So we have been gone for couple of weeks. MK finally got  to experience Poland. I will probably post some pictures from that trip later. The whole trip was great, we met some new family members saw a lot of Polish UNESCO sites and went to a epic polish wedding which spanned about 10-11 hours. Poland is bravely stepping into EU and will try to show it’s best side at the UEFA euro cup next year. The national stadium looks pretty sweet.  I managed to sneak some polish spirits across the border we will have them when it’s not freaking hot.

While in Poland MK and I decided to do some sort of cleans as recommended by mrs. mod. So today is day one of the adventure. I don’t know how long we will do it for my guess is 7 days. Thus far the only thing missing is my coffee and since i has been  a while since I consumed caffeine the headaches are all ready here.  We will see how it will go from here.   Next wed seems like forever away….

ON biking note, I have converted my race lite wheels to tubeless with some gorilla tape and and some stans valve cores. Pretty easy set, toughest part of the install getting tubeless tires on the wheel. Equipped with new wheels, I rolled to my first bike ride in 3 weeks at WNW.  It went as expected…. always next week….. Some pics

Greenland

Greenland 2

MK

La Pieta

Home Town

No, no not Union Pacific, I meant Upper Peninsula.  That’s where I was last week. This was my first  visit to U.P.  I’ve never been that far north, it was pretty exciting new experience for me.

As some of you might know I work for the National Park Service, no I’m not a ranger, no I can’t hook you up with smokey to do anything.  But once in while I do get to go to some of the most beautiful places in the U.S.   This was one of those trips. Pictured Rocks is very stunning park the vista are pretty cool and I only got to see about 10% of the park that is not covered by vast amounts of snow. I did get to go and hit up some xc skiing on properly groomed trails, that is a lot of fun, There is about 45 miles of xc trails in close vicinity of the park.   I also got to hear some stories from the park employees, and in reality it was very humbling moment and for me it was very much a “This American Life”  experience. These are the folks that make Park Service great.

So while this congress bickers about discretionary funds for domestic spending, in part they are hurting all of these  awesome places. If  think Teddy Roosevelt would turn over in his grave. I’m off my soap box. In short there are some beautiful places in U.S. I get to see some of them  as part of my job.

Here are some pics from the trip.

So we are back. Last 3 weeks were pretty crazy. First things first. Megan and I got married  on July 10th.  After couple of years of me bugging her she finally relented. The wedding, house full of polish people and sweet sweet honey moon with my lady 3 weeks off work, worries and biking. Great time for sure Thanks everybody it was great time.

With all this going on there was no biking, just couple of days of hiking. Besides that my last 3 weeks were filled with microbrews, wine and awesome local food both at my parent’s house as well as Nor Cali. Oh man who knew food is so good

This obviously didn’t play well as far as biking is concerned.   It’s pretty amazing how fast you can loose your bike fitness (especially when you are a like me and don’t have that much to begin with )   Mike Douglas this is your chance of taking me on @ tranquility. Next 5 weeks will be pretty tough with racing every weekend.  Some drastic measures had to be done.  Two long days in saddle sounded like great idea in my head, well and it was a lesson in getting your butt kicked.  Some people have different ways of measuring fitness to me the Applewood rd and Epperson RD  in IA are good measuring stick. As suspected the HR was really high and speed was really low… nothing surprising here.  But at end of the day it wasn’t that bad.  Sunday I knew we would be climbing MOD loves climbing, if he says hey  lets go for ride you would be wise to leave your single speed behind, I suppose I’m slow learner. Couple of this hills had me going about 5-6 mph.   But the tempo was pretty low and got hilly 115-117 route in 8 hours and change.

Predictions for next 3 weekends:

• Sucky race this Sunday
• Don’t embarrass yourself in Missouri
• Hopefully have some speed generated to ride with Bonsall for gravel worlds in 3 weeks.

Possible? I think so that should be at least 500-600 miles from today. With some high intensity of WNW ( which will most likely suck  for me)

Yesterday I came back from Pipestone, MN the local claim it’s home of the peace pipe and who can argue with them as far as I know that’s the only giant piece pipe that I have seen in the middle of the town. Yes it was cold you know YA

Right next to it is this sculpture of ass pulling a wagon probably to fill up the pipe with good pipe weed

The home steaders that came and probably killed all the Indians did smoke pipe weed they used the stones build German inspired houses

While everyone one back @OMA/@LIN was surviving the worst winter  ever… even worse than anything exepriecene by Micheal Landon’s fictional family in middle of the prairie… Well I was not there man…. I was @STL  for work at Jefferson Expansion Memorial, actually I’m here until Friday night.  I took some pictures of both the old Courthouse and the Arch.. The weather was crappy which made some pictures good some bad. Lucas probably could dominate the landscape with his awesome shooting skills but this is the best I could do with the Iphone..

The reflection of Old Courthouse

The stairs to top of the Courthouse

Check out this sweet window at old courthouse

The arch from  the side

No Snow just Rain and Fog

Well not it’s not story from Bilbo Baggins. As some of you know Megan and I took our Summer vacations to Peru. In short it was great.   I read somewhere that people who travel overseas try to classify their travels as strangely unique where in reality their travels are pretty similar to all the other tourists in given country. So to say I traveled 3500 miles to have some kind of unique experience that is shared annually by thousands would be a farce to say the least. The uniqueness comes from your own mental notes on given region.  With that being said I will try to provide some of the highlights and experience we did experience.  This was first time out of the country for Megan so her perceptive on things might be a bit different than mine.

• Inca Trail and Matchu Pitchu are awesome I recommend it to anyone to do it ( coincidentally it was my favorite part of the trip )
• Peru Treks is pretty top notch company ( great guides, porters awesome cook we ate like kings for 4 days thanks for the tip James)
• Spending night in Andes and looking at the starts is very awesome I’ve never seen that many start constellations ( full moon wasn’t bad either)
• Man slow food and lack of fast food is awesome so is food without corn syrup and preservatives
  • Favorite food I had was chicaron from local street market
  • Eating food at farmers market (I mean real farmers market not north face jackets and 5$ coffee farmers market)
  • Ceviche in Lima
  • Chica Morada  is legit
• Qeucha is pretty interesting language
• Organized groups are not for Megan and I (Came to this conclusion after colca canyon)
• 3 weeks in Peru is not enough ( this country is diverse  and beautiful I can see going back for seconds or/and thirds)
• My rudimentary Spanish got us by ( learning more would be a bit more beneficial and would be good investment in future)
• Brazilians are everywhere ( so are dutch and Belgians)
• Coca leaves do help ( I hope no drug test in future )
• Peru is pretty much cash only society (making change is pretty tough sometimes)
• Peru reminded me of Poland everyone is hustling to make some $$$$ ( I have not problem with that )
• The margin between haves and have-nots is wider and more visible than in U.S.
• Beach resort vacations are not for me for sure (I don’t think it’s for Megan as well)
• How does peru get live channel 5 tour feed ( I don’t know and I don’t speak french)
• Riding down a mountain road on P.O.S. bike is not downhill MTBing it’s kind of waste of your money and time ( that’s just my opinion)

That’s all I have  for now.  In short if you like to be pampered and expect hot shower every day Peru is probably not place for you to experience.  If you like to see exotic micro climates in matters of hours like to see how other people live and don’t mind small sacrifices then Peru and actually who south America is bargain bin worth of adventures. I would say yes go and experience it yourself.