot for myself.....

As I wait for the sidewall slice to be remedied, I focus on the layers of history around me....and I see strain hardening.  Under certain conditions, rocks like materials become stronger than their original selves.  Where the rock breaks through a fracturing process, it sometimes become harder....so much so, that when it weathers and erodes out....it's the original rock that disapears, leaving only one thing behind....a fin of hardened material that incorporates the original rock along with the thing that hardened it......  

Growing within these fracture zones, I see plants backlit in the shallow sun of morning.  The roots exploit the fracture zone in search of easy resources....pulling it upwards into the light.  I eat, I ride and I love.  I use what is available to me to do this and to keep it all going.....so does this plant....veins exhibiting an order that is not unlike ourselves.....

Breaks are taken, conversations are had, laughter is shared.....gut shattering laughter...the forest takes us in.  Smiles are the norm...we are happy and we are in a beautiful place....should there ever be another way?

Descending into Kelly Pocket....I am once again transfixed by the woman in the green dress....she wears it well in the early summer.....and Gitty provides the action.....

Swoopy turns, up and down, banking left and right between trees and slabs of rock.....we travel through this lush microclimate....

More breaks are taken....snacks are shared....I pass out Twizzlers bought at the QT.....I hear they're taking over Arizona.....

tRoy shows us the skinny......but winds up just being hokey.....thanks for the video my friend and for organizing this ride.....

The next morning, I go ride with Dara and Agnes.  Riding in front of Dara....I hear a commotion behind me.  Narrowly avoiding running over a Horny Toad, she almost wrecked.  As I take pictures.....Agnes tells me that if you pet it's neck, according to the Navajo, it will rain....I pet it's neck a lot.....we need it.......

Having fun just past the overlook....a log roll is tried......

This one has always had my number since I missed the exit, augured in and went over the bar; hurting my shoulder so bad it took weeks to recover....you gotta trust the branch is there on the backside and aim for it without seeing it.....

As I try.....I fail to trust this time as I've so often found myself....I see it when I'm at the top, stalled and contemplating, but need to trust it on the approach and just go for it.  The fact that I'm trying it again is not lost on me....I've found a beautiful distraction once again....the long solo ride is a beautiful transformational thing....but so is a short ride with friends.