Since returning from the frying pan of Las Vegas to the furnace of the East Coast, I’ve been at home in Maine. After such a wild time out west, it took me a full week to get back on my feet. But now I am ready to rock once more.

The reason I came home was to race in the Yarmouth Clam Festival Bike Race tomorrow. But before I could do that, I had to warm up, having not raced my bike since crashing out at the finish of the Lake Auburn Road Race in early June. Which meant that I had to do the Brunswick Time Trial (RACE SEVEN IN THE MAINE TT SERIES!!!!!).

I really don’t like time trials. Maybe it’s due to my lack of true aerobic fitness. Or non Miguel Indurain-like build. But whatever it is, I suck at them, at least compared to climbs and uphill sprint finishes. This one was basically in my backyard, though, so there wasn’t much of a choice.

The day before the race, my friend Morgan and I went over to the Brunswick High School, where the Maine Bike Rally was taking place, in search of someone who might be able to help us register the day before and save us some time. After being passed between like four different people, we finally were introduced to a man eating a large bowl of cake and ice cream. Between bites, he managed to give us absolutely no useful information and simultaneously thoroughly insult us, by asking us questions like, “have you ever done a time trial before?” and informing us that “helmets are required,” and “no drafting.” I suppose that I had hairy legs and in general behave like an amateur, but still.

The time trial itself was uneventful, and the only other amusing thing that happened was as we were leaving. As we pedaled away on our bikes, we thanked one of the volunteers, who yelled after us to “come back next year!” and to “stay the whole weekend!” “We live here!” we shouted back to her, to which she responded by yelling, “no I don’t!”

Since Morgan is an out-of-shape extremely qualified cyclist and I am a moderately fit not-particularly-qualified cyclist, we decided that the time trial would be the first event in the Tour de Clam, the winner of which would would be the person with the lowest combined placing between the TT and the Clam Fest. Morgan beat me by three places in the TT, but as it turned out, we did another ride on Wednesday, in which I took five of nine town line sprints. So, in tomorrow’s race I only have to make up two places. Loser has to buy lime rickeys at the Clam Fest after the race.

Other unwitting participants in the Tour de Clam include Middlebury Coach Andrew Gardner and MWSC VP Eileen Carey, both of whom are signed up for tomorrow’s race. Each has a large deficit to make up after having forfeited the Brunswick TT. And after having talked a big game all spring, Bowdoin ski team member Walt Shepard appears to have forfeit the entire competition, given that he has only entered a single bike race all year, and no stages of the Tour de Clam. This will be an especially tough defeat for him to stomach, since the course for the Clam Fest race travels past his house.

I promise to have a much less stupid and hopefully more entertaining blog post after tomorrow.

If you are a huge baller for long enough, then eventually you are going to end up in Vegas. That’s just how it is.

The Stratosphere, my home for the next three days.

I flew here yesterday from Boston. It was pretty sweet—on the leg from Newark to Las Vegas, I sat next to a well-groomed Danish dude who was competing in the World Series of Poker. He is not a professional—it sounds like (I couldn’t hear him that well over the roar of the jet engines) he splits his time between poker and working on his farm. I think he told me that he lost a million dollars or two in the last year, which seemed like no big deal.

Most of what I know about Las Vegas is what I have seen from the movie The Hangover and from what I have been told by others—mainly that it is the most horrible place in the whole world. So far, I believe that neither of these representations are accurate. I did not wake up to any tigers in my bathroom this morning, and after 24 hours here, I actually have to say that I kind of like Las Vegas.

To be sure, I emphatically agree that this place is an incredible waste of space, water, and energy. It’s can also be depressing—most of the people I’ve observed in the casinos actually look pretty lonely and miserable while they’re spending their money. However, there are a lot of good things as well.

First of all, people are quite friendly and convivial. On my run down the strip this morning, a surprising proportion of people I jogged past said hi. And I was also accosted by a crusty, unshaven, potentially-still-drunk-from-last-night middle-aged man who was waiting for the bus. As I approached, he grinned at me and shouted: “I keep telling you people…well, I don’t remember! But have fun!”

Also, where else are there things like slot machines in the airport, gigantic fountain-volcanoes that simultaneously belch water and flames, and absolutely gigantic buildings with seemingly no order or aesthetic sense?

Caesar's Palace. I couldn't quite tell if that thing was meant to have a head but doesn't, or just wasn't.

I hate it when people take themselves too seriously, and I think what I like about Las Vegas is that in general, everyone here seems to realize how utterly ridiculous this place is—and that there’s no point of being serious here, because you’d be like that guy who gets super-pissed off during the game of Monopoly and stalks off. (Yeah, okay, that guy is definitely me sometimes.)

Now, in no particular order, a few observations from vegas:

–The public transportation here is absolutely horrendous. The bus that I took this morning took about half an hour to go three miles, and it was a similar issue last night, except packed with belligerent drunk people. It’s basically like riding the subway at rush hour in New York, except it isn’t underground, it doesn’t go fast, and everyone has had eight margaritas.

–There are a lot of people around whose sole purpose it is to get you to do or buy things. Foremost among them are sketchy dudes standing on the curb passing out these cards with pictures of naked women on them, with phone numbers and pricing information. Wow. The number of people doing this was incredible—certain sections of the strip were just lined with guys shoulder-to-shoulder handing them out. I collected a few for the benefit of the reader (they give them to you a few at a time, I swear)—I haven’t called any of the numbers…yet.

Come to think of it, I do actually have a queen-sized bed...

–Caesar’s Palace has erected a ski jump—yes, a real ski jump, with snow—for the fourth of July. I am going to go check it out right now before it’s time to watch Marcus Hellner and Petter Northug play poker.

The ski jump is behind the sign...

Honestly, I could not dream up a stranger assignment than this one. More to come soon–honestly, how could there not be?

For those of you still in the dark (which would be surprising, given the intense scrutiny that the ski-journalism community gets during the off-season), I have signed on to work for FasterSkier for another year. Thus, late last week, I packed up all the important things into my car (bike, ski poles, underwear) and drove five hours to FasterSkier World Headquarters in western Massachusetts, stopping along the way for a burrito in Portsmouth. Little did I know that there was a ski-related standoff occurring at the same time in the parking garage in town, which explains, in retrospect, why the traffic in Portsmouth was even more heinous than its usual insanity-inducing state.

Late that afternoon, I arrived in Williamstown, which will be my home for the summer and fall. If you didn’t already know, in addition to being the editor of FasterSkier, my boss, Topher, also is the manager of a dairy farm (it’s basically a hedge fund—one investment in the high-tech industry, and one in the more traditional agricultural sector [or you could also just say that they’re both very poor/high risk investments, but whatever)], and as part of my generous compensation package, he has kindly offered me a place of residence in one of the buildings here.

Topher preparing an IV as part of my training regimen for next winter. Or, actually, for one of the sick cows...

This is awesome for a whole handful of reasons:

1. I don’t have to live at home. Home is a very nice place—friendly parents, comfy bed, delicious food—but as I have previously written, there’s only so much you can get out of Central Maine.

2. There is a bakery on the farm that produces awesome bread, cookies, scones, etc. for the farm store. This is incredibly dangerous—kind of like if a gambling addict took up residence in Las Vegas—but also incredibly awesome. If Topher were not here to supervise me, I would eat ten scones per day. There’s also homemade yogurt, raw-milk cheese, a mango tree, and eggs (okay, no mango tree, but pretty much everything else you’d ever want).

Scone.

3. Western Mass. is an endurance athlete’s paradise. In contrast to Central Maine, where the largest hill is my own sh—tily-paved street, in this area, they actually have rad real climbs and spectacular paved roads. My workout yesterday was 1xGreylock (Mt. Greylock is the tallest “mountain” in Massachusetts, at a whopping 3,491; it has a freshly-paved road that goes up and over the summit), and the Taconic Ridge trail is right out the back door. The tentative plan is to get fit enough to win the Cat. 3 race at the Tour of the Hilltowns in late July.

The Greylock summit yesterday

4. Given that Topher and other mysteriously-titled employee of FasterSkier Matthew Voisin both live in Williamstown, we are now able to plan our schemes for world domination in person.

This evening, Topher and I are heading up to Burlington to compete in the Spartan Race, which will be the first in many contests taking place over the summer to determine who is the hugest baller ski journalist. After today’s bike ride, in which I delivered a Northug-esque beatdown on all the town line sprints, Topher has some work to do.

In the interest of fairness, Topher was asked if he had a comment on his crushing defeat.

“I was slowed down by my massively bulging biceps,” he said.

Expect a full recap of my awesome victory in the coming days–it will be something like this. Except instead of “this…is…SPARTA!” the rallying cry will be “this…is…NORTHERN VERMONT!”

There are many, many perks involved in the life of a huge baller international ski journalists, but one of the unexpected disappointments of the last winter was how little time I had to ski, and especially to race. In the 2009-2010 ski season, I raced a grand total of three times. One of those was in Fairbanks, where I wore Swix warm-up pants because it was -15, and another was a 6 k citizens’ biathlon race in Fort Kent, where I beat up on masters, kids, and shot at the wrong targets. (At least I hit them.) Training wasn’t much better—I got a few chances to ski in some beautiful places (Germany, Anchorage, Whistler), but I was usually too busy to put much time in.
So when I got home a few weeks ago, I was excited to be able to jump on my bike and start riding. I put some pretty good days of training in this month (hill repeats! intervals!) in anticipation of some solid spring racing.

The only problem is that paying for races, and for getting yourself there, is expensive. And since I only recently graduated from college, have little talent, and am not “all in,” I have not been recruited to ride for a club or a team. Therefore, I’d been sticking to local group rides and training races until this last weekend, when I caught a ride down (or up, as it were, or actually, down and up, since there’s absolutely no efficient way to drive to central New Hampshire from Maine) to Dartmouth for the eastern collegiate cycling championships.

I know, I know—I don’t go to college any more. But there were open races both days—individual and team time trials the first day, and a road race the second. And you can’t argue with a free ride to New Hampshire, especially when the alternative is sitting around the house.

As it turned out, one of the Bowdoin cyclists got sick, so on Saturday, I raced in the Men’s Collegiate C Team Time Trial as J.B. Chun. Yes, for about twenty minutes on Saturday morning, I was Asian, and still a college student. It didn’t matter because we didn’t win, and it was wicked fun.

In the afternoon, I hung out and watched about eight different criteriums. I spent most of the time sitting on the grass in someone’s yard watching people overshoot the course’s most technical corner, except for when I conned my way into the pace car with one of my friends for the women’s intro race. It was pretty rad—we had to drive pretty fast just to stay in front of the women who were just learning how to race, and I can only imagine how awesome it must have been to rally around that course in front of the Men’s A race.

The view from the pace car

The other highlight of the day had to do with that aforementioned corner. It was a tough, 180-degree bend that came right after a pretty fast downhill. People would often be going too fast and end up in the grass on the outside (in the best-case scenario). At one point in the men’s B race, this UVM kid comes flying down the hill, and I guess he sees some senior citizens step out into the road without really realizing what was going on. He screams at them to get out of the way (we can hear this from about 100 yards away up on the hill where we were sitting), has to swerve to avoid them, and goes straight into the grass, falling off his bike as the rest of the field goes by.

By the time this guy fell off, he wasn’t going too fast, and it looked like he probably could have caught back up. Instead, he picks up his bike and starts screaming and running with it up the hill where we’re sitting. His parents are about ten yards from us, and they ask the kid if he is okay as he goes by. In this high-pitched, hysterical, breathless voice, he goes “FU–ING OLD PEOPLE!!!” Then, later, when his race is over, he comes back and is complaining to his parents again–he sounds like he is about to cry. “Fu—ing old people! They should just put them all in a home or something!!! I worked all year for this! These two fat, old people…” and so on, and so forth. Good stuff.

A few other highlights—we parked next to the West Point squad. These guys do not f—k around. As we were packing up our van and discussing what we wanted for dinner, who was buying beer, etc., these guys were having a serious meeting about the day’s races and about the plan for Sunday, which involved being ready to rumble at oh-six-hundred hours. We had the option of asking these guys to get out of our way and pulling out of our parking spot forwards, or backing out. We backed out.

Don't f--k with the cadets...

We stopped to pick up dinner at the Co-op in Hanover. I know that Dartmouth kids have some funny traditions and odd proclivities, but I was especially amused by this aisle sign (and yes, I am equating the weird hippie co-op in town with the college itself). I have no idea what an aseptic juice is, although it does make me wonder if I’ve been drinking septic juices my whole life—I certainly hope not.

Ew.

Sunday dawned sunny and warm, and I was incredibly excited to step up to the line for my first road race of the year—60-ish miles over Vermont hill and dale. I was pleasantly surprised to see former Harvard skier David McCahill in my field, as well as the guy who advised the cycling club at the Putney school my senior year.

The first forty miles of the race were relatively uneventful. The most exciting thing that happened was when I shoved an entire apricot Clif Bar in my mouth all at once about thirty seconds before a gigantic hill popped up out of nowhere. With some serious nose breathing, I barely managed to keep drooling and choking to a minimum before we got to the top. Other than that, I’d felt great—in the front going up the climbs, staying out of trouble, yelling at my friends on the side of the road, etc.

At about 45 miles, we came down a big hill about to start our last of four ten- or 12-mile laps. I am not a super-ambitious descender (they don’t not call me Il Falco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Savoldelli) for nothing), and every time we’d gone down this hill, I’d been just about the last one in the group. As I downshifted and accelerated to close up the gap, I heard a loud “PING,” and then some serious tinging and more pinging. F—k. I stopped to check things out. My frame appeared to still be intact (good). So did all my cables (good). Then, I glanced at my rear wheel. Oh yeah, broken spoke. Not good. All I wanted to do at that moment was scream “FU—ING OLD PEOPLE,” but sadly, there was no one around to get the joke.

Not cool.

So that was the end of the day for me. Pretty big bummer, since I’d felt pretty good, and I was curious to see how my legs would hold up on the final climb against the small field of Cat. 3s and 4s. Hopefully, though, I will get a few more chances this spring. If there are any cycling company executives reading this post, I have yet to secure my free bike(s) for the year, and at the very least, I am in need of a new spoke.

A few other things of note:

–This photo

This does not seem like it should fly at West Point, but...

–Free gas (for me)

Thanks Bowdoin!

And the fact that Bowdoin called me to try to get me to donate to the alumni fund as I was literally in the car on my way home from Brunswick on Sunday night. I have copied and pasted their thank-you note. Please note my title—all future correspondence with me should use it.

“Gift Detail

Name:  The Most Rev. Nathaniel Herz

Gift Amount:  $1.00

Gift Date:  4/26/2010

Designation:  Alumni Fund”

I drove home yesterday morning from Fort Kent. The last time I was here was December 21, and that was for one night. All I have done since getting home is read, eat, sleep, and watch an episode of 24.

It has been an awesome winter—one that went far, far beyond my expectations. And there are literally dozens of people that I need to thank for helping me along. If you’re not interested, at least take a glance down this list and make a note of just how many people in the ski world pitched in, because I think it reflects the warmth and generosity of this community.

In reverse order:

The Hussain family welcomed me into their house and gave me my own room and hot meals in Fort Kent. That was much appreciated at the tail end of a long winter. The Shepard family also took me along for a couple of dinners in town, as well.

On my way to Fort Kent, I was lucky enough to have a place to crash every single night between Salt Lake City and Northern Maine. I stayed with Steven Kolberg in Ithaca, Dave Falkof in Chicago (we had a hot dog at the renowned Wiener’s Circle [this is where people who get fourth at the Olympics get their

dinner], where the women at the counter swear at the customers. the woman who gave dave his change told him to tip, or she would “smack the motherfu—ing color out of his eyes.” he tipped.), Kendall in Kansas (sorry Kendall, but I never found out your last name [no, that’s not as bad as it sounds), and Lily Morse in Aspen.

My friends in Seattle, Erin York and Hannah Wadsworth, probably win the award for the most awesome friends ever. They picked me up from and dropped me off at the airport at preposterous hours, let me sleep on their couch for multiple nights, leave my car outside their house while I was in Alaska and Germany, and took me out for a really fun night that included some amazing chocolate and good beer.

At the Olympics, Topher and I went out for one of the most amazing dinners I have ever had, courtesy of John Borstelmann. Neither of us had ever met Mr. Borstelmann before, but he got in touch with us saying that we should go out for a delicious meal, on him. If anyone knows me or Topher, you know that a delicious meal is one thing that you do not have to offer us twice. And at the tail end of a ridiculous amount of work and PB+J lunches, it was double appreciated. We started with fresh oysters (and each of us had like eight rolls with this amazing olive spread that they kept replenishing—I think the waiter probably thought that we’d just returned from the Arctic or something), and then I had roasted beets with goat cheese, risotto with something delicious (I don’t remember exactly what, although sage was somehow involved), and a baller cappuccino to finish. Dessert was not necessary.

On the way to Canmore, we stayed with Mark Waechter, owner of Nordic Ultratune, who took us on a wicked fun ski and let me use a blazing fast pair of his test skis. As is consistent with the rest of the winter, we had a delicious dinner and some really good beer, and I think I ate about seven cookies before that night was over—which for me was like seven o’clock, since I was still jet-lagged from Europe.

Sue Faulkner and Darren Rorabaugh invited me to stay with them in Germany to cover World Juniors and U-23’s, and there is no way that that trip could have happened without them.

In Fairbanks, John Estle let me jump into the local race free of charge, and also had me over for some delicious nachos and beers (this post makes it sound like I had a lot of beer over the course of the winter, but I swear, it actually was a pretty rare occurrence—I only had about four throughout the entire Olympics), some excellent stories, and a shower (if you use Nick’s shower [where I was staying in Fairbanks], you have to bail it out into the toilet afterwards because the drain is frozen, so this was a nice respite). Oh yeah, and Nick, despite the frozen shower, thanks for letting me stay at your house. And also in Fairbanks, Nick and I had a pair of delicious dinners with the Buetow family and with Dave Offer. Reese Hanneman and David Norris drove me all the way up there from Anchorage in their sweet Suburban—we had a fun time watching the thermometer on the rearview drop a grand total of like 50 degrees, from like 20 in Anchorage to -30 (no joke) by the time we finally got to Fairbanks.

In Anchorage, Rob Whitney found me an awesome place to stay, at Rachel Goldberger’s house while she was in South America. I only met Rachel when she got back from her trip earlier than anticipated to find my stuff all over her sofa and a Jenga tower standing in the middle of her carpet, but it was awesome to have a free place to stay and a car to drive around.

On the way to Seattle (where I caught the flight to Anchorage), I stayed with Forrest Horton in western Montana (the elk lasagna was awesome) and in Caroline Silver’s house in eastern Montana. That was pretty clutch, because there really isn’t very much in eastern Montana aside from Caroline Silver’s house.

In Minnesota, I stayed with Jeff Bush and his family. Due to the epic snowstorm that decided to coincide with my visit to Minneapolis, I ended up spending like three or four nights at his house, including Christmas. There are very few places I can think of where a Jew would have been more comfortable on December 25^th—and the skiing at Wirth Park was awesome.

Some thank you’s that are less obvious: skiers and coaches who had the patience to modify their routines to take the time to talk with me and answer my questions this winter (there are some 350 interviews stored on my iPhone now), and all the people who gave us positive feedback and constructive criticism. Readers who suggest story ideas and who voraciously devour anything we have to offer. My mom for being an incredibly patient editor and advisor (mom, feel free to say something about this, but please don’t express yourself in the form of an embarrassing comment). I’m sure there’s more, and I’m really, really sorry if I forgot anyone.

Really guys. I am trying to think of another metaphor. This is like if we wrote a story about nordic combined and called it biathlon.

The one person/persons I am not thanking? The staff of the 2009 Bowdoin Bugle (our joke of a yearbook), which I found three copies of when I got home. On the page where there should have been a photo of the 2008-2009 Bowdoin Nordic Ski Team, there is a picture of the 2005-2006 crew. WTF? It’s egregious enough to be one year off (that’s 365 days!), but four? That would be like if we wrote a story about Giorgio di Centa winning this year’s Olympic 50 k, when in fact that happened in Torino. Wow.

So I’ve been in Fort Kent for more than a week now, and I’m still alive. A few tidbits below.

1. Before I arrived last week, one of my friends from college, a biathlete, had told me he could set me up with a place to stay through the race organizers.

When I got to Fort Kent, I was informed that I would be staying with a local family. Now, this being Fort Kent, I have to say that I didn’t know what to expect. Would I be sleeping on the couch? On the floor? In the garage? Maybe if I was lucky, I’d get my own bed. What about internet?

When I arrived at the house, I was immediately greeted by the most gigantic dog I had ever seen—a 140-pound Newfie named Chessie. I thought it was a

That's a big dog.

bear, but it was just really really big, and fluffy as f—. And friendly. And a prodigious drooler.

My hosts, Tricia and Khal Hussain, showed me my room, which was decked out with a TV, a huge bed, and cookies! Sweet! The Hussains have also been packing me lunches and letting me eat dinners at the house, too. I’m getting soft—all I have to do is watch ski races and take pictures.

2. Last weekend, I competed in a citizens’ biathlon race. I was one of very few people wearing spandex, and definitely the only person who warmed up (in my own defense, I did so before realizing that I would be racing against far less-serious competitors). I shot ten times and hit two targets, one of them in the prone, and one in the standing (full disclosure: one of the targets was in the wrong lane. but it was the honor system, and since I was aiming at it, I counted it). Sadly, my performance was not good enough for the podium, because am either too poor of a shot, too slow of a skier, or—the most likely case—both.

3. On Monday, one of the off days between the biathlon and SuperTour races here, I skied the uphill climb. Background: I skied for two hours in the morning and did intervals. Then, later in the day, I interviewed Will Sweetser, one of the race organizers, and mentioned to him that I wanted to check out the uphill course. “Yeah, it’s open. You want to go check it out this afternoon?” Gulp. “Okay.”

For anyone who didn’t see the picture in the article about the mini-tour, or who for some reason still doesn’t get it, let me say it right now: 150 skiers ascending that thing at the same time will mean that Aroostook County will probably be the pain-center of the entire universe on Sunday. According to Will, our pace was “medium,” and it still made me want to curl up into a ball by the time I got to the top of the hill. Actually, I wanted to curl up in a ball long before I reached the top.

4. So I only had one person take me up on my Boggle challenge (since I have thousands upon thousands of blog readers, I was initially very surprised, until I realized the reason was that everyone else was just too scared. i’d be scared too, honestly—my boggle skills are fearsome).

I didn’t have my own Boggle up here, so on my way to check out the venue at Madawaska yesterday, I stopped to see if I could find a set at K-Mart. As it turns out, they have a vast array of board games, but no effing Boggle! They even had a game called “Fact or Crap” in the “Adult Board Games” section! Hey,

Fact? Or crap? Stupidest game ever.

K-Mart, telling fact from crap isn’t a game—that’s my job! How could you have a game called “Fact or Crap” and not have Boggle, one of the all-time greatest? After searching every nook and cranny of the store without success, I ended up buying a box of Cheez-Its and a copy of Vanity Fair (book excerpt by Michael Lewis) and calling it good.

5. This stretch is impressive. And painful-looking. Yes, I know this is possibly the sketchiest video ever, but it seemed merited at the time.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/uvK4j7qCbtw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

"All my blood turned to wine..."

After the Olympics, I drove down to California to visit some family and friends, and on the way down, I had the pleasure of stopping for a ski at the Mt. Shasta Nordic Center.

For real, this place is on the side of Mt. Shasta, which is (sadly), a dormant volcano, but still an amazing sight, because there is no surrounding mountain range. As John Muir says on Wikipedia: “When I first caught sight of it over the braided folds of the Sacramento Valley, I was

Crazy snow...

fifty miles away and afoot, alone and weary. Yet all my blood turned to wine, and I have not been weary since.” My feelings exactly, although since I was driving, I had to stop and wait to sober up.

I knew I’d be going by Mt. Shasta on my drive, so I’d sent an e-mail to Laurel Harkness, the Center’s executive director, inquiring about skiing and getting a trail pass. She told me that the passes are donation-only, due to the organization’s unique structure, and offered to meet me when I stopped to talk with me about it.

It’s a pretty cool model, and one that I’m not sure is replicated anywhere else. (Note: I’m going entirely off memory here from a conversation a few weeks ago, so some details may be off, but the gist is right.) Basically, a few years ago, the nordic center was owned by the nearby alpine area, and when the alpine area was sold, the new owners didn’t have any interest in operating the cross country area. So the xc skiers in the area got together and took over, forming a community-based non-profit that kept the area open.

They don’t have their own groomer, but the alpine area donates their machines and staff to groom the trails. This doesn’t always make for the most

Sweet trails

extensive grooming, so Harkness said that the organization is raising money and applying for grants to purchase their own groomer.

Executive Director Laurel Harkness

It’s a rural, relatively poor area, so it has been a struggle to get schools and kids to ski and join the center’s programs, but Harkness said that participation is growing, and that they hold a few races each year.

The trails are fun, with some sweet views, and at least for an east-coaster, there’s more snow than you can wrap your mind around. If you’re ever in the area (driving I-5 from Oregon to California or vice versa), stop in and check it out. Check out their Web site here.

As I have made abundantly clear over the last week to most of those who know me, I have been road tripping across the United States. And when I say across the United States, I literally mean across the United States. Like, from San Francisco to Fort Kent, Maine.

Do not try this at home.

I’m not going to take you through my road trip chronologically this time, because I didn’t have a whole lot of time to stop and go on moderately epic adventures, like I did last time. So I’m going to share with you a few highlights, observations, and lessons.

1. First of all, unlike last time, I had a companion. His name is Frank. He’s a flamingo.

Frank pines for his natural habitat, the Gulf of St. Lawrence

He’s not very good for talking with, but he is good for talking at. He doesn’t ask tough questions. He doesn’t eat PB+J. But he does engender amused looks from passersby. And he wears a seatbelt, of course.

Click it, or ticket.

Frank traveled just about everywhere I did this winter, except for Germany, making him fairly well-traveled for an inanimate object. Had I had the presence of mind to bring him with me to Germany, I totally would have, but instead, he spent a very lonely, hungry, and damp two weeks inside my car in Seattle. Fortunately, like lobsters, inflatable flamingos don’t have the ability to suffer, so he didn’t treat me any differently when I got back.

2. Radio programs, podcasts, and audiobooks are crucial when you’re spending 50+ hours in the car. Needless to say, I think I know wayyyyyy more about health care reform than most other cross country ski journalists, having listened to many hours of debate and discussion on NPR. Also, did you know that Andre Agassi didn’t wear any underwear when he won the French Open in 1999? (That’s thanks to his autobiography, which, by the way, is really good.) And finally, if you don’t listen to “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me,” you should start. Now.

3. Food is extremely important. One thing that I have learned over the course of driving many miles this winter is that you can’t have really good food on a road trip. Instead, you have to have merely decent food, because if you have really yummy food, you just end up eating it all at once. And when I say you, I guess I mean me. And Topher. But in any case, things like potato chips are no good—instead, it’s stuff like pretzels, dried fruit, and, above all, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I have learned to make on the fly. Sandwich-making while driving is an obscure and often-maligned art, but I have become a master at it. Actually, that’s also not true—I still end up with peanut butter all over my pants every time I try it. But it does spice things up, and most importantly, keep me awake.

The Trader Joe's strawberry jam that I'm using for this sandwich is bar none the best jam I've ever had. Maybe not quite worth driving 3800 miles for, but word is they're opening one in Portland...

4. Lawrence, Kansas is a surprisingly rad place to hang out.

5. I have the best friends on the face of the planet, who don’t seem to mind in the slightest when I show up at eight o’clock in the evening, expecting to be fed and given a warm place to sleep, and then disappear early in the morning. I have been thinking about this quite a bit, and asking myself how I would behave if someone showed up at my house in the same fashion, with these same expectations, a filthy car, unshowered, unshaven, and bragging how they’ve been in Alaska, Europe, and the Olympics this winter. Pretty sure that if I had been at home, or even at work at a sweet job, I would probably send someone like that back out on the street. Potentially with a kick in the ass. So I feel pretty lucky.

6. I played Boggle at my friend’s house in California. I honed my Boggle skill over an intensive two-year period at Bowdoin College, and it had been a little while since I’d played. I definitely still have it, and I totally kicked everyone’s a–. I am hereby issuing a challenge to any reader of this blog who thinks they can take me at Boggle during the biathlon championships and/or the SuperTour Finals, or even any other time, any place. Yes, I am the Petter Northug of Boggle, because I am talking smack. And just like Petter Northug, I will back it up. The only thing that falls as fast as the ink from my pen in a game of Boggle will be your spirits.

See if you can divine what that says...

If you made it this far, I have one more piece of wisdom to offer you, and this actually might be the only useful one from this entire diatribe:

IF YOU ARE DRIVING TO THE SUPERTOUR FINALS FROM THE SOUTH, STOP AT DYSARTS. YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY. Directions from Boston are here.

Dysarts is a rad truck stop just south of Bangor. They have very delicious homemade bread, pie, and other heinously delicious stuff. If you are hoping for exceptionally high performance in the actual races, you probably should bring a coach in with you to prevent yourself from eating too much.

Finally, as annoying as Quebec drivers are, the name of this town redeemed the whole province for me, irrevocably:

Even better than my favorite German town, Aha-Aule

The title of this post I think best sums up my experience over the past three weeks, since I last published a blog. I have an intimidating amount of ground to cover, so I’m going to cut straight to the chase. I think this post actually is kind of lame, and I hope to get some actual words up this evening too, but I wanted to get these photos off my chest….

Last time I wrote, I was chilling (literally [I know, I used that joke already]) in Fairbanks. Before I left, I encountered some huge baller journalism:

Woof

My original plan for the winter after Nationals was to hang out in Fairbanks, cruise back to Seattle after a couple of weeks, then drive with Topher up to Canmore for the World Cups. Then, I was skiing in Fairbanks, and I ran into a family member of one of the competitors at U-23′s. Basically, she offered to let me stay with them in Germany and report on the races. Turns out plane tickets from Seattle to Switzerland (closest airport) aren’t insurmountable expensive, and a whole crapload of logistics later, I was on my way (after first passing through Wasilla, home of Sarah Palin).

Wasilla is rad. Photo by Nick Crawford

I had a night in Seattle on the way with some friends there, and we had a pleasant evening sampling some of the city’s famous breweries. We also paid a visit to a Mexican taco stand, which ended up being very fortuitous. Sadly, I did not order the passport meal because my passport wasn’t on me, but I am 100% sure that I would have forgotten to bring said passport to the airport had I not seen this menu at 11:00 the night before I left.

I had a vegetarian taco...

On the plane from Seattle to Washington D.C., I ran into one of my professors from college, Nat Wheelwright. How crazy is that? In addition to having an awesome first name, Nat is an excellent biology professor. He was on his way to Zurich to discuss song sparrow genetics with some Euro scientists…

I think he's taking a nap...

In the United Airlines magazine, they had a pretty hilarious inane story on a Ghanian alpine skier who’s competing in Whistler. The author said that the skier’s story “may well be the definitive triumphal story of the Vancouver games.” Really? A Ghanian ex-pat who works in an office in Britain skiing to a mediocre finish in Whistler could be the “definitive triumphal story”? (I promise, there really wasn’t much more to the story than this–although he does train inside, which is pretty sweet.) This is why the mainstream media should stick to writing about football…

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong

A shot from the Dulles airport that needs no explanation:

The fake grass is the best part

On the way up to cruising altitude on my flight to Copenhagen, I discovered that 20,000 feet is a similar climate to Fairbanks:

Fairbanks-esque weather

Then I made it to Zurich, Switzerland, which is the closest airport to Hinterzarten, where the races were taking place. They were having a sale on Jesus:

Not sure what exactly is going on here...

On the drive, someone in Germany got pretty psyched that they figured out where the village of Aule is:

Rad Swiss signs

In Germany, it turns out that the championships were sponsored by this crazy euro-disneyland type place called Europa Park. Midway through the week, they had this crazy gala banquet for the volunteers, some of the coaches, and the media, if they wanted. Normally accepting free meals would not mesh with my journalistic standards, especially ones that included amazing German beer, quail, steak, white chocolate mousse, and contortionists (yes, there is a woman inside that ball):

Really, she's inside it. Later it opened in half and she dangled by her feet...

But I figured that the likelihood I would ever be on assignment at Europa Park was pretty low. And I’m young and a ski journalist. So I went, and it was awesome. And totally insane. It was like dinner theater kind of, but basically a variety show instead of anything with a narrative. It included a beauty pageant, a ventriloquist who took me from my spot at the dinner table up on stage in front of 500 people and made me look like a total jackass (Abi Holt has video, and I am hoping that it never sees the light of day), some really crazy strong dudes, singers, an out-of-shape older guy guy who all of a sudden started jumping on a trampoline and doing ridiculous stunts that seemed like they should have given him a heart attack, and plenty of other stuff.

It also included a rendition of the horribly obnoxious and persistently catchy official song of the championships. My hunch is that this guy is an actor/employee of Europa Park. He was around all week with those wooden skis, signing autographs, singing the dumb song, and gyrating his hips in a manner that I would not have approved of if my small children were watching.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/7MM61u9cgCQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Also, it snowed all the f—— time in Germany. This made for some pretty epic drives up to the venue, which have been well documented by the members of the U.S. team there. One thing that I will add is that even though the drive to the venue entails going up a very steep pass that seems to be subjected to constant blizzard-like conditions, nobody in this area appeared to realize that it might be a good idea to get some snow tires or chains for their cars, leading to situations like this one:

Hm....

On the other hand, all the snow led to one of the most awesome skis I’ve ever gotten to go on. First tracks for like 15k, got to go down into a whole different valley, great views of the countryside, villages, etc.

You can't see the extremely sweet corduroy

On my last night in Germany, I tagged along on a trip to the city of Freiburg with some of the Americans, whereupon we found an interesting beverage. I am curious to find out how the American Birkebeiner got its official drink into a German bar menu:

Wodka and Red Bull...yum.

On the airplane back, there were a couple of interesting things in the newspaper. First, I don’t know exactly what this advertisement is going for, but I really like it:

Violins+Guinness

Also, Petter Northug on the cover of one of the Norwegian newspapers (I think it’s Norwegian; I don’t honestly know).

XC is a big deal in Norway

I also got a chance to buzz into Zurich on the train on the way back, which was pretty rad:

Zurich is nice

Then, we drove from Seattle to Canmore. This was a two-day process, which also entailed a stop in Winthrop, Washington for some huge baller skiing in the Methow Valley.

Since we are such important ski journalists, Topher has some serious equipment that we used to enhance productivity on our drive. You can see here the computer charger and cellular modem that gives us rad internet access on the road.

A normal day in the office

One other interesting aspect of our drive is the car that I am driving. As I mentioned in my post about the cross country drive, there is a minor problem with the ABS in my car, which leads to a pretty rad warning light:

Imagine seeing that every two miles...

This problem has worsened over the last week. Pretty much every time we go around a righthand turn, we get a really annoying high-pitched whine that for some reason seems to be disconcerting to any passengers that we have along. I can’t really tell why…

This is all for this post–I think I am going to put up another one with some observations in writing from the last few weeks. Unfortunately I just don’t feel like photos and writing mix very well, so this will be separate…

So the last time I checked in on this blog, I was in the middle of a three-month intensity block of journalism training in Manhattan at The Nation magazine.

NYC from the 68th floor of the Empire State Building.

But to make a long story short, the internship ended on December 18th, and since winter is for skiing, not sitting around in an office, it was time to get in gear. I left New York the day after my job finished, on the 19th, got home, went to bed, got up, packed up all my stuff, and drove off in my sister’s car. No sooner than 2 miles into a 3100 mile journey (for the record, that’s less than one tenth of one percent), the dashboard starting flashing a big, red, all-caps light that said STOP! BRAKE FAULT! YOU’RE F—ED! (Okay, maybe not the last part). I pulled over and used the brakes to stop. They worked. I kept going and tried the brakes again. They still worked. The light turned off. I performed a quick cost-benefit analysis of continuing to Williamstown, Massachusetts, which resulted in me continuing to Williamstown, Massachusetts.

After a night at FasterSkier world headquarters (editor Topher Sabot’s house), I continued on to Ithaca, then Chicago and Minneapolis. Minneapolis was sweet–good skiing and really good food, courtesy of my friend and former teammate Jeff Bush and his family. When the fourth-largest snowstorm in North Dakota history decided to block my path for a few days, they graciously allowed me to celebrate Christmas with them, too (somewhat of a novelty for the EISA’s fastest Jewish skier [although--and I hope no Jewish Olympic Committee officials are reading this {something tells me there aren't}--I have celebrated Christmas before with my dad's Episcopalian wife]).

From Minneapolis, I spent my one night in a very cheap, only moderately dingy Motel Six in Fargo, North Dakota (no wood/body-part chipping, fortunately), then moved on to beautiful Glendive, Montana, where I spent the night at a friend’s house. Oh, wait, I raced in Minneapolis. And lost six minutes to Matt Liebsch in a 10k. Fortunately, there are no fitness requirements for being an xc ski journalists, and also fortunately, I have some room for improvement with my training, given the two hours per week that I got in New York.

Also before reaching Glendive, I got a chance to visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in Western North Dakota. For those of you who think there isn’t anything cool in North Dakota, you’re wrong. There are actually 16 cool things in North Dakota: Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the 15 elk inside it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my biathlon rifle ready for the elk, but fortunately, my friend's dad shot one (in a different location), and I got to have elk lasagna in Missoula.

In the park, I drove about 10 miles down the plowed scenic road to where it became unplowed. Then I strapped on a pair of my classic rock skis, and headed out for a quick tour. There was one other person within a 10 mile radius, and he was about 250 yards down the trail. Once I passed him, there was absolutely nobody around, and the scenery was spectacular.  The road was unplowed, but most of the powder had blown off, leaving a 3-inch deep layer of packed snow on the road that was perfect for extra-blue classic skiing. I skied out for about an hour, climbed a hill, took some pictures, and skied back.

Some baller skiing. Theodore Roosevelt=the man.

After the park and eastern Montana, I drove to Missoula, and then to Seattle. This is a spectacular stretch of driving, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a lot of time on their hands and a fuel-efficient vehicle (there are a lot of uphills).

No, I do not condone shooting pictures while driving.

The only bad part about this section was that I’d finished my book on tape (John Krakauer’s “Where Men Win Glory”, about Pat Tillman–I really recommend it, except for the parts where he tries to tell the history of the Cold War) and there were no radio stations, except for one that had these really dumb, obnoxious DJ’s talking about the club that they were building (?) inside the radio station, and they would NOT shut up. I was very frustrated. In other places across the country, radio was actually very good–the public radio network across North Dakota and eastern Montana was great. Especially entertaining was the “Thomas Jefferson Radio Hour” in North Dakota, which features scholar Clay Jenkinson in character as the third president, talking about things like his relationship with his wife, and how it compared to John Adams’ relationship with his wife…for a whole hour. Okay, so actually, in this particular case, maybe the concept was better than the execution, but who cares? Two other choice (and/or shocking) quotes that I heard on the radio west of Minneapolis (and by repeating them, I certainly am not endorsing them):

1. “Those funbags of hers are really quite remarkable.” –Some DJ referring to the anatomy of Dog the Bounty Hunter’s partner.

2. “100 percent of the Islamic terrorists coming at us are Muslim.” –Some conservative commentator. Profound, and needing no further analysis.

In any case, I made it to Alaska, and I’m now chilling (literally) there, waiting for things to start happening. Hopefully the stories that come out of here in the next two weeks will be decidedly more professional and less inane than this blog post.