BREAKING IN 2022

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The holiday break with Zack cruising through Portugal was an absolute blast. Back to traveling, back on another adventure with my buddy, it was great taste back to what normal life could look like. The couple days I had at home after that before work started back up was also relaxing, fun, and nice to slowly gear back up. Unfortunately, since then, it's been a whirlwind of work and chaos. I thought things would've slowed down to start the year off, but that's been way too far from the truth.

Snowshoeing in the Schwarzwald

Before heading back to work for the year, in the couple free days I had at home after the trip, I lined up to go snowshoeing with the gal from the date before the trip. Thankfully, there was a little snow up in the hills (there hasn't been much all this year unfortunately :-( ...), so we packed our things in the car, took the short drive down to a random spot in the Schwarzwald, and got to trekking!

As this was a bit of a random planning spurt, there wasn't a ton of weight placed on the perfect route or anything like that. But as it turns out, this was the same spot/area that I went for a romp around some snow last year! The conditions were about the same, there was plenty of snow on the ground, and we ended up back-tracking a good bit of the route that I took the year before.

We first started on a pretty empty trail, and it was quite beautiful. Fresh snow, no people, and just a beautiful walk in the white wonderland. We eventually made it to the tiny little ski hill tucked up in the forest, and romped our way up to the top for a break with a little camp stove action and coffee.

After the break, it was time for some deep trudging. The route we wanted to take was closed off for nature protection, so we blazed our own path through the deep snow and fallen trees. It was adventurous. But after a while of trudging, we were back on the path, and slowly from there worked our way downhill and back out. A great way to enjoy some fresh air before returning to the stifling world of work.

Adventures in Foodiness

Coming into this year, I've been working on getting more proactive when it comes to food. I'm a decent cook, and I enjoy the process as well as the result, but cooking for one can become a chore. Because of that, 90% of the time I chop up some veggies, add in some meat, pick out a sauce, and put it all together either with rice, noodles, potatoes, or lettuce. Basic as shit, but it usually comes out pretty good.

Killer Cookies

Basic, deadly, and oh so delicious. Found an old cookie recipe in our family's recipe stash, and threw a couple twists in. I made some similar ones last year, and kept that delicious train rolling. Chocolate chunks, dark chocolate M&Ms, chocolate mint granola chunks, and extra leftovers from christmas - christmas sprinkles. Needless to say, they turned out great.

The reason I made them though was to share with my coworkers. I initially planned to make them as christmas cookies, but by the time I got to them in December all my coworkers were already out. So I made them to start the new year. Well, results were a bit mixed. I slightly overbaked them, so they were a little dry. And to be honest, I think the presence of variety in them might have annoyed their taste buds. Either way, I found them to be delicious, and that's what mattered to me.

Crispy Chorizo Gnocchi

Slightly cheated on this one, but with the pre-packaged gnocchi, some chorizo, and a few other things to it, holy shit deeeeeelicious. The inspiration for a lot of these came from reddit, and here's the recipe for this one, definitely helps that it's in video form (which adds to the attraction for me).

I gotta say, damn fine. Some of the comments laid into the recipe for a few too many tastes, but I was fat and sassy with it as is. That little caper/parsley sauce on it though? Hot dayum that was good! The best part was that the leftovers didn't taste like leftovers, but almost got better over time. Seriously, I HIGHLY recommend this flavor bomb.

Brussel Sprouts

Another dusted off recipe from a Family Christmas years back, it was time for some bacon and brussel sprouts, and also the incredible balsamic glaze that goes with it. Nothing too crazy, but I've never been good at sauces or have much experience with them. This glaze is easy, and absolutely delicious.

Here's this recipe, and again, I highly recommend it!

Spinach and Artichoke Mac & Cheese

I'd never made homemade Mac & Cheese before in my life. The blue boxes from Kraft aren't the healthiest, but I find them absolutely delicious, and therefore never branched out. Well, Europe lacks those blue boxes, and it was time to venture into this cheesy world. The perfect occasion came too, having Micha and Christoph over for dinner!

Turned out to be delicious. Kinda mixed and matched from a few recipes, but here's the base one I went off of. Shittons of cheese, not quite the stringiness one expects from mac and cheese, but it was yummy.

Bruschetta Refresha

Not sure why, but one weekend I had a hankering for some mozzarella. Leftover from the gnocchi I had a little basil plant sitting in my window, and knew I just needed some tomatoes and I was ready to go. So after cutting it all up, maybe winging it more than an Italian would, I had some honestly pretty damn good bruschetta up and running.

Also was on a wine kick, so that always helps :-)

Kitchen Sink Frittata

Before heading out for a spontaneous week away, I had a bunch of stuff left in the fridge and was hungry. With a ton of extra eggs being part of that group, my mind turned to a frittata! Turns out these are pretty easy to do, but mine turned out kinda ok.

In following the recipe, I got all the ingredients cooked up and ready, and then just poured over the eggs before baking. Next time I'm gonna make sure I mix the eggs and ingredients together so it's not just a layer of egg on the top. Still turned out ok, but something to make it better next time.

Girl Problems

I don't think it's a secret, but I'm pretty single. It's a bit of a sensitive and personal topic for me, but that's where it is. As I said earlier, I went on a couple dates with a gal, and they started off pretty fine. Long story short, after sharing that I eventually want a long-term thing with a family and all that, that apparently was too much for her to handle.

I had some late night chats with a number of friends to try and help me get my mind around the situation (first the excitement of connecting with someone interesting and compatible, then the frustration/confusion as to why it went south so quickly), and there are a couple things that have come out of that experience. For one, I know what I want, and it's not necessarily a bad thing to share that. Timing, however, is important. I likely was too excited and jumped the gun on a few discussions, but I'm an excitable (and impatient) person. Both need to be tempered to a good degree in certain situations.

Next, I may know what I want, which is really good for me and all. But other people are on different paths. Unfortunately, with this gal, she had no idea where she's going or what she wants. To be honest, glad that red flag came up quick, especially for someone who's at the same age as me. Nonetheless, bummer to know yet again I'm back at Square 0.

Short and cryptic, but all that to say, nothing's working out on this front, and I'm trying to come to grips with that. And in the mean time, focus on me, work on who I am, and get my head on straight so I can be sure to love myself before trying to love someone else.

Back on the Bike - Heidelberg

I can never go too long without a little two-wheeled fury, so it was high time for me to be back on my steed and heading downhill. It's still winter over here, but thankfully that doesn't mean that all the trails are closed down, so I headed up to Heidelberg for a day in the woods.

It was a cold, chilly, misty-sunny day there, and damn it was a lot of fun. The ground was pretty much frozen, and grip was fantastic. Somehow I re-discovered both a really technical trail (yes!!!) and a trail with a couple drops (yes!!!), and it was an absolutely fantastic ride!

In the interest of being social and not being a total hermit, I reached out to my buddy Franz, who moved up to Heidelberg last year. He wasn't able to join on the ride, but after I was done I motored on over to their place and got to meet up with them! After talking with him and his wife Steph (and their new baby Anton!), it'd been over a year and a half since we'd last seen each other. Bummer of a realization, but thankfully it was just like yesterday in seeing them again. Great folks, great friends, and I'm super glad I got to see them after the ride.

Well that rekindling of contact led to further rekindling and riding, as I got back in contact with Stefan here in Karlsruhe, who's also great friends with Franz! A few weeks later, we were able to meet up, all four of us (Franz's parents were in town and were able to watch over Anton), and head out on a ride! It was another cold day, and this time a little slipperier and wetter than before, but another great ride together.

Having riding buddies is such a nice bonus. I'd be riding either way, but it's so much fun to have folks to shred, laugh, and ride with! Adding to that sentiment, more to come later :-)

Bierkistendecken - Project Complete

Going all the way back to last summer, I had a conversation with Christoph about a little project he wanted to do. Beer cases here are all a standard size - hard plastic, 20 bottles at 0.5L, and stackable. Well he somehow got the idea to make a topper for them, so you can use the cases as tables/chairs/nightstands/whatever.

That conversation was all the way back in Summer 2021. And with my slow-ass progress, it took me all the way until Winter 2022 to get them done! But after coming back from Portugal, finally getting over the mental hump and hindrance of staining, I made some progress. After a total of three coats on each one, they were done!

In total, I made seven of them. One broke while building, so the six that came out in the end turned out pretty good. Some were made with some scrap wood, some from a new board I cut down to size. Two were for Christoph (since it was his idea), two were for me, one for Micha, and one for a gift that I had to put together (more to come later).

I love me a good woodworking project. Unfortunately, I'm really slow at them, and the processes of sanding and staining are such annoying mental hurdles for me. But nevertheless, nothing like having a beautiful tangible product at the end!

Getting Organized

One thing that really wore me out last year was just having so much to do, so much I wanted to get done, and not nearly a semblance of enough time to get it all done. It caused a lot of stress, frustration, and was just mentally draining to have all the things I wanted to get done in my mind (and a lot that I forgot about to boot...), and just not being able to fit them in. All because I was either working too much, focusing on something big, or just lacked the energy or motivation to get started on something even when I had the time to do so.

Back when I was part of the autonomous project, we tried to implement a bunch of agile methodologies into our work, and one that I really liked was our kanban board. I had my own color, all my tasks were clearly laid out on the board, and I was able to physically move them around depending on what I was working on and what I'd completed.

Around that time back in Portland, I even went so far as to implement that at home. I had that weird, unusable fireplace thing right in the middle of the living room, and that empty space turned into my kanban board. I had a few different categories of tasks I had in front of me, tracked the priority, and had a done pile for whenever I completed something. New place, new setup! I figured, why not use the hallway in my current digs for the same effect. Here's what we've got:

Well right now, I'm not going in depth on anything or categorizing anything at all, I'm just working on the first step of getting the things I have to do laid out in front of me so I can track them. It's a single color, a jumbled mess of things to do, but I'm just working on making sure I keep track of all the things I have to do, and give myself the minimal reward of moving the post-it to the done pile once it's complete. It's also on my coat jacket closet, so every time I leave the house or come back, it's right in my face.

Progress. Small progress, but progress nonetheless!

Photography Stuff

Coming out of the trip to Portugal, and having looked back at all the pictures I took, I was a bit disappointed in the overall quality of them. Yes, there were some good ones, but a lot of pictures that I was really excited about, liked, or were hoping for good results, came out blurry or just not ideal. Being a visual person, that really bummed me out.

That said, my camera is 9 years old. The last time I took it in for service, the technician guy said at that point a few years ago, that it was an old bird anyways. So, knowing the camera body was likely on its last legs anyways, I splurged and got myself a new camera! My old Canon Rebel T4i is still alive (for now), but now I'm rolling around with a Canon 90D. There's a lot different about it compared to the old T4i, but those'll all just take some time to get used to.

As soon as I got it, I sat around and played with the controls and settings to try and familiarize myself with it. My living room was my first test subject, and I got in a couple shots just to see how I can dial myself in with the thing.

Night Photography

As a first little excursion with the new rig, I decided to take a cold, random Friday, jump on my bike, and head out with my tripod to get in some night photography practice. As I said, it was cold, and at the first stop I realized I forgot the tripod-camera mount (stupid), but I got to work on trying to capture some night scenes.

It'd been a REALLY long while since I'd used my tripod or tried to do anything like this, and it turns out it's not as easy as I laid it all out in my head. I somehow would always come out with blurry pictures, and I think there were a couple culprits to that. For one, my tripod is light, but can be a tad unstable. Then again, any movement, wind or otherwise, is enough to make a blurry picture when the exposure goes for over half a second.

Another likely reason, is that I was choosing some difficult scenes. In order to use autofocus, you need high contrast for the focus points to be able to get the right detail on the focus. For a couple of spots I wanted to shoot, there was very little contrast - aka everything was a similar shade of dark - and therefore autofocus had a tough time finding a spot to focus onto.

All that said, I've still got a lot of room for improvement. Despite the cold night, I had some tunes in my ears and did a little riding around town to a few different spots, and came up with a few ok shots. Take a look!

Not quite as good as my night shots from way back when in Hamburg, but something to keep cranking away at for sure. Looking forward to some warmer weather to make it a little easier to wander around at night!

Working on the Craft

Not sure how, but I've kinda gotten onto a mini reading kick, which I hope is slowly turning into a habit, since the start of the year. It's waned a bit in recent weeks, but after finishing off the book from José Saramago, I went to my bookshelf to see what I could dive into next. Rather than going the fiction route, I saw a couple photography books that I'd gotten but never read, and popped them out.

First up is Photography for the Joy of It, and has been a great baseline look into the art of photography. Some concepts are new, some not, but getting a clarification on a lot of things, as well as some depth to the details behind them, has been a nice course.

I've tried to internalize what I can from the book, and plan on using them next time I'm out traveling or shooting more photos. Here's to some improvement!

Getting Back to Swing

This whole pandemic bullshit has really had a negative impact on all of our lives, and one aspect for me that has been grinding me has been swing dancing. I haven't danced since I left Portland, which is now over two years ago. That's a crazy long time to not do something that I found so much enjoyment and fun in.

To try and remedy this (and it's on my kanban board so I can't forget about it), I reached out to the local dance school to see what my options were. Long story short, I need a dance partner before I can dance. Not an easy prospect being still a foreigner and quasi-newbie in this town, but that's the deal.

Thankfully, the dance school has a little portal to try and connect people looking for dance partners, so on the hunt! Luckily enough, I got in contact with one gal who seemed to be at a similar level. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. After a little back and forth and some contact, I confirmed it on my end that we'd start the coming Sunday, and assumed we were all good to go.

Well, showing up to the dance school on that Sunday, I got my shoes on, and waited, but no one came. Since a parter is required to dance, I was left high and dry. I waited around a little while, but she never showed. Quite the bummer if you ask me.

So, despite the impression that I was good to go and dance-ready, starting back (yet again) at Square 0. A common theme in a few aspects of life, but the search continues!

The Technik Museum - Sinsheim

In the bridge between January and February, we were lucky enough to be able to host one of our testing colleagues from Portland during the integration workshop! Well, as I'd taken a trip out to the Technik Museum in Speyer in September, I didn't want Jon (our colleague) sitting around all weekend, so we planned to head up to the Technik Museum in Sinsheim! It was a short drive up, but we motored over and got to exploring the twin to the one in Speyer.

As you'd imagine, it was just as cool and just as crammed with all kinds of stuff to please our engineering eyes and minds. Quite the conglomeration of cars, planes, trains, boats, tanks, and you can guess the rest. We did a lot of walking around, admiring the many unique and incredible pieces of machinery on site.

Here were some of the highlights and thoughts we had during our romp around the museum:

• I have no idea where they collected all these pieces, but there's a shitton of stuff there
• They have one of Lamborghini's old tractors!



• They had a ton of tanks on site, but all of them were De-Militarized. What does that mean? Essentially a giant chuck of the armor had to be cut out to designate it as a no-longer functional tank. Pretty cool method.




• Jesus Fucking Christ. Who the hell thought it ok to allow fucking swastikas in the museum. There weren't many, but goddamnit..... Get that sign of hatred out of there...
• Communism stands for Copying. I had no idea, but the USSR had created essentially a copy of the Concorde, and the museum had one on display. Cool plane, but seriously, nearly carbon copy...



• On the tail of the Communist-Concorde-Copy, there were some asymmetric air flow guides, two lower on the left side, two higher on the right side. I've been meaning to look up the point of those, but that seemed a little curious to me as to why the asymmetry. Something to look into...

Another incredible collection of incredible machines. It was a great time walking around, exploring, and chatting with Jon, and great to check out this jam-packed museum!

Super Bowl Sunday

Anyone who knows me know's I'm a pretty big football fan. The immediately-recognizable Packers beanie is one sign, but Football has been in my blood since forever, and that ain't going away any time soon. Well, my Packers shat the bed in the playoffs (again...), but thankfully the Niners choked too, so it was a Rams-Bengals Super Bowl where I didn't really care who won.

Going back two years, I was invited to join the fantasy football league of a bunch of dudes I played frisbee with in 2016 and was ecstatic to join! Well in 2020, right before the pandemic came crashing down, we had a Super Bowl party to celebrate! Last year wasn't possible due to Covid, but with things in the slightly uphill trend of getting out of this health catastrophe, it was time to party!

My team sucked all year. I had decent players, but every week, only one guy decided to play well and the others shat the bed. That took me to the shit bowl (losers playoff), and I somehow squeaked out a win in the semifinals and therefore didn't have to worry about hosting the Super Bowl party! That honor went to Glö, who got pretty unlucky with his team as well.

But since the Super Bowl starts at midnight here, that means we had a whole day of drinking to help us get prepped for the football fun. Just like two years ago, on the agenda was a little Bosseling. Think of it as rolling a ball down a path from a start point to an end point, and whichever team does it in the fewest throws, wins! Simple and fun enough, we headed out to a forest to get things going.

All with beers in hands (I love the fact you can drink anywhere in Europe...), we got things rolling! It was a beautiful, sunshiny day, and the company was just as wonderful, and we got to rolling and walking along with some great conversation and good times.

After a good few hours, some good and bad throws, and a good few beers, we made a big 'ole loop around the forest and my team won. Woot!!! From there, it was back on the bikes and back to the 'frisbee' garden in the south of the city. There it was a good time to chill, hang out, chat, and for a big crew, to jump in the sauna. Also, look at Tim being a baus with a Weizen Glass on the bike. Love it.

I hung out for a bit before heading home, heading to the failed swing dance class, and from there it was off to Glö's house for the full night. There, it was time for the full program. Wraps, Snack Stadium, Winners (aka Guzzer), and a good time all around. Guzzer is our commisioner, so it's a little sketchy that he won all the awards, but he had a good team, so I guess it was well earned.

With a little Nintendo to get us through the 10pm, 11pm slog, we made it to kickoff around midnight and got to watching the game. In all, kind of a lame game, not just because of the teams, but honestly not all that exciting a game. Also, for some reason Foxi won almost all of the Squares money, seemed somehow rigged.

After the game, it was quick back home for me, because I had a supplier visit at 9am the next day. Not ideal coming off of 5 hours of sleep, but that's what happens when the Super Bowl happens!

A Good Day

Not sure why or how, but Tuesday, February 15th was a great day for me. I had a great song stuck in my head, work was fine, it was sunny outside, and things were just feeling up. I really don't know where to put my finger down on it, but I really enjoyed the positive wave I was riding all day. I should force a few more of those into my schedule.

Recent Tunes for your Groove Boxes

One contributor to the good mood I had on Feb 15th was a great song stuck in my head. The beat, vibe, mood, and random exclamation of "HORNS!" had me bobbing and weaving to the great tunes all day. In the interest of good music and sharing that kind of love, here are some tunes that have been weaving through my ear canals of late that you may or may not also find a good groove in.

Broke - Samm Henshaw -- Youtube Spotify
Seriously, the "HORNS!" yell after the first bar makes me smile every time. But I love the horns, the groove, and the smooth vocals on this track. Bummer it's not over a bit more of a rosy topic, but love the good waves coming out from Samm Henshaw here.

Irrational - Shay Lia -- Youtube Spotify
I've got a thing for good female vocals, and a little whispery tinge to it always helps. Another good Spotify recommendation with a good up-tempo beat and some lovely horns to round it all out.

Kaleidoscope Eyese (Audiotree Live Version) - Liz Cooper and The Stampede -- Youtube Spotify
Wonderful vocals? Check. Low key mood? Check. Live recording? Check. Great story and flow? Check. Such a relaxing and lovely listen.

House Call - The Shouting Matches -- Youtube Spotify
Good driving beats with a bunch of variety on the vocals, and something that goes well with a whispy glass of whiskey. Also a big fan of vocals that show a ton of emotion, and this one rides the emotional rollercoaster for a good bit of it.

Illusion - Beat Connection -- Youtube Spotify
Found out about Beat Connection through Spotify, but initially through one of their other songs (Hesitation, another great poppy, beat-full jam). Love the good beat, the drive, and the little story in this tune.

New Bike Day Month!!!

The topic of a new bike has been pretty consistently on my mind way back since my frame broke broke in Scotland. That was a really depressing moment, and although I found myself a quick fix and way to keep riding for the months afterwards, I was really in the market for a new ride.

The first option was to go through with the crash replacement setup (which is ongoing). Unfortunately, I had to send my broken frame into Transition in order to get that option going. But, on the upside, that means I've got a 30% off offer to a new bike (full build). Pretty slick deal when you add it all up. Although Transition said sometime Q1/Q2 of 2022, I haven't heard a lick of news from them since September/October timeframe. So that waiting game is still ongoing.

In the mean time, thoughts of a new bike are still rolling around on my mind. And talking bike stuff doesn't really slow down, especially when you hang out and ride with the technical bike-crazy minds of Stefan and Franz. Both of them ride something from a pretty small German bike company, RAAW, and are essentially unpaid ambassadors for them. Franz got one of the first four Madonna V1s ever made by the company, and absolutely raves over it. Stefan has a Madonna V2, rides it like a machine, and it always comes back for more. He even won the first Madonna-of-the-Month awards. Popular dude.

Way back when, sometime in September, I spur of the moment signed up for the Madonna info of when they'd be back in stock. I almost pulled the trigger and got one back then, but wasn't convinced on jumping from 27.5" wheels all the way up to a full 29" wheel rig. The new Patrol (which I've technically got on order) is a mullet, with 29" wheel front and 27.5" wheel back, so I'm already slated to jump into foreign waters with that.

Well, sometime around mid-/end-January, I got a message from RAAW saying the Madonnas would soon be back on sale. That coincided with a few times riding with Franz and Stefan, and even getting to ride theirs for a quick taste. Long story short, when the bikes went back on sale at 15:00 on January 27th, I clicked away and snagged my new frame as fast as I could!

RAAW only sells frames, which I can't blame them with all the delivery delays and such. But what that means, this new bike is going to be built from the ground up, fully customized, and ready to shred. I'll be publishing a new page with all that information and details on my new ride once it's here, built, and ready to go, but HOT FUCKING DAMN I'm totally stoked!!!!!

It's been a whirlwind of decisions, parts ordering, stocking up, and getting ready to build. I've nearly got everything in place, but the frame is going to be the last thing to arrive. I'm hoping it arrives before I fly out to the US, but it's all a bit of a cat-and-mouse game with delivieries and such. Either way, I'm SO FREAKIN' STOKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More to come on this later :-)

Freeridin' Finale

Spark Notes - The Polarsteps Journey

After that great day of riding with Stefan, Franz, and Steph in Heidelberg, me and Stefan hit the road home and got to chatting. Turns out, as a teacher in Germany, you are employed by the state (both Franz and Stefan compare it to being a soldier), but that also means you get a ton of breaks. A ton. Germany has a bunch of holidays to begin with, but when you throw in school breaks and such, it adds up quick.

One of those many school breaks was coming up - Winter Break or something, essentially a week off at the end of February/beginning of March. His plan - head down to Finale Ligure in Italy and mountain bike for a full week. As soon as I heard it, I got jealous. Finale Ligure is supposed to be an incredible mountain bike destination, and the chance to enjoy it for a full week sounded incredible!

He threw out the great idea/offer of me coming down for some/all of it, and I immediately started thinking how I could make that work. I've got a bunch of vacation and over hours to blow off, so I figured I could make a long weekend out of it. Only an 8 hour drive, so why not?

I reached out to the place Stefan was staying, and they had a 6 night minimum (likely because of the holiday, bummer). I looked around, and a lot of other places were booked out or not quite compatible with the dates I was thinking. Eventually I came to the point and just said fuck it. Why don't I take a full week off? And that's exactly what I did! One Fine Friday I put in a few hours of work and mid-afternoon, Rupert was all packed up and ready to head south. Italian Coast, here we come!

That's become a pretty frequent pic of mine lately, and I kinda like it!

Getting down through Germany and parts of Switzerland were quite the breeze. Then traffic hit. First at the 16km long Gotthard tunnel. Not sure why they had stop lights active for a perfectly clear roadway, but that added a ton of time. Then, at the Italian border, entry into Como, was another parking lot. I wasn't feeling sitting in traffic, so found my way around it, and kept motoring on. Eventually, around 23:30, I made it to the hotel, got checked in, and was ready for a week of biking! Woot woot!

That next morning, I was up early, and in a place I hadn't seen by daylight yet. Since we weren't heading to the bike shuttle til 10:30, I was off for a little morning walk in search of breakfast and getting a view of the little town on the coast. It was a fresh morning, but full of sunlight, and the little jaunt around town was beautiful. From the hotel I walked through the little pedestrian zone, made my way out to the water, then enjoyed the warm sunlight for a bit. Then on the way back, I stopped off at a little cafe for a croissant and Americano (they give you the espresso and hot water separately, so you can pour it yourself. Kinda neat!), before heading back to suit up for the daily ride.

Once 10:00 rolled around, it was time to roll! Stefan and I met at the bike locker, and we took the quick ride over to Finalborgo to get to the bike shuttle. A little bit of moseying around, and then we got packed into vans and headed up to NATO Base, one of the trailheads at the top of the hills above the coast. It was a good 40min ride from the coast up to the peaks, and with the clear skies and beautiful day ahead of us, once we biked up to the base, you could see for miles. If you squint, you can even see the island of Sicily there in the third pic below!

From the top, we did our (my) first run down Madre Natura, and I was immediately in heaven. Different than what I anticipated or thought I'd be riding, but hot fucking damn, so good. Flowy, loamy, rooty, a bit rocky, and just so damn buttery. We ripped right on down and with a big smile on my face, we turned around and pedaled back up to the top. From there, it was a round of Crestino Pt. 1, Carvarezza, Ingegnere, and Crestino Pt. 2. We even built a little rock bridge through a gully (that someone tore down the next day). Massive grins and energized blood flowing strong after such great trails, we rolled our way down the long road back to Finalborgo.

Time for lunch, and getting ready for the next shuttle up. Stefan had a pizza place in mind, so we walked our bikes through the small old-town of Finalborgo, and were presented with a line out of Pomo D'Oro, the target shop. Nothing to do but wait until we were called in. And when we were, ohhhh boy what a selection. Definitely not your typical kinda pizza (not sure if it was Focaccia, Pizza, or some other classification), but I loaded up with the spicy sausage (wasn't spicy) and tomato and mozzarella 'slices' and we wandered out to eat them in the sun.

As we were walking with our bikes and pizza to the nearest bench, Stefan spotted a fellow Karlsruher! Mike was down for the week as well, and as I learned, he's essentially a Finale local, coming down 5-7 times a year! We chatted with him once we sat and ate, but soon enough had to wrap up, pack up our last pieces of pizza for trail snacks, and book it back to the shuttle for the next ride up.

After the ride up, this time to the start of Rollercoaster, Stefan and I unloaded and were greeted by another Karlsruher, Philipp, and his buddy Eric! Turns out it was the week for half of Karlsruhe (or in all actuality, Germany) to head down to Finale! We chatted a bit at the top, met each other and got acquanted, then headed out down the trail as a new squad.

What an incredible trail. No massive berms like Whistler, no steep rocky chutes like I'd imagined, but incredlbe natural flow in some great dirt down a great hillside. Just good old fashioned fun mountain biking. We rolled and shredded our way down and I was smiling the whole way. Eventually we got to a great clearing and took in the view as two jabroni's were trying to be insta-famous and annoying as hell. But what an incredible view over Finale Ligure.

Once we blasted through the incredibly aptly named Rollercoaster, we popped out on the road and went on a bit of an adventure, courtesy of the experienced Finale-rider Mike. We found an offshoot and pedaled up, then jumped down the tucked-away Metanodotto. Another fun ride. That popped us out into a secluded valley, and we all pedaled down towards Borgo on the coast. As the day was nearly over, we took the laid-back option and found a cafe overlooking the water. Time to sit back and relax :-)

It was a beautiful day out, and although I was staring straight into the sun, the warmth was incredible, sky was blue, and the coffee hit just the right spot. We had a nice time sitting around, chatting, enjoying the day, and reveling on the great trails, all the way up to golden hour. About that time, it got a little cooler, so we paid up and pedaled on back to Finale. Eric and Philip were on a campsite up the hill, so Stefan and I said adios, pedaled on back to our hotel, and took some time to clean up and lay back after a great day of riding.

Dinner was a bit of a crapshoot, as we didn't have reservations anywhere, things were pretty full (Saturday night), and it was still technically the off-season. We struck out everywhere we popped our heads into, and ended up getting some takeaway pizza from a local joint and headed back to my room to chow down, chat, and revel in the wonderful week off. Pizza with a cheap 2€ bottle of Italian wine, not a bad way to end the night! Then, after we killed our grub, it was time for bed to prep for another great day of riding!

The next two days followed a similar recipe - great riding, great food, great people. Seriously, that's such a great recipe for a great day! Sunday we did a single-uplift up to Nato Base and then took the Ingegnere series down to Orco Feglino, where they've got a series of trails that feed down to a similar spot and a pretty 'easy' climb straight back to the top. We got in a lap or two before settling down for a MASSIVE pan of pesto pasta out in the sunlight. We lapped it, the caffeine, and the sunlight up with a nice, long midday break. Hard to beat some awesomeness like that.

That night, luckily the shaky attempt at getting a reservation for dinner worked out! Stefan and I headed over to Da Ponci and one of the five tables open and waiting for us. This was my first time in one of these typical tiny Italian restaurants, and I was looking forward to it. Needless to say, it was absolutely aaaaaaaamazing.

We split some really creamy foccacia, and then came the best meal of the trip, as the Primi (first course). Shrimp gnocchi with a pistachio cream sauce. Holy guano that was absolutely amazing!!! The gnocchi were soft and tender, the shrimp flavorful, and that sauce was absolutley impeccable. My second course was a sea bream filet with roasted artichokes over a zucchini paste. Holy god the food in Italy is incredible.

Then Monday, thanks to a little stroke of luck with timing and someone cancelling last minute, Stefan and I got the last two spots on a guided shuttle day on Monte Carmo! There were a number of trails we looked at on the map and were itching to ride, but since they were so far out of the way, it would've required a full day to try just a couple trails with a lot of pedaling. So, with the shuttle day, we got a much easier way about it, and were really looking forward to it.

We ended up with a pretty fun group, Germans, Swiss, Aussies, and our awesome crazy Italian driver, and we loaded up for a great day. The first trail, Issalo Exstacy, was incredible. Raw, natural, and fun as hell. Thankfully, so were all of the trails that day! Beautiful views on an incredible peak, natural trails, and a ridiculously bumpy, windy (and official) road up to the top every time. That was always made a little easier watching our tour guide (Chicho) talk with his hands. The expressive Italian stereotype holds fairly true.

Unfortunately, on the last run, the guy at the end of our train took a wrong turn. We stopped at some point to re-group, but he never showed up... Long story short, he ended up just riding all the way back to his hotel (since his bag and phone were in the shuttle rig), and we all spent an hour looking for him before heading to the pickup. Thankfully all was well, and what a great day of riding!

Tuesday I opted for a rest day. The weather said it was supposed to remain sunny and then get cloudy the rest of the week, so I took the chance to get a walkabout in Finale under the sun while I could. This was also the first time I was able to get out and about with my new camera! That started off weird as before I even left the hotel, I couldn't figure out what was going on with the zoom. Took me a while, but I'd set up the auto-focus to be activated with a different button than what I was used to, but got that squared away and was off.

Not to bore anyone, but I had a nice stroll through town to the beach, and then took a left away from town for a bit to explore the beach and cliffside. Beautiful spot there. I wandered along the beach for a ways until I came to a marina, then doubled back and headed into the pedestrian area of Finale Ligure. Wandered around there for a bit, found some postcards and stamps, and then headed up to Finalborgo to walk around the fortress area there. Was a little aimless, but made my way up to the fort above town (it was closed), then back down to Finalborgo, then back to Finale Ligure, and by that point I was pretty hungry. But here are a bunch of pictures from that lovely little jaunt through town.

Once I was back in Finalborgo, I was a bit aimless on where I wanted to eat, so I ended up at the main square to do some thinking/researching, and people watching to boot. I couldn't find a place I liked or one that was open, so I decided to meander back down to Finale Ligure. After some hemming and hawwing there, I walked along the boardwalk and randomly popped into a cafe along the beach for some lunch. The pasta and lemon soda were basic but definitely hit the spot. Then, after that, I knew just what was coming up.

Right across the way was the ice cream parlor Stefan and I'd gone to the night before, and my sweet tooth wasn't going to pass up another go at some incredible gelato. I got a scoop of the chocolate and one of the strawberry, and then posted up at a table outside to write some postcards and even got myself a little espresso to go with it. Not quite affogato, but damn it was delicious. Once I wrapped up my postcards and went into pay, I double dipped and got myself another cone. TREAT YO SELF.

From there it was a slow walk back down the boardwalk and back to the hotel for a nap. But that nap didn't last too long before I got a call from Stefan, who'd just wrapped up riding and was hanging out at the bike bar with Eric and Philipp. So I headed on down for a brew with the boys, and Stefan and I headed back there for dinner that evening. Really cool spot, with a bike shop, bar, and restaurant all in one. Great way and place to wrap up the day.

Wednesday, time for something special. Instead of rocking the trails directly in Ligure, we (at the initiative of Eric's planning) headed an hour west from Ligure to the little mountain town of Molini. From the day before we roped in Dane, the Aussie from the tour, and me, Stefan, and Dane motored on down the coast along the highway, and then weaved right into some really beautiful mountain valleys and through some really tight mountain towns. Bummer I had to drive, but damn what a gorgeous stretch. Even got lucky with the timing before they shut down the road to load an excavator.

Molini is a really tiny town at the bottom of the fork in a deep mountain valley. Gorgeous to say the least. We rolled in, parked, and slowly met up with the group. Our tour guide for the day, Albi, joined us and got in for a chat as we waited for Eric and Philip to roll in, then we headed down to their warehouse below town to get loaded up and ready to go!

Not sure of how such a tiny mountain town, tucked away from pretty much anything big, only about 20min as the bird flies from the French border, became a mountain bike hot spot. For reference, a town nearby, Sanremo, is known as a proving ground for Downhill (the big, burly mountain bikes) bikes. Molini, nearby, could be said to be pretty near that.

Well, as it turns out, it started about 15-20 years ago between Alberto and three or four of his buddies, they just started building some trails. Started with a few, grew from there, and now there's an absolute mecca of trails all throughout the hillsides around Molini, all of which were built from him and his buddies. Absolutely incredible.

Since we were there in February, winter was still going, and some of the trails were still closed due to weather (surprisingly enough, even though we were a stone's throw away from the Mediterranean, the mountains there are high up and winter hits despite the tropical vibe). Bummer, but Alberto assured and showed us, that even with the higher trails closed, there was easily a week's worth of riding we could embark on without repeating a trail. We were absolutely in for a treat!!!

To start the day, the only thing that bummed me out was that I didn't have my camera. As soon as we set out from the warehouse, we jumped into some tiny roads and just started climbing up the hill. The whole way was absolutely gorgeous. Molini, down in the valley, is right below a beautiful town on top of the ridge, overlooking the valley split, and we had a great view of that the whole ride up. The first run we did was 3/4 up the hill, but I was astounded by the views on the shuttle ride up.

As for the riding, holy shit. What a mecca for mountain biking. DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS PLACE, but I cannot wait to go back. Raw, natural, steep, flowy, rocky, technical, it's got everything. And all from just a small group of builders, just insane!!! Alberto got us warmed up on a quick (almost 1.5mile) trail and hot damn I was hooked! Unfortunately, I was a little shaky on turns, feeling like I was gonna wash out the whole time, but I was ripping and roaring and enjoying every bit of it.

Alberto gave us a wonderful tour through some incredible trails. Thankfully, with the shuttle, we got to start at the top. And the top for these trails is really high up. Most of the trails we were on were so long, we stopped a good 3-5 times in between to catch our breaths. Such awesome building and incredible stuff!!!

We got in a good bunch of variety of the awesome dirt that graces the Molini area, and all of us were enjoying the time. Soon enough, it was time for a lunch break, so we rolled back on down to Molini and got treated to some delicious bites from the local bar. We got lucky, because they're normally closed on that day, but we got treated to an incredibly enjoyable time out in the sunlight with some great food and a relaxed midday break.

After the break, it was time for some more riding. Back up the hill we went and were ready for some more shreddage. That first trail, we hit it pretty hard from the top, then got to a cool jump that they'd built, and we all agreed to take a look at it before jumping it. Nothing big, nothing crazy, and I've definitely hit some bigger jumps (see Black Rock Moon Booter) no problem. So I pushed my bike back up to the top to get the few berms entering the jump and I was ready to go.

Putting the "Break" in Breaking In 2022

Well, I wasn't as ready as I thought I was. I even mentioned it to Stefan at the top, right before I dropped in. Every time I stop, take my time, and look at a jump, I get nervous. But if I just follow someone in and go for it, no sweat. Well, this jump was a good example of it.

I hit the curves, hit the jump, and hit the air. No problem. All felt good. Then once I hit the ground, I'm not sure what quite went wrong. I might've taken a bad line, where my landing point was a bit off the trail in the leaves, but either way, my bike slid out from under me, my body went horizontal, and my momentum carried me straight for a tree. Good thing I was wearing a full face helmet, right! Right? Well, yeah-no (jein). Since my body was parallel to the ground, the chin guard was vertical, and I selected a tree that was just small enough to fit right into the opening of the helmet (see the right-most tree of the group). Sweet.....

Naturally, it all happened so fast, but I hit the tree and knew I wasn't in good shape. Could feel some liquid and knew it was blood, so immediately ripped off my glasses to rip off my helmet and just looked at the ground to try and stabilize. Shaken, shook up, and shocked, but I felt like everything was fairly ok despite a little head pain.

Unfortunately, the blood on the leaves was the first sign that wasn't quite the case. Long story short, my face hurt, my glasses were broken, and I was pretty sure things weren't great. Once everyone huddled around me, the dust started to settle and I got a better idea of where I stood. Upon impact, the left lens of my glasses (yes, I need saftey glasses, working on it...) shattered. Some/one of the pieces wreaked havoc on my face and put in a good gash right under my left eye, and then right on the bridge of my nose. To add to it, I could tell my bones were tender, and thought I might've broken my orbital bone, but found out later I just broke my nose. Thankfully no loss of memory (no concussion), but I was in not-so-great shape. Needless to say, my riding day was over.

All the dudes along the ride were super patient, and a huge shoutout to Dane, Stefan, Albi, Eric, and Philipp for doing what they could to clean me up, patch me up, and make sure I was ok. Unfortunately with that crash that meant the rest of the group was just hanging around til I was either ready to ride or ready to get out of there. Well, they cleaned me up, and Dane had some med supplies on him as they tried to bandage me up as best they could. But Albi called our shuttle driver (aka (we think) his girlfriend), and she came to the nearest spot on the road to pick me up and take me back down to town in the hopes that the town's doctor could take a look at me.

Thankfully she could speak Italian, and she pointed me in the right direction of where the doc would be. Turns out he was gone and would hopefully be back soon. With that, I had the gal just drop me off - I didn't want her to waste her time waiting with me when the other guys were off and riding. So she headed back to keep shuttling and I played the waiting game.

It was a bit nippy, but I hung out on one side of the street in a bit of a wind shadow, and two older gentlemen, who I assume were also waiting for the doc, were watching me from the other side of the street. They could see I was waiting, and said a few things in Italian, and I gathered that to either mean it was 5 min til the doc came back, or I was the 5th person in line to see him. Either way, I had to keep waiting.

Another huge shoutout to those two dudes, because they let me know it was my turn to go in and see the doc. Speaking only Italian, he let me know I would need stitches, and I probably had a broken nose. With that, that meant my next stop was the hospital. Once he cleaned me up a little more and put on a different bandage, I walked back to the car, and got the call that the rest of the group was done and congregating at the warehouse, so I headed on down.

They were all super jazzed from the rest of the trails (and I was stoked they were, just bummed I wasn't there for it). Awesome to hear they rounded out the day so well, and so stoked we were able to come to Molini for some awesome trail guidance (and building) from Alberto! But we paid, packed up our bikes, and for me, it was off to the hospital. Instead of taking the one right near Molini, we ventured towards Finale Ligure and headed to Finale Pietra, and Stefan and Dane dropped me off at Hospital Santa Corona (fitting, I'd say considering this damn pandemic). From there, it was time to wait.

T + 00:00 = Checked-in and hoping that I was ok. Nurse told me to go sit in the waiting room and wait to be called.

T + 02:30 = First actual consultation. The nurse (reminded me of someone I know) thankfully spoke a little english. After listening to my situation, the crash, and what I was feeling, she sent me off to get an X-ray of my face.

T + 02:35 = X-rays were taken. The dude just moved me around to whatever orientations and angles he needed of my face (including gaping like a fish with your head thrown back for the last one), then sent me back to the first consult nurse.

T + 02:38 = Caught the nurse with her mask down (can't blame her having to wear a mask for hours and hours upon end). She couldn't do anything for me so she sent me to another new waiting spot to sit and wait.

T + 03:24 = First consult nurse informed me I've officially got a broken nose. Didn't say anything about the orbital bone, but the plastic surgeon was on the way to re-set the bones and give me some stitches.

T + 04:38 = To the operating room. The plastic surgeon (and all of the nurses there on hand) spoke little to no english. What I gathered was I'd get some local anesthesia for the stitches, and nothing for re-setting the bone.

T + 04:47 = apparently "tampon medication" is a legit medical term here.

T + 05:46 = ya boy is done with the operation. The stitches were a bit painful, but those got taken care of pretty quick. The whole re-setting the nose though? Holy shit that was a bitch. Painful as shit as they shoved something up each nostril, then jostled it around until apparently the bone was in the right spot. Dear jeebus that was painful. Coming out of that, I was informed I have a tampon up each nostril, and had to keep them in place for at least three days. Additionally, I had a metal plate over the bridge of my nose and that was supposed to stay in place. Then for the stitches, I shouldn't be getting them wet for the next while, and all of those things needed to be swapped out in a week.

T + 05:48 = I got sent back to the waiting room for observation, because as soon as they started the OP, my blood pressure dropped like an anchor. So they'd given me a saline IV and wanted to make sure I was ok and stable before releasing me.

T + 06:12 = I ended up getting impatient (me?!?!) and released myself. I was feeling fine, and was eager to get out of there, and just uncomfortable as shit without the ability to breathe through my nose, and the pressure everything was putting on that broken bone between my eyes.

So, roughly 6 hours after arriving, I was finished with the operation and fully re-built according to the doctor's assessment. Needless to say I wasn't pain-free, but I was happy to be out of there and on my way. Unfortunately, at that point in time, it was 02:30 in the morning. But Stefan, being the awesome friend he is, had agreed to have me call him to come pick me up. So I gave him a call, walked to the meeting spot, and posted up in the middle of the mediterranean night, feeling a bit under the weather.

Back to the hotel (Thank you Stefan for picking me up!), and time to crash, trying not to sleep on my face and keep my head elevated. Not necessarily an easy task.

Thankfully I got some sleep, but I was still tired and recovering from the whole hospital experience. Needless to say, there was no riding in store for me that day, and at that point, I was trying to figure out how/when I was going to get home. Since the crash broke my glasses, and I had this giant hunk of metal on my nose, I didn't have any glasses to wear so I could see the world clearly, and that had me a bit worried about the drive home.

After getting in a few naps in the morning and recovering a bit more, I had a plan to leave the next day (Friday) as soon as the sun came up. That way, during day light, I'd be able to see as best I can and hopefully have enough time to make it home before sunset. That was the plan, and with that squared away, mid-afternoon I finally got outside to get some fresh air. First stop was to the pharmacy to get my pain meds and antibiotics (wasn't sure why I was prescribed antibiotics for this...). Then I walked out to the pier to sit, get some ocean air, and just slow down a bit with all that I'd just been through. Also, trying to figure out what the hell that excavator was trying to accomplish moving all that sand around...

Once I'd gotten my fill of sitting there, and was tired enough for another nap, I headed back to the hotel to crash for another round. Waking up I got an inquiry from Stefan and the gang asking how I was doing, and asking if I wanted to join for dinner that night. Although my nose was blocked closed like Fort Knox, I could thankfully still taste things, so I was in.

I kept resting before it was time to head out, then headed down to meet Stefan. Thankfully, he was cool with driving over, as I wasn't feeling good enough to drive myself or bike, and we jumped in his wheels and headed over to Finalborgo to meet up with Eric and Philipp at yet another quaint, comfy, tiny Italian restaurant. Can't remember the name of this place, but it was right at the entrance to the old town of Finalborgo.

Walking in and getting all the weird looks, and jabs of fun from Eric and Philipp, was something I was gonna have to get used to. But it was nice to sit with the gang, chat about the great ride they'd had that day (bummed I missed out), and just shoot the breeze. We'd stumbled upon quite the cool restaurant, and after discussion, we all opted in to go for the chef's tasting menu. Time for another culinary treat!

And needless to say, it was absolutely fantastic. I can't remember each and every one of the 7 courses, but they were all unique, flavorful, impeccably presented, and a burst of wonderful, unique, and amazing tastes. But here's the coup d'grax. Me, Eric, and Philipp went in together on a bottle of wine. We got the wine, the lovely waitress doled it out, and I went in for a sniff (as I always do) before tasting it. Kinda forgot that I had to giant plugs up each of my nostrils, so smelling wasn't gonna happen...

But to feast your eyes, here was our dinner in order of the courses:

Some kind of green soup. Surprisng at first, but delicious

Champignon cream soup with pioppini, mollet egg, hazelnuts, and ricotta cheese

Turnips, pears, baby spinach, and vinaigrette with lemon and olives

Artichoke and Jerusalem artichoke salad with pork tongue and ears

Risotto with borage, peas, and goat's milk cheese

Can't quite remember, but some kind of pork with spinach and artichokes

Ricotta and Orange Tart

Needless to say, that was one helluva feast.

Towards the end I was getting really tired, but I am REALLY bad at speaking up for myself in social situations when I want out. I mean REALLY bad. But soon enough the wine was gone and everyone else was set to go. As we were paying, the lovely waitress explained to us how the chef comes up with a new menu every few days, all depending on what he's able to find for ingredients at the local markets. Pretty damn cool to be able to taste someone's total creativity and the delicious results!!!

Back to the hotel it was time to pack up a little bit, make sure everything was good to go, and then hit the sack.

Waking up after some more pretty meh sleep, I got up and at 'em and headed out to the car with my stuff. Hit a bit of a snag because the bike locker at the hotel was locked, and I didn't know when someone would open it, as the contact number was not being answered. But my 07:00 departure was pushed back to 07:30 when the cleaning lady unlocked the gate. With the bike on the roof, it was time to get going.

Quick Hit:You really don't realize just how much you rely on vision correction (glasses), until you have to go without them. As the days went on, and the pain started to dwindle with the nose and stitches, the pain in my eyes kept going just not being able to focus on things and having that strain a constant bug.

I was on the road by around 07:45, and had the intention of just plugging straight through. Thankfully, the roads were playing well with me in that sense, as I just churned through the miles, and the weather stayed warm, sunny, and clear for me the whole way. Before I knew it I was through Milan and at Como, ready to cross over to Switzerland. But before I did, I found myself a grocery store to stock up on some Lemon Sodas (they're delicious), some chocloates, and a few things. Then, with a gas fuel up right across the border in Switzerland, I was back on the road.

From there, it was another straight shot (over 4-5hrs) home. No traffic through Gotthard Tunnel, through Basel, or anywhere (even through Germany!?!?), and soon enough I rolled up home and got to unpacking. I was tired, pretty wiped out, and still in some pain and discomfort, but at least I was home.

Only thing I did on Saturday was head to the frisbee club fields to meet up with Guzzer, Foxi, and Carli, after Foxi and Carli were done with their apartment hunting (they're moving back to Karlsruhe! Woot!). There I got some friendly jokes about what a freak I looked like, but also some helpful information about the unbelieveably luxurious health system we have in Germany. More on that to come.

I was really, really looking forward to Sunday so I could go to the hospital to get my nostril tampons removed and be able to breathe again. So after waking up, getting cleaned up, and pedaling over, I'd made it to the Städtisches Klinikum Karlsruhe (city hospital) to get treated.

First stop - Emergency Room. Got checked in and cleared the covid protocols, but before I even got acclimated, I was told by the check-in lady to head over to the Emergency Clinic (apparently different), so I walked on over to that different area.

Second stop - Emergency Clinic. There I got checked in, gave them my information, then headed to the waiting room. After some kinda melancholy/tired waiting, the doc brought me back. Before I could really say anything, his reaction was, "Oh my Gosh. Do you need to be krankgeschrieben (written sick)?" Well, yeah, if you're offering, I sure as shit will take you up on that.

Cultural Tidbit: Germans have NO fucking idea how good they have it on so many fronts. One of which is their health system.

To be krankgeschrieben (written sick) is essentially to have a doctor's note stating you can't work for whatever time period they prescribe. This isn't something where you lose sick days, pay, or anything else. But this is a legal setup where you are not able/allowed/forced to work in the time period the doc writes you off, and in addition you're still paid as normal.

So talking with the doc, essentially he wrote me up sick from the date of the accident (T minus four days), and then through the whole coming week. That came out to me essentially going from having taken one full week of vacation, to having taken just two days of vacation, and then 8 days of sick leave. This German system is absolutely insane.

The very nice and friendly doc listened to what happened to me, wrote me up sick as well as gave me a few more pain med prescriptions, but then said I was still kinda in the wrong place, and had to head over to the HNO (Hals-Nase-Ohren / Ear Nose and Throat Doc / Otorhinolaryngologist) Clinic to actually be helped, and most importantly, get the nostril tampons taken out. So off I went.

Third Stop - I picked up my bike, pedaled over, and walked into yet another hospital building, where I was greeted by a guy to check covid protocols and make sure I was in the right place. With his blessing I skipped registration and just headed up to the HNO Clinic. But once I got there, the door was locked. I knocked, and a very unsure looking nurse eventually opened up so I could explain my situation, then let me in to their little waiting room.

A little bit of paperwork, a little bit of waiting, and after the other patient was done, I was ushered back to their little examination room. Thankfully I could converse with this doctor and nurse no problem (lack of a language barrier really helps), and they slowly got to work on my situation.

First they asked a bunch of questions about the crash, how I was feeling, what was done to me, etc. Then the relief I was waiting for, pulling out the giant nose plugs. That wasn't comfortable at all, but finally being able to breathe out of my nose again, holy shit what a relief. Hard to explain how uncomfortable and annoying it is, for three days, having to pop your ears every time you swallow, always having to breathe out of your mouth, and a number of more discomforts that come with it, but finally having that air channel back open for business was a HUGE relief.

As soon as they were pulled out, A) I was astounded at just how damn huge they were, and B) I had to keep a little tray under my nose in case there was still a bunch of bleeding to come. Thankfully, things looked to have healed up pretty good in the preceding three days, and blood was pretty minimal. The doc then took some tools and devices to look up and into my nose and see how things actually looked, and her prognosis was good. That was a nice relief.

They then proceeded to give me the details on next steps, verify the Italian report that I got from the hospital down in Finale Pietra, and soon enough, they were all finished up with me. Not more than an hour tops, and I was in out of all three places with a new lease on being able to breathe through my nose and feeling good about the healing process.

Krankgeschrieben - A Weird Week

Sunday was relaxed, and after coming back from the hospital, I knew I had a week that I was not required to work, and to add to that, I knew that on Thursday I'd already planned another trip on the books. I guess it wasn't guaranteed, but I knew I had a bit of a weird week ahead of me. First things first, I let my boss know the status, that I'd be out for the week (not just Friday as originally planned), but I'd try and plug in to work for important topics if they came up. That didn't hold quite true, as I was really enjoying the not-having-to-work aspect of things, but I was tuned in for a bit of it.

First thing on Monday I got a number of doctor's appointments squared away. For sure I needed to get my stitches out, then I needed to get my teeth checked (they'd been feeling weird since the crash), and to my HNO (Ear-Nose-Throat) doc for an overall check-up and changing the bandages. Those were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, so I had a few days to kinda kill.

How'd I end up killing that time? Well, a good bit of sleeping (as much as I could manage with the weird thing on my nose), to give my body time to recover, but primarily to rest my eyes. I'd taken my old glasses with the old prescription, removed the nose pads, and was able to use those over the metal nose plate, but they were not in the right position and still caused some eye strain just to focus. But they were a good band-aid when needed.

The other big thing I did was play video games. Kinda dumb, considering the eye pain, but I'd just gotten Horizon Forbidden West downloaded, and holy shit what a fun game. Part movie, part board game, with an awesome open world and tons of things to get into, that really kept (and is keeping) me occupied through the times. Not a bad way to go.

Fast forward to Wednesday, and among some other errands I needed to get done, I headed to the dentist to get my teeth checked. He did a good once-over (no x-rays), and after tugging at all the teeth and putting something ice cold on them, said everything looked good. Happy to know that despite the weird pains I was having there, all was good to go!

Then on Thursday, had a nice little double-whammy. First I went to my general doctor to get my stitches removed. They were quick like lightning with it, and before I knew it, the stitches were out and he even said everything looked like it was healing pretty well. Just have to keep my face out of the sun until December or so so that the scarring doesn't discolor or anything, but all-in-all, the stiches looked to have done their job!

Right after that, I was off to my HNO Doc (Ear/Nose/Throat) to get the nose plate swapped and make sure everything was good on the nose front. I've been to this gal a few times, and I think she recognizes me by know. I think she's from Bulgaria, so we're able to converse in both English and German pretty well. To start, she pulled off the existing nose cover, and looked everything over. Yet again, another pretty clean bill of healing, and she said things looked pretty good.

What the HNO Doc at the hospital on Sunday had told me was that I needed to get my bandages swapped once a week for the next couple weeks, which was on the docket for this HNO Doc visit. When I told this Doc that though, she kinda just laughed at me and said that's dumb. The Hospital doc said it takes about a year for the bone to set and be fully healed, but the local HNO doc said that's ludicrous, and that the bone really sets after a week. It takes a lot longer to fully heal, but after a week everything's in its place.

Long story short, I got out of there with a thumbs up on how everything is healing, and doctor's orders to NOT wear the roman nose plate! Hot damn! Couldn't have drawn that up any better! So although the scratches were still pretty prominent, I was back to normal-ish, and could finally wear glasses in a normal way. No joke, that itself was an absolute life-saver.

Also during that week, I got a lovely, wonderful care package from my Mommy full of Belgian coffee and goodies, discovered the cups that Zack stole in Porto that he'd stashed somewhere in Rupert, and realized my corkboard is overflowing with cards and postcards! Gonna have to take time soon to clear that off and re-set. But what a joy to look back on all the love sent to me from all over the place. :-)

A Balmy Weekend in Batumi

Spark Notes - The Polarsteps Journey

Thursday was a pretty full day. Once my doctors appointments were over and done, I was back at home on the beautiful sunny day to finish getting packed and ready to head East! After a couple years of wanting to make it happen and trying to find a time, I finally pulled the trigger to plan on meeting up with my buddy who'd moved to Georgia. So I got all my things packed and jumped into Rupert to head to STR to get on the way!

Unfortunately, with my flight plan, I had a 14-hour overnight layover in Istanbul. I initially thought about using that and going to explore town, but put the kaibosh on that pretty quick. Thankfully, I had access to the big lounge in the airport, so when I got in I found a comfy-ish place to lay back and try and get some sleep. That worked out kinda ok, and after a bit of sleep, some more waiting and walking around (IST is a MASSIVE airport...), it was wheels up and down to Georgia!

Landed, got my passport stamped, and soon enough got to see Eric there waiting for me! Great to see him, as it'd been over a decade since the last time we'd seen each other! We quickly jumped in a taxi and headed back to his condo building. One of his buddies had a spare apartment available so I got to crash in my own spot for the weekend. Once I was settled, we were off and into town for the night to start catching up.

First stop was a little bar near downtown - Conte. There Eric showed me the local popular liquor, Cha Cha, so we snagged a couple of those and got to chatting. Crazy that he's been over in Eastern Europe (over a year in Georgia, then Albania, and back to Georgia) for around two years. Got to hear a bit more about what he's been up to in that time, what gave him the idea to move over to this side of the world, and a lot of what's been going on for him.

After a few rounds of Cha Cha, it was time for some food. We headed over to the local German beer hall, and settled in for some grub. Eric did the ordering, and soon enough we essentially had ourselves a cheese pizza, but it wasn't a pizza. Some Georgian flatbred filled with cheese. It was delicious, especially with the green and red sauces that came with it. Bomb deliciousness to kick off my exposure to the Georgian cuisine - a very good sign of things to come.

From there, we headed to the local expat's bar, Mary's Pub. Eric knew the owners, a friendly Scottish guy and a Russian gal, so we rolled in, got to meet them, then grabbed some beers and headed upstairs to chat some more. We ended up spending a good amount of time there, but at some point I got pooped and was ready for some sleep. Eric was still going strong, so he snagged me an uber and I headed back to sleep and he kept the increasingly snowy and cold night a'rollin.

That next morning I was up fairly early. First thing, head to the local convenience store for some TP. Weird that there was none there, but got to give me a look at what's common to find in your nearby 7-11. Interesting stuff!

Before long Eric was up, and we headed to town to grab some breakfast. That took us to a little cafe downtown where we grabbed some grub (some good eggs benny) to start off the day. Unfortunately, the weather had remained pretty shitty, and snow was coming down pretty good all morning. We weren't sure what to do, so after breakfast we just headed back to the apartments to see what we could get into.

After some hanging around and see what Batumi had to offer for activities in shitty weather, our first stop was the cable car. This left straight from the middle of town and transported you up and over the city to the local peak. In town, it was wet and grey, but getting up to the peak - it was socked in snow.

We stumbled around out in the white wonderland for a bit, but then headed in to the cafe at the peak to hang out for a while. The folks in there were super nice, and I snagged myself a glass of Georgian wine and some cake. The recipe to stay warm and enjoy the little break.

Eric had an Ohrwurm of Bani, a local Georgian band, and put in a request for one of their songs to the waitress. At some point it came on, and there was another Georgian couple there, and the gal started going into an impromptu dance! Looked really intricate and traditional, and soon enough her guy joined in with her. So with some Bani on the jukebox, we got to experience (what I assume to be) a traditional Georgian dance and the good laughs of all the folks in the kitchen to go with it. Really a cool little impromptu experience!

Once we were all wrapped up and satiated there, we headed back down the cable car into down and tried to decide what else we could do to stay out of the rain and snow. After some debate and discussion, we landed on heading over to the fish market. That took us over to a very non-touristy and industrial part of town. Immediately we were overrun with some dudes trying to sell their restaurant/fish/etc., and I got the vibe we shouldn't have come.

But we ventured into the market anyways, I was just intent on a look around. It was a pretty small market, so that walk around went by pretty quick. I was ready to dip and get out of the weird vibe, but Eric shared he was up for some shrimp. I was a bit confused, as he'd kept saying he hated fish, but I stupidly equated fish to all seafood, and that was not fair. So long story short, we ended up getting some shrimp, and walked back to one of the hustler dudes on the street, and they set us up with a restaurant to get our shrimps cooked and yummy.

Geedangit, they did a damn good job of it. It was only a bummer that we didn't get more shrimp, because that shit was delicious. We scarfed those down, and Eric did the same thing with the Bani song from before, but I don't think it came on. Once we finished those shrimp up, it was back towards town and off to the Archaeological Museum.

No joke, this was quite the cool museum. First off, after we paid our admission and got some helpful pointing in the right direction from the staff, were a couple skulls from our early hominid ancestors that were dug up nearby. I don't remember seeing an estimated age, but they were clearly not homo-sapiens, and this was just the tip of a bunch of really ancient relics that had been excavated throughout Georgia and the Adjaran region (the State in which Batumi is located).

We cruised around the museum and got to see tons of pots, cups, pottery, and so much other artifacts that had been discovered through digs in the local area. Pretty impressive to see how much has been discovered in the small country of Georgia! We finished cruising around the museum, and once finished, headed back to the apartments.

Around that time, I was getting a bit of a different vibe from Eric, and wasn't quite the big fan of it. He was drinking pretty consistently at every place we stopped, and I could tell he was pretty drunk. The content of conversation deteriorated pretty notably, and I just wasn't feeling the vibe. I passively called him out on it, and he got very defensive very quick. I didn't fly out to Georgia to hang out with a someone soaked in liquor, but that's what it had kinda come to. Long story short, we had a bit of a falling out, and that was kinda the end of our weekend together.

I struggled with how to react to all of this. He's got a much more extensive background and things he's gone through in his life that I can't comprehend. I was doing my best to be cognizant of that, but the immature nature of the conversation and his perceived reliance on alcohol to get through the day and deal with what's going on was not something I was really ok with. I've got some more detailed opinions and assessment of the situation, but that's more personal than what I'd like to go into.

What that meant though, was that although I'd come to Georgia to see him, my visit had turned into a solo adventure. Quite the bummer, shock, and unexpected/weird change, but those were the cards I was now dealt with. Getting back to the apartment, he also told me that he screwed up letting his buddy know when I was going to be there, and had to find a new place to stay for my last night in town. A weird wrinkle, but that's just how it went.

I ended up bumming around the apartment for a good part of the afternoon, and at some point the rain and snow abated for a while, so I popped out onto the balcony to take some pictures of the mountains behind town to my left and the Black Sea to my right.

Hunger slowly crept up and made itself known. Although the rain was gone, I was kinda ready to just stay in and wake up in the morning. But eventually my stomach got loud and my mentality of movement kicked into gear, so I ventured out into town to find some grub.

The place I'd scoped out wasn't too far away, and it took me initially through the majorly developed row of skyscrapers, then into a more subdued area of town. Soon enough I rolled up to Batumarani, found a spot, and was ready to enjoy what I could of the night.

I had my book with me, so started to crank away on that as I also read the menu and decided on a local Georgian staple - Khachapuri. The waiter was super nice, informed me it'd take a while, but I was patient and ready for some delicious food. Before long, my cheese bread boat showed up, and hot damn was it yummy! Talk about a carb-bomb, but damn that was some good, gooey cheese to go with the delicious flatbread boat. I can see why people love this entree. Perfect for a cold day to keep you warm and induce a thorough food coma!

I got some good time reading in while eating and had a lovely little dinner. Once it was done, I paid and headed back out, and opted for a bit of an extended route back. That took me through a big park, along some residential streets, and past this weirdly space-agey McDonalds, before waltzing back to pass out for the night. I gotta say, it's gotta suck to live right next to the building I was staying in, see the intense light pollution...

That night I got a good bit of sleep. Not sure if I was over tired, or just kinda apathetic and weirded out by the end of the day before. But I got some good rest and ended up getting out of bed pretty late. The thing that kicked me into gear was being informed that I needed to leave the room in a timely manner to prepare for the people that were arriving that day to stay in that apartment. So I got cleaned up and packed up, and as I was leaving was surprised to see Eric down there. We said goodbyes and I was off into town to find my place to sleep for my last night in town/country.

It was a good 20min walk or so in the wet snow and cold, but I eventually found the sidestreet and had to rely on my offline maps to point me in the right direction. Lucky I had that, because the place was quite tucked in there and not really visible, but with a faint sign on the sidewalk, I was pointed into a small courtyard that looked to be bare of notice that it was a place of lodging.

Quite confused, and unsure if I was anywhere near close to being in the right place, I kinda poked around looking for signs of an establishment. First door was a kitchen, second a hallway, and then I walked up the courtyard staircase hoping for more success. Thankfully, I opened the door and someone answered my call. But weirdly enough, I opened the door to the purveyor's living room.

Quick Thought: For some reason, as soon as 'business interactions' get more than transactional (i.e. more personal), I get a little weirded out. Going back to the Casa Particulare in Trinidad, Cuba, this situation slowly became a family welcoming me into their living room and home as I'm there to pay for a room and place to sleep. For me, it's a weird juxtaposition of a service transaction and a cultural exchange and chance to interact on a personal level. I don't know why, but I get a little uneasy/weirded out in such situations.

The lady was super kind and welcomed me in after confirming that I had a reservation. As I was a bit of a last-minute booking, the room wasn't ready. So she welcomed me into their living room, as her kids were playing around and watching a Georgian cooking show or playing on their phones, and her husband seemed to be bouncing in and out. I sat on the couch and joined in as the Georgian Martha Stewart showed how to make Tiramisu with constant sips of her Coca-Cola to keep her going.

Amidst all of this, the very kind lady offered me coffee as I waited. I felt like I totally barged in on their day, and felt bad, but was very grateful for the kind hospitality. That hospitality continued through the baklava that was on the table. She offered me a piece of it, and I gotta say, that was the best baklava I've ever had. Absolutely delicious.

Continuing watching the tiramisu show and observing the family, eventually grandma came in with a few sweets and gifts for the kids and joined in on the watching. We had a small interaction that quickly jumped to the Ukraine War and how Russia is bad. Very adamant feelings, and I completely agreed with the scary and troubling situation, and for me it was interesting and reassuring to hear that mindset, especially in a country that is/was in a similar situation.

Eventually, the nice lady came in after finishing getting the room ready, so I finished my coffee, thanked the family for their hospitality, and headed down to the room. Once there, I got a bit situated, was surprised by an older gentlemen who welcomed himself into my room to say hi and leave, and then got my adventure bag ready to go walk around town. The weather was kinda shit, but I wanted to take advantage of the last few hours in town, despite the cold.

From the hotel/lodging I headed out and headed north towards town. It was around/a little after midday at that point, and I was hungry. Stemming off the tips from the "What to do in Batumi with rainy weather" article I'd read before, I made my way off to an eatery that caught my eye. Eventually, my route took me up near the outside of downtown and off along a pretty evident shopping street. There were vendors setup all along the street, despite the rain/snow mix, and people bustling in a fairly subdued fasion.

Keeping an eye on my map, I eventually made it to the storefront that matched the picture. I have no idea what the name of the place was, but I walked in and was greeted to a small dining area with a few tables and a few people strewn about, and an adjoining kitchen. I walked up, struggled to but eventually ordered three Khinkali, and found a place to sit. I guarantee I was being watched the whole time (as I yet again stuck out like a sore thumb, I can be good at that), and waited.

It was a bit steamy in the shop, but damn it smelled good. I was eventually joined at my table by another guy, and I sat further in decent silence as I waited. Eventually, my target, goal, and culinary delight arrived. Khinkali are essentially dumplings, but a little soupy, and hot as shit. The kind kitchen lady dropped them off at the table, and I was unsure of how they're normally attacked, but grabbed my utensils, and the shaker jar of whatever spice was on the table, and I was ready to go.

HOLY SHIT did I stumble upon an absolute treat. Warm, flavorful, hearty, steamy, and downright fucking delicious. I dove into the first and was immediately in love with the killer dumpling thing right in front of me. Only regret was that I only ordered three!

No lie, I was one happy camper slowly but eagerly snacking away on my Khinkali. Seriously, such a hearty meal with so much spice and flavor was an absolute treat to my tongue. I was really quite in the zone with my food, but during my meal the guy sitting across from me busted out a bit of his English (no hope for me and my Georgian... Sorry buddy...) and we had a quasi conversation! Delightful to see sparks of joy and curiousity from others, despite my language handicap in a foreign land.

I savored every bit of the doughy, meaty, spicy, soupy goodness that was present in those incredible Khinkali. Seriously, what a damn good find. But as with all good food, eventually it was all gone. I was sad. But damn glad I stumbled upon such an incredible source of deliciousness!!!

From the hole in the wall, it was time to head off and walk. I had my 'new' camera on me, and was ready to capture a few pictures of Beautiful Batumi in the cold, grey, snowy day. So off I was. Despite the wintery day, I had a nice time trying to stay warm while wandering around town. No joke, I would love to come back to Batumi, and Georgia as a whole, with a little better weather to wander around, experience the neature, and dive further into the culture here. But to summarize, here are abunch of pictures from my walk around town.

Once it got too cold for me to handle any longer, I dove into town on the hunt for a warm place and a cold beer. Just my luck, there was a perfect spot for just that not too far away. And adding to my luck, it was a craft beer bar - Sami Ludi (Georgian for Three Beers). Can't go wrong with that!

Walked in and got myself a delicious stout to start, and headed up to the small loft to dry off, warm up, and take a nice load off. The beer was fantastic, and local, and another nice safe-haven from the boring beer back in Deutschland. I took my time and made this a nice, long pit-stop. A couple thick, dark beers, a good bit of reading (my essentially vacation-only activity, still need to change that), and some absolutely killer cheese balls of sorts. Really awesome place to stop off and relax.

From my delicious beers and cheese balls, I was back out and walking. There was still a little daylight left, and although I was a little aimless, I continued to stroll through the main part of downtown, then made my way back out to the shoreline of the Black Sea as the sun continued its journey down. It was a crisp evening, so I soaked up what I could as I walked along.

My walk slowly wound me back to my room at the guest house, and I got in and took a load off. After some sitting/napping around, I got some packing down, and then decided to pop back out to find some dinner. Soon enough, I'd finished that up, was pooped from the day, and came back to hit the sack.

The next morning was time for my flight back home, and I was kinda ready for it. Weird trip, some unexpected revelations, and despite being in a new country I would absolutely love to explore, the trip was short and I didn't have a lot of time to be able to dive into it as I would've liked. With my stuff all packed, I headed out from the friendly guesthouse, and started walking toward the airport. I still had a a few Lari on me, but was trying to save some money for some reason.

Eventually, I was tired of walking, kept looking at my watch every couple minutes, and was ready to get to the airport to make sure I didn't miss my flight. At the next big intersection, I snagged myself a taxi, settled on a good price, and we were off. What would've taken me another at least 40min to walk took a good 5 in the car. I jumped out, grabbed my stuff, and shortly thereafter was all checked in and through security. I wasted my last few Lari on some oreos and a drink, and soon enough, we were boarding and headed back West.

A quick (compared to the trip there) layover in Istanbul with some coffee and people-watching, and soon enough I was back up in the air and headed to back to Stuttgart. I was pretty enthralled by a movie (either Dune or Tenet, both excellent films), but when I opened the window I was just catching the tail end of the Alps! Beautiful scenery, as always. Then shortly thereafter, we flew right over Reutlingen, an old place I'd visited a few times and shared the birds-eye view with my CBYX crew, before landing back in Deutschland.

As I mentioned, overall, it was a weirder trip than I anticipated. The country was fantastic - delicious and flavorful food, friendly people, beautiful nature (when not covered in clouds), and the impression of tons of history from many eras around every corner. It was weird though because of how things shook down between my buddy and I. Unexpected, and a bit of a bummer.

Either way, I would LOVE to go back to Georgia. Batumi was just a taste, and I caught it on a cold stretch. The nature there is supposed to be incredible, and the excursion I had into the culinary side of life there only makes me want more! Not sure when that'll take place, but I look forward to jumping back into Georgia!

A Quick Week

Once I got back to Germany, I only had a little over a week before my next big adventure. For the most part, that week was just filled with work and prep for the upcoming workshop. Blahblahblah work, same old same old.

From the snippets of stuff that I do remember, I did a little grocery shopping to hold me over for the week, and while I was cruising through Kaufland in the beer section, I saw something that surprised me. The local main brewery does a Beer of the Month, where they try and branch out from the boring typical German beer selection. This one was interesting, because they were trying out an Imperial Stout. Dark, thick beers are not typical in Germany, but they're my favorite, so naturally I had to give it a try. One fine, beautiful night, I snagged a döner, had my Sky Valley Sriracha ready to go, and found out that they actually did a decent job with an Imperial Stout. Needless to say, I was surprised and happy.

Last year, Europe was hit with a wall of sand that was blown up from the Sahara desert. I remember that, because I found that so absolutely crazy that sand from the middle of Africa had found its way up to Europe! Continental earth works isn't a normal thing, so seeing the sky tinted orange and sand all over the ground (and snow at that time) was quite a surprise.

Well, as nature would have it, we had another go-round of Saharan Sand being blown up the hemisphere! It was a rainy day, and I was confused as to why things were getting so dark before sundown. Well, turns out a wall of sand can do a pretty good job blocking out the sun. By the end of the day, I got to see this coming out to Rupert to head home. Luckily enough it was just a few days after I'd gotten him all washed and cleaned up too...

The main thing I did in that week was pack. Pack for what? My next trip back home! The workshop on the calendar was with the team back in Portland in Portland/Madras, and I was headed back for it along with two coworkers and my boss. I did my best getting some goodies and things prepped to take back, get everything packed and ready to go, and it slowly came together.

One aspect of all of this was biking. Oh yeah, a couple months prior I'd put in an order for a new bike frame, and over those couple of months I'd done a ton of parts ordering to get everything ready to bolt on once the new frame had arrived. Long story short, it came that week, I started to build it up in the hopes of taking it with to the US, but made a dumb mistake on a crucial part that halted the whole build. That really pissed me off and bummed me out, but after some waffling I got to packing up my old new bike to get it ready to take home.

The bike bag I've got is pretty wicked. I took my time getting used to it, as this was the first time I'd actually used it other than to move. It took a little time to figure out. But the thought put into getting a full mountain bike packed and snuggled up to protect it from plane flights and who knows what else is pretty ingenious. Soon enough, the Transition was strapped in and ready to go, and shortly thereafter, so was everything else! I got mad lucky with this too, because since work paid for the flights, it was Business class. And with Business class you get 70lbs for check bags instead of 50lbs, and holy hell that makes a huge difference!

The night before I flew out was a Wednesday, which is the typical night I meet up with Christoph and Micha. The weather was great, and Micha was recovered from Covid but still not feeling fully fit, so we opted to use the good weather to have the first barbecue of the year in Micha's garden. It was seriously a perfect day for it, and after I got all my last-minute prep work done for the trip, I headed to the grocery store to get the grilling goods, and was having a wonderful pedal through the sun and blue skies.

The afternoon and evening was perfect for a grill-out, and it was great to see my buddies once again. It'd been a bit of a while since our last meetup, so catching up and hearing what'd been going on with each of them was nice. The meat was delicious, beers cold, and a great night was had. Such a great way to wrap things up in Germany before flying out. I didn't stay too long, as I had an early departure the next day, but time to hang out with friends is always a great way to fill up your soul.

Home Trip 2022 - Constant Chaos in Motion

Spark Notes - The Polarsteps Journey

That next morning I was up at 03:00 to head out. I was flying out of STR and had the same deal where I had someone pick up my car from the terminal to park it somewhere for the 5 weeks I'd be back home. In the interest of brevity, I'm gonna make this portion just a spark notes explanation of what I actually all got into. More emphasis on what I was feeling and such rather than what I did. Not sure how that'll play out, but the goal is to make this not a novel but a brief roundup of what all went down. That sound gouda?

To start, DeGaulle Airport sucks major ass. I'd never flown through there before, and their layout, flow, and just overall setup is just plain terrible. I got through it, had little time to spare, and eventually got into my lay-flat seat to soak in the luxury side of travel to get me back stateside.

As always, business class is fucking amazing. Good food, good wine, the ability to sleep, just fantastic.

Every time flying back to the PNW is a fucking treat. What makes it better? When there are no clouds and blue skies out so you can see all the mountains :-)

I got in town on a Thursday and since my flights were delayed, ended up just heading to the hotel to rest. Didn't get much sleep. But that's how it goes. Friday, I had to get up early and get a drug test done so I could be re-entered into the company driver pool. Once that was out of the way, I headed into my old office.

Turns out, with VPNs and slow global internet connections, it takes about a half an hour for my german laptop to log-in in the US. After a while I was done with that and tired, so I headed out for an early lunch. Time to start the culinary side of the trip, and to kick things off, Khao Soy from Mee Dee Thai.

Next up, time to kick off the friend tour of the trip! Sam and Morgan live in the neighborhood, and I'd been itching to see them, so I just popped on over for a surprise! After shooting the breeze for a good bit and seeing how they were doing, Morgan headed out for some errands and Sam and I got our walk on, heading to Stormbreaker then Ex Novo to start the beer tour of the trip. Such a cool fucking dude, great beers, and a perfect day to wander around, chat about life, hard decisions, and big events, and see such a great friend!

Saturday was the kick off for the bike tour of the trip! Andy and Joel, one waiting on a child any day at that point, and the other with a lively 2-year-old were able to squeeze out a free morning to jump out with me to Sandy Ridge for some riding. It was a bit damp, but damn I forgot how great those trails are! Fast as shit flying down Two Turntables back on the trails with my buddies, I was happy as a clam to be home. Time to catch up with both of them and what's going on in their lives, time to get some beautiful PNW air, time to shred some incredible PNW dirt, just a great way to start the weekend.

That night I headed down to SE to celebrate again with Sam for his birthday! Great timing to give the little kniving devil a few shots to celebrate - just what he likes! We killed some Ranch Pizza at Baerlic, then wandered around to a few bars before ending up at a patio on Hawthorne. Unfortunately, the night ended with a sour note as Kurdi gave Sam a bear-hug that turned into a pile driver, but all is well that ended well, kinda. Bummer to see the birthday boy down for the count to round things out. But I had a good time.

Sunday, back on the bikes! This time, I headed over to Colin's place to join up with him, Clayton, and Lindsay! We got some big hugs and smiles in before loading up and heading out to Syncline on another beautiful day on the Gorge. I forgot how awesome those trails were too! We got in a couple laps, pet some gorgeous dogs, and enjoyed the beautiful day before Clayton ran into some drivetrain trouble, but hot damn what a great group of people on some great trails!

After we got back to Portland and I got myself cleaned up, I was feeling some energy, so I grabbed my camera and did a little walkabout in my old hometown. The weather was muted but sunny, the cherry blossoms were a-blooming, and as always, it was a joy to feel my cool town. Damn I miss Portland. Continued the beer (Iceberg beer/margarita) and food (Mac & Cheese and a Fried Chicken Sammich) at Bunk Bar to add to the incredible culinary delights of my trip. Here's a bunch of pictures of town :-)

Monday, back to work. I headed into the office for the day to get some stuff done, and my boss and coworker arrived that afternoon. After I wrapped up my stuff, they came down to HQ so I could give them a 'tour' (I hate being tour guide) before we headed to the hotel. They were up for a walk before dinner, so we toured around the Pearl District before heading to Deschutes for some beers and food. Dinner was great, and the beers were too, but that started my complete anger/frustration with my boss being there with his incredibly arrogant/German mindset just shitting on the US the entirety of his time there. Not a happy camper with that.

Tuesday, it was off to Madras! A few meetings to start the day, then some lunch and off we headed back to my old stomping grounds. We roadtripped out there in true fashion and took the long route to include some great views of the gorge, the trucks, and the mountainous scenery. But with that, it was the start of the testing workshop. What does that mean? Long days, a good bit of driving, and good food and beer to wrap up each night. Just had to do my best to not have to deal with my annoying boss throughout it. Great to have my coworker balance things out who was actually trying to experience things and have some fun with the gang.

As luck would have it, I was able to break away one evening to head down to Bend and see the wonderful McVays! That power couple had just recently grown their family with new baby Callan, so I got to see the whole family growing and killing it, as they always do. Such great, awesome, and generous people.

In case you didn't know the McVay's are absolutely INCREDIBLE cooks. Just downright incredible. They had some pulled pork tacos whipped up with lime pound cake to finish it all off to feed us. Holy shit was it good. The cherry on top? They packed me a bunch of leftovers to take with me. So friendly, so down to earth, so funny, and such great people to see and be with! Also, beer opener on the dog's collar. Ryan, you're a Genius! (And a killer brewer - go check out Three Creeks in Sisters, OR and say hi to Ryan for me!)

Back to Portland for the weekend, and it was time to take a chill day to see some friends. First up was Friday night, and I headed over to Yann der Mann to see him getting all settled into Portland! He'd recently moved over from Stuttgart, so it was great to see him all snuggled up in his new digs with Klara. We walked around and headed over to Spitz for some delicious grub, and chatted the night away. Great times with a great dude!

Rather than having to play tour guide (I was able to write-up a long-enough list for my boss and coworker to keep em busy), Saturday continued the friend visits. An early and lazy morning before grabbing some killer Nong's Khao Man Gai and heading out to St. Johns to see Josef. Poor guy was having some massive back problems, but I got to see him and catch up, meet his wife and puppy, and hear all about his new adventure! Glad to see him so positive and having such a great opportunity ahead of him.

After chatting for a good while in the sunlight, I said adios and headed down to my favorite bridge in town and the wonderful park right below it. While waltzing around on the pier, I was spontaneously chatted to by a guy from New York. He was also astounded by the bridge, and a nice little chat about bridges popped up out of the blue. The friendliness of folks is something I miss that you don't see in Germany.

Not wasting any time in the day, from St. John's I headed down to Southeast to meet up with the lovely Drew and McKenna, as well as their little one Maizie and diva puppy Kingsley. Such a delight any time I'm able to see them! We headed to Olympia Provisions for some beers and food, but had to head over to another brewery down the street for an appetizer before we could get a table. So great to see them, see how quickly Maizie is growning up, and how they are thriving in life!

Sunday was time for a little nature. Alex Gibson and I joined up and headed over to Ramona Falls for some fresh air in the brisk April weather. Beautiful day, although muted, to get back to a great spot on Mt. Hood. Alex is a pretty incredible photographer (and as I'd learn, also an incredible painter!), so we took turns snapping shots along the way. We were ready for a longer route, but the trail we wanted to take was closed down, so we opted for a shorter loop and polished things off with some stick-to-your-ribs homecooked food at the Zig-Zag Cafe on the way out. Another great day in the PNW with a great buddy.

That Monday it was back out to Madras with the gang. This week was a little mixed, as we had three days in Madras planned out, and then Thursday/Friday was a road trip up through Washington and back to Portland. Another pretty good week of work despite the ignorant german boss presence and management dog and pony show. But the road trip turned out great. Great weather with a great group of folks touring around the NW. Had an interesting time parking up at Snoqualmie Pass for the night, but that led to some great views in the morning at the top and on the way down into Seattle. A great end to another work week at DTNA.

From work to the weekend, I had a real quick turnaround. As soon as we were done with the wrap-up from the road trip, I jumped in the car and headed back out to Richland (where we passed through a day before) to go hang out with my little sister!!! I rolled in late and met up with her and some friends at the bar for a drink before heading to her place to crash.

Saturday we got a little adventurous. After a very lazy rise and shine and some delicious breakfast at the nearby diner, we jumped in Stella and motored on down to the Mighty Columbia (after getting the required liquid sugar for the morning), specifically to the Twin Sisters. A rock formation of two towers right over the water, we hiked and scrambled around to get some good views of the massive trains coming and going from Richland and the gigantic river itself.

On the way back, we drove by something you'd NEVER see in Germany. Acres upon acres of cattle feed lots. The air was rancid and dear god what a giant operation just to provide the country with beef.

The next stop was another place you'd never find in Germany, but unfortunately so at that - a giant mexican supermarket. Holy spaceballs was it heaven. Piñatas, Mexican Coca-cola, chorizo, everything!!! Even an entire aisle of hot sauces!!! How is this thing not everywhere!!!

After that, it was back to the Country Mercantile. We'd stopped there for lunch on our work road trip, but the place is too good to not go again and again. That and when we were there on Thursday, I told the guy at the ice cream counter I'd be back. Couldn't break that promise. And boy did they deliver, with a helluva shake named something like Chocolate Death. Fuck was it good.

After a low-key drive through the outskirts of Richland, we wandered back to her place with a load of apathy and lethargy in tow. Not sure what to do, we jumped onto Netflix and dove into the world of Formula 1 with Drive to Survive. I'd never really paid attention to F1, but what an insane sport. Billions of dollars shoveled into it every year to shuttle cars and people all around the world to drive insanely fast in insanely built cars. Crazy stuff. But we cruised through a half a season of that and then moped around before bed.

Sunday was wine day! My little sister is quite the wine afficionado, so of course when in Rome... This little excursion took us out toward Easter Washington Wine Central, just south of Walla Walla. We were out there a little early, so Paula took us on a bit of a drive through the area, and showed me that there is a Stateline Road, which is literally the border between Oregon and Washington. Cool stuff.

Before long, our appointment arrived. We headed over to Caprio Cellars and Peewee got to schmooze and booze with the best of them in her second home. I've never been one to be able to distiguish the intricate notes and flavors of wine (or anything for that matter) - I can tell if it tastes good or bad. And this stuff tasted pretty good. I can see why Paula likes this place. Well I got a great little history of the winery (partly through Peewee and part through the nice lady serving us), had a few delicious wine samples, and got to see Peewee a good bit in her element. A lovely stop with the little sis. :-)

With some reds and whites in us, we motored over to the delightful little town of Walla Walla, WA. Weirdly enough, I almost went to college there, but we cruised through the main drag and then hopped into a bakery for a sammich and soup. Nothing like something warm on a bit of a grey day. But from there it was back to Richland, and soon after, I hit the road headed back to Portland.

It was a quick trip, but so great to see my little sister in her element. A lot going on, but she's one helluva strong woman and finding ways to tackle every problem that comes her way. No surprise there!

On the route back to Portland, I made one quick stop just outside of Biggs Junction, but on the Washington side of the river. Up on the bluff is a replica of Stonehenge meant to commemorate the many soldiers from the region who fought and lost their lives in WWI. I stopped and explored the solumn monument in the gorgeous area, and enjoyed the fresh air as it blew down the gorge.

The week that followed was a bit of a mixed week, my last work week while in town. But instead of all of it in Portland, I mixed it up with a little Home Office from my Mommy's place in Tacoma :-) Happy I was able to squeeze in a little more family time. But while I was in Portland, I discovered a goddamn hidden gem.

I was off to Andy and Megan's place after work to hang out, chat, catchup, and meet their little baby Mika, and had to pick up some pizzas on the way. No sweat. Stopped by Lucky Lab and asked where I could pick up some beers. The nice gal mentioned John's Marketplace, sounded like a corner store, just down the street. Well I have NO idea how I never knew about this place when I lived there, but John's Marketplace has literally more beer variety in one store, than in the entire country of Germany. I'm completely convinced of that. It's beer nirvana, so I snagged a mix-and-match six pack of all the good ales and stouts that don't exist in Europe. Hot damn was I in luck.

By Wednesday or something I was up in Tacoma area with the family. Not gonna lie, it was annoying to have to break off from family time to have some work stuff to do, but at least it enabled me to have a little more time with everyone!

I was only up with the gang for a couple days, but we got into a nice routine of entertaining my niece and nephew, and then fitting things to do in between all that. Not gonna lie, having kids is one hellva job, and my sister is killing it taking care of those two. So me and my Mommy jumped in to support where we could. To cap it all off, before I headed back down to Portland for another week of work, it was the neighborhood easter egg hunt and what a pile of madness. Eggs riddling the ground of the park with cordoned off areas by age, it was a mad dash once the gates opened, and extremely funny to watch.

Back down to Portland for another week of work. This week included some more of Madras, so Monday morning I was on the road with a truck out to the high desert for some more testing. Even though it was April, there was still some cold snaps and snow coming down. But we got our testing done on a sunny day and all was well. I headed back to Portland on a Wednesday or Thursday rather than staying out there the whole week, and got to slog a truck through the pass through a gentle bout of snow.

Once back in Portland, I had some shopping to do. There was a trip on the calendar the next week that was unanticipated, and it required some decent attire. I didn't pack anything business-like for the trip, so I headed to Nordstrom Rack to solve that. Not gonna lie, I was pretty proud of myself for being able to find a full wardrobe in half an hour. Of course, I had the incredible assistance of my Fashion Squad (aka Mommy and sisters), but in half an hour I had a shirt, pants, and dress-ish shoes and was ready to go. Go me.

But the real reason I got back to Portland early was for something that had been missing in my life since Covid hit. Live Music. I scouted the venues for good shows while I was in town, and although I missed a couple due to the show being sold out or not being in Portland on a specific night, I was able to line up a show to see The Dip at the Wonder Ballroom. Holy hell yeah. What a breath of life back into me!

To start, The Dip is a great band. Great vibes, great tunes, all fantastic. The Wonder Ballroom - a super awesome venue. Small, intimate, quaint, perfect spot for a show. Add it all up, and it being the first show I'd been to since Q1 2020, hot damn was it a recipe for success. I jumped in, got me a PBR, and cheersed to the great tunes and finally being able to see some live music after over two years of pandemic life. Love it.

Friday was the start of my actual vacation time! To start I had to go drop off the rental car at the airport, and then from there I made my way down to the train station. Amtrak is nowhere near as comfortable or smooth a ride as the Deutsche Bahn (even with all the problems and complaints with DB), but I had a seat from Portland to Olympia to meet back up with the family for the week! It was a quick 2-ish hour ride, and soon enough, I was greeted by Nana (Mommy) and Jeffrey at the train station ready to pick me up!

Now, untethered to work for the next week, and now with the addition of Peewee in town, it was time for some max family time. And the PNW brought out some great weather for it! Over the week, we got in a lot of family phun thymes, with a whole range of activities. Including... hanging out in the backyard with a little campfire:

Going for a 'hike' at Dash Point with the whole fam, but first with a stop down at the water with Mom and Peewee.

A visit to Lattin's Cider Mill for some INCREDIBLE donuts and apple cider, as well as time feeding all the animals and watching the little kidlets get scared of a few of the birds and their loud noises. Seriously, did I mention how good the donuts and cider are?

A jaunt down to the Boston Harbor Marina for some tidepool adventuring and time just watching the light waves roll in. Such a relaxing spot to sit, feel the ocean breeze, watch the boats come and go, and just take the world in one slow second at a time.

A delightful walk with the best Mommy ever over in Enumclaw on an overcast day along a delightful path with some beautiful neature along for the ride. All that followed up by an absolutely killer bagel and schmear at a cafe in Enumclaw, seriously, Mommy time is always the best. (I can't wait for September!!! :-D )

And even a great little bike ride around Fort Steilacoom Park! Jeffrey's been getting pretty good at his biking skills, and Harmony's slowly getting less scared of life on two wheels. But a nice little jaunt around the park was a great time to get some fresh air through pedal power.

Well, going back a bit, why did I have to go buy myself a whole new wardrobe for while I was in town? For a job interview, no less. When I landed in late March, I was contacted by an old coworker who essentially offered me a job at Nikola Motors in Germany. Part of that, and going through the process, included a couple interviews, one in Ulm when I get back to Germany, but one in Phoenix while I was still in the states.

So that Wednesday night, I jumped on a plane down to the desert in prep for an interview on Thursday. Got in late Wednesday and early Thursday I was off to the interview. Overall, the day went really well. I'll touch on this later, but I saw a lot of good things while I was down there. And it was an absolute blast to catch back up with some great former coworkers in John and Shane. Definitely a great experience, and made the decision process in my head even more difficult as I was pondering what to do.

But as I said, the interviews went really well. Very laid back process, and lot of me asking questions, definitely feeling like I'm in the driver's seat, and that was nice to see how motivated, engaged, energetic, and excited everyone was about their company and product (something Diamler doesn't have). But I got done early, headed over to the airport, and got lucky to get on an earlier flight back to Washington. But the best part about that? The pilot was handing out WINGS!!!!!! I felt like a little kid!!!

That night, I got back to Mom's place and Peewee and Alicia were there, so it was a night to just hang out, chat, and be together. Very relaxing, and a great way to be together.

The next day was Friday, and unfortunately the end of family time. But not without a little fanfare. Mommy had a birthday coming up, so of course we had to celebrate! And what better way to do so than with the whole family, a bunch of donut holes, waffles, candy, and some good times all around. We love you Mommy :-)

After the birthday fanfare was done, we hung around a bit, and then I caught a ride with Mommy back down to Portland. I didn't fly out til that Monday, but I had some riding planned out with some buddies to send me off in PNW dirt style. But Mom drove me down to Portland where I snagged a quick rental car and cheap motel, then we wandered around for a bit. She had a few errands to run while down in the no-sales-tax paradise of Oregon, and while we were out and about I added a pit-stop at John's Marketplace to the itinerary for a great beer and snack. Had to spread the gospel of the place, and even she was surprised neither I nor she knew of this place while either of us lived in town! Good to have it on the map though.

Again, time with Mommy is always nice. That's one of the many reasons why living so far away sucks. She had work the next day, so unfortunately the time together had to end at some point. She dropped me off at my motel and headed back up to Washington, and I got started getting ready for a shreddy weekend.

Shreddage Day 1 - The Boys at Black Rock. Easily one of my favorite places to ride in the PNW, and me, Andy, Joel, John, and Dolby the pup headed down amidst the rain, clouds and wet dirt to shred it up. Such a great place to ride, with great trails, features, and fun the whole way. I've had some pretty nasty wrecks there, so we kept it pretty tame - except for the cans of bread we crushed throughout the day at the trucks, on the trails, and after the riding. Nothing like a little Vitamin R to fuel a killer day on the trails. ;-)

As is required after every visit to Black Rock, it was time for Tacos. From the best taco truck in Oregon, if not the West Coast, if not the US. It's a personal shame that this was the only time I'd made it down during the five weeks I was in town, but I stocked up. Tripa Burritos, cold or hot, are the absolute bomb. I got a couple and relished every second of deliciousness this place provides. And to add the cherry on top of the cake, the SALSA BAR WAS BACK!!!!!

Once I got back to Portland I headed to SE to see Drew and McKenna once more, and got to join in on some chaotic painting with Maizie! They had butcher paper covering the kitchen table and plates of paint, and it became a total free-for-all. Good times catching up, painting, and see them all once again!

For Sunday, it was time to head the other direction, this time out to Mt. Hood and another one of my favorite riding places in the area - Post Canyon. Mitchell Ridge has been on my mind constantly in Germany, and there was no way I could be back in town without giving that amazing trail another ride! So Andy and Joel along with Colin and Geoff jumped along for the ride to enjoy an absolutely picture-perfect day out in The Gorge.

After a good long 7ish miles of all uphill, we finally made it to the top. Secret Trail, Hidden Trail, amongst a few others, and finally to Mitchell Ridge. What a stellar combination of trails! Incredible roots and rocks, steep descents, fun drops and jumps, just a killer combo of everything. But we finally got to Mitchell Ridge and it was time to ride!

Another incredible day of riding with some absolutely incredible friends. So glad I was able to squeeze in a few more days on the incredible trails of the PNW with these awesome people, and you guessed it, another reason why it's so hard being so far away from home.

With all the fun, visits, adventures, and travels up, it was time to gear up for my trip back home. I got back to my motel, and it was time to start jamming everything back into suitcases. Not an easy task, so it took me a while to get everything situated and arranged, but I somehow got it all back in and within weight (thank god for Business Class...).

Monday was departure day. I had a few things to wrap up at work, but overall had a pretty relaxed morning. I finished up with work stuff and then had a bit of time to kill before heading to the airport. I found myself at an overlook over town to take in Portland once more before jetting off. From there, it was off to the airport, and from PDX to SEA to AMS to STR, hours later I was back in Germany. Damn it's hard leaving home, more on that later...

Back in Germany - Birthday Month

I got back to Germany on a Tuesday after leaving on a Monday, and by then the best month of the year, May, was already well underway.

Interview in Ulm

The day after I landed it was already back to work. I'm realizing I like to punish myself like that way too much - intercontinental trip, no time to adjust for jet lag, and right back at work the next day. I gotta stop that. Well, it was a short work week, as I'd taken Friday off to head down to Ulm for the second set of interviews with Nikola.

It was an easy drive over, and thankfully had no traffic, so I got into town a little early and drove around to get acquainted with the city through a short drive. Then it was time to head to the interview; I showed up and the location was very industrial. To help, Nikola is in a joint venture with Iveco, a german-based truck manufacturer, and the Nikola facilities are in a section of the Iveco facilities. I showed up, talked to the guy at the gate, and neither he nor I had a way to reach out to the Nikola folks on site. Pretty great start.

But the guy I was supposed to meet up with thankfully decided to meet me at the gate, so he came in and saved the day and we got the interview going. The first part was a tour through the factory, including the Nikola assembly line, which was pretty new, impressive, clean, and ready to build. Then the second half was the leader of the Nikola Germany division. He was out not on holiday but working from afar, but we had a nice interview, learning about his plan for the department and future for the role. So overall, the interview went really well and it put me in line to make a very tough decision.

After the interview, I was internally torn. I knew I had a big decision ahead of me, and was pretty conflicted. So what do I do when I'm confused, torn, and unsure of what to do? I take a nap. Found an empty parking lot, laid back the driver's seat, and knocked out for a while with the light drizzle coming down. Seriosuly, sleep is always the answer.

Waking up, I knew I wanted to get a little bit acquainted with the town of Ulm. From my basic research, I knew it was a smaller town than Karlsruhe, but wanted to see what it was like. So I headed towards downtown, found a place to park, and started wandering around. First stop, the main square.

My adventuring was a little aimless. I had the overall goal to get acquainted with the city itself, but how do you do that in just a short visit? Is it possible to get an idea of what a city would be like to live in, without actually living there for a while? Essentially my research just boiled down to walking around the town and getting a vibe.

The end result - Ulm seems like a really gorgeous, quaint town. As I said, it's smaller than Karlsruhe, only about 100,000 people. But the city center was quite pretty. I walked around the waterfront, weaved my way through the pedestrian zone, and found a comfy spot in the square to watch people go about their business on the nice Friday afternoon. After hanging out for a while, I wrapped up and headed home, with a lot to think about on the drive back.

Back to Immendingen - Test Trip

Remember last year where I had to go away for a test trip on my Birthday? Well, thankfully that test trip took place a week early, so I didn't have to waste a birthday week!

But first, due to an immigration appointment, I had an appointment to hand over some pictures and fingerprints for my visa renewal. Well, in the short of it, I dread having to deal with any governmental agency in Germany. They're slow, unfriendly, lethargic, and completely lack any empathy or understanding for who or what they're dealing with. But with a nice twist of fate, this was actually a pleasant experience!

To start, the person I was dealing with was not a German. Sounds terrible, but that is a HUGE help. I walked in, started speaking German, and the guy saw my US Passport and immediately switched to English. Turns out he's from Bosnia that lived in the US for 20 years and immediately put me in a mentality of being back home with open and friendly interaction. Nice.

We started going through the process, and he quickly told me that the pictures I had weren't valid. (I tried to re-use the pictures from 2 years ago, but he sniffed that out real quick. Damnit.) Well, if this was a standard interaction, the German behind the desk would say "Sorry, these photos are not valid and I cannot accept them. Because of that we cannot complete the task at this appointment, please reschedule a new appointment and be sure to acquire valid photos before then. Goodbye.".

BUT! Fear not dear readers! Our lovely help behind the desk this go-round flipped the script and saved my skin. Instead of kicking me out, he said no worries, these pictures are old and won't work but here's what we can do. I'll finish all the paperwork and have it ready here at the desk, but you (me) head down to the next photo shop, get some new pictures made, and then come back. When you come back, if I'm with someone else, just wait. But as soon as I'm free, come on in, hand me over the pictures, and we'll be all squared away. Holy shit how nice!!!

So I left, walked down to the nearest photo store and was met by a very frumpy old man who begrudgingly took my picture. With the pics, I walked back to the office, handed the pictures off, and I was done! New visa is on the way (a month and a half later and I'm still waiting...). Seriously, such a difference having someone understanding, flexible, and empathetic behind the counter...

With that all squared away, it was off to Immendingen. I got the nice new GLB to cruise on down, and the beauty of it is, as long as there's little traffic, there are a few stretches on the route with no speed limit. You know what that means - light it up baby... Bummer is, someone screwed with the parameters and had winter tires still active on the parameter set, which speed-limits the car to 200kmh (125mph). Damnit. Found out later the team jokester Thomas likes to do that on the department cars just to confuse people. What a jerk.

But the test workshop went well. It was a couple days, busy as hell as the PassCar folks were infesting the whole test area (it's their facility, but still), but we were able to get some stuff done. It was warm and sunny for most of it too, so that was ok. Outside of work, we stayed down in Radolfzell on the Bodensee, so even though it was a 40min drive to the hotel, evenings were really nice near the water.

All the fun points of the week down there were all thanks to the jokester Thomas mentioned earlier. Part one, some doughy nuts in a semi truck.

And then adding to the fun, Thomas spotted a crate of test dummies the PassCar team looked to be getting rid of. No use letting those go to waste, so he snagged a couple for us to take home as our new test mascots. Look at this proud goofball. :-)

Ettlingen Ride Day

Back in Karlsruhe, it was time to start the party and drag it on as long as possible. First up was a pre-Birthday ride to learn me some new trails in Karlsruhe. They're illegal, but my buddy Stefan knows all the good stuff nearby, and it was time to dive into those with him.

It was a warm, sunny, and gorgeous Saturday, so we headed on our steeds and worked our way down towards Ettlingen. Through our little ride we hit up all four of the new (illegal) trails, and what a group of natural trails. Some good features and roots and chutes, and all that good stuff. Once we knocked all the trails out of the park, we cruised on through Ettlingen and hit up my favorite part of town there - the ice cream shop. Perfect way to polish off a great ride, the last ride before a new horse came to town...

New Bike Day AND Birthday!!!

That Sunday, I only had one thing on my mind. It was time finally put the finishing touches on my new bike!!! It was nearly done, but the last few tweaks and parts still needed to be screwed on and put in place before she was completely ready to ride. But thankfully, that all went by quickly. Soon enough, I'd gone from a frame to a fully ready to shreddy new bike, my new RAAW Madonna V2.2. Let's Fucking. Go.

Holy shit you have no idea how stoked I was and am to have this ride ready to roll. It was a long drawn out build, pretty much thanks to my trip to the US and required shock rebuild, but damn what a ride. I'll never see it as clean as it was in these pictures, but that's not what it's meant to be or what it was built for. This thing was built and is ready to shred, ride, get dirty, eat rocks and shit roots, tackle all jumps, cruise down steep chutes, and take any and all terrain I put it through. It's a monster of a rig, and oh baby I'm ready to rock and roll with it!

And no sonner had I gotten that new steed ready to roll than it was time to break it in!!! My actual birthday was on a Wednesday. So rather than going in, I treated myself and opted to work from home, honestly for two main reasons. One, I was not planning on working a full day (TREAT YO SELF), so didn't want to waste part of it commuting. But second, I was still kinda salty from the Germanness experienced while in the US, so I stayed home to prevent the expectation that I (yes I the birthday boy) bring in cake for the rest of the office. I find that custom stupid to begin with, but add a little ire on top of it and there was zero interest in paying for sweets for my office to celebrate my birthday.

So after a quick half-day of work, it was time to get out and ride!!! Stefan was back from school early (oh the life of a teacher...), so by mid-afternoon it was time to take this Madonna out for its first paces on the trails. Hot damn was I stoked.

On the docket was the same route that Stefan and I hit up on Saturday - a re-run of the new (to me) trails in Karlsruhe. Benefit here was then a direct comparison between my old Transition Patrol and the new RAAW Madonna. To be honest, it took a little breaking into to start. First, the brake pads weren't fully seated. I was concerned as I wasn't getting much braking power on the first run, but after bedding them in on the pedal back up, the second run was much better, with that braking power more of what I expected.

At the top after the first run, Stefan gave me some great tips for setting up the suspension and getting them at the right rebound. I'm no pro at that stuff (actually completely oblivious to setting up suspension) but he showed me the tricks and the rough gauge of how to check if you're at the right setting. With his help, the settings seemed to be in a much better place, and the riding became even that much better after his help!

It was a dusty and hot ride, but despite the growing pains of a new bike to get used to, it was a fantastic way to break in the new ride! As you can imagine, since it was my birthday, we had to end things on a sweet note. Just like we did on Saturday, the end to the ride ended in Ettlingen, with the best ice cream in the Karlsruhe area. Oh yeah.

For more on the new bike, head over to the bikes section, RAAW Madonna V2.2 - 2022.

Once I got back from riding I cleaned up real quick and then had to get up and going for a birthday dinner. Not going out, but staying in and having Christoph and Micha over! I got the grill lit up, ready to go, and then started getting all the fixings ready. The menu for the night included steaks, grill cheese (think halloumi), elotes (corn with mayo, lime juice, and tajin sauce, thanks Andy and Megan!), a couple salads, beer, and great conversation.

Soon enough, the two rascals showed up, and we got to hanging out and grubbing up. Everything turned out pretty delicious, and we just hung out with the great food getting caught up. It'd been quite a long while since our last rendezvous, so we made ample use of the time getting acquainted with all that'd been going on with each of us the last few months. As always, a great time together, and such a great way to wrap up a great birthday. :-)

Postcard Wall Refresh

At some point, my giant corkboard got all filled up with postcards and cards and notes. Such a great feeling to see all the many lovely people that have reached out and sent notes of encouragement, adventure, well being, and thinking-of-yous over the 2.5 years I've been living over here.

But as I'm not moving any time soon (at least at the moment), I had to make room for whatever notes and cards and postcards could be showing up in my mailbox soon. So I pulled down what's there, kept the couple wedding invites up for the summer so I don't forget about em, but put up the couple new ones that have showed up. And you guessed it, Mommy started off the new set :-)

New Bike Weekend - Freiburg and Lac Blanc

Just a couple more days of work and it got me to the weekend. The plan - time to get Shreddy. Me, Stefan, Philipp, Matze, Lukas, and Eric, (most of the other guys new riding buddies) had setup a plan to get all kinds of shreddy, with a plan to hit every trail in Freiburg on Saturday, find a place to camp out, and then head over to Lac Blanc Bike Park on Sunday to really put our bikes through their paces.

Saturday morning, I picked up Stefan and we were off and running towards Freiburg. It was a hot day, and Freiburg has some pretty hefty climbs. But no worries. We were all hopped up and ready to ride, up and down. First up was the Canadian Trail. We pedaled up that grueling climb to the very tip top of the trail with the overlook, hung out for a bit, enjoyed the view, then started the descent. Killer trail. Tons of fun with a great group of riding buddies!

Around lunch time, we headed back to the cars and were greeted by Lukas and Matze rolling in and ready to join the crew. We grubbed up real quick and then headed across town to the other side of the trails. Another tough couple climbs, but we got up to the top, and were able to rock and roll down Baden to the Bone and Borderline, and goddamn I love both of those trails. Incredible to hit those up with the new ride.

By that time, we were all a good bit wiped. Thankfully, there's a perfect solution for that called the Biosk. Right next to the parking lot below Canadian, a little kiosk next to a park with all the right stuff waiting for us. We rolled up, laid our bikes down in the shade, and got squared away with some refreshments. Stefan set the perfect example and I followed suit - coffee, Apple/Grapefruit-schorle, Muffin, and Brownie. The perfect combination for a perfect time to lay back and relax in the shade.

Post-break, we had one more trail to head over and hit. Stefan had to ride off to his train, but me and the rest of the crew pedaled over to Hexentrail. This had another long climb (though not super steep thankfully) before we finally got to the top. The scenery was gorgeous, so we took a short break near the top to take it all in, but soon enough were off and running. Another fun trail on a gorgeous day. Once we got to the bottom, it was a laid back pedal back to the cars to decide next steps.

Once we got back to the cars, we switch from ride mode to food and camp mode. First, we needed food. Since we were all camping for the night, we had options. But after some discussion and in preference for quick results, we looked up the nearest döner shop, pedaled over, grabbed some grub, and then found a park to all gorge our faces on the european version of a burrito. Seriously, Döner is delicious, especially after a long day of biking and sweating. That's some good good grub.

Once dinner was set, we all jumped in our cars and drove over to France. It was only about an hour away, but Philipp had a good spot we could park and camp for the night with a great overlook in tow, so we headed that way. We didn't get in til after sundown, but after we got all parked and setup, we were able to watch some soccer before clocking out and heading to bed.

The next morning, it was an early rise with the gorgeous sunshine. The spot we camped was gorgeous, and we had a beautiful morning to enjoy with a nice german breakfast spread and some relaxed moods to start our day.

With breakfast squared away, it was off to go riding! The drive over to the bike park was longer than we thought, having to weave ourselves around the hills of the Alsace, but soon enough we rolled over and found a spot in the parking lot. Time to gear up. Soon enough, we were ready to roll. Hot damn was I fucking stoked!!!

Holy fucking shred factory Batman. Lac Blanc isn't a massive park, but it packs a shitton of fun. We got geared up and got in our first run, and by the time we were back down in the lift line, Stefan and Lisa were there so the whole gang was ready to shred!

What a great day. Laps and laps and laps and a whole mix of variety. I was really feeling La Roots (the technical trail) and got in some great laps down there, slowly getting back up to the form I was on the trails from last year. But La Fat was also getting ridden hard, and I got back to form on some of the fun jumps there too. Hot damn it's fun.

Unfortunately, on a full-on top-to-bottom run of La Roots, I had a bit of a crash on the rock garden. Didn't think anything of it, got up, pushed on, and got a PR on that fun trail. But when I got to the bottom, that crash left a mark, namely a nice few gouges on my fork stanchion. Needless to say I was very bummed and disappointed, but nothing I could do other than keep riding and try and fix it when I got home. Fucking bummer though dude...

I didn't let that hold me down though. Bummer for sure, but there was some more shreddage to cover, and we did just that. Was even able to nail down the Lift Drop a couple of times at the end of La Nuts. Needless to say, after such a long great weekend, I was really getting to like, know, and love my new ride.

Yes But Nau - Pen 15 and Back to Frisbee

After that incredible riding weekend, I got lucky because the following week was a short week - yet another one of the many holidays in Germany on the Thursday. Hell yeah. For this holiday week/weekend, I was invited to join the Pen15 All-Stars over in France for my first frisbee tournament in years! I was a little worried to see how useless I'd be on the field, but thankfully the team is about having a good time, playing hard, drinking and partying, and just enjoying the games and tournament and everything at hand. I was looking forward to the weekend for sure.

Things all got started on Tuesday night. I had a stressful day at work with some software integration and test drives offsite, but I got off and outta there with time enough to get home, finish packing, and head over to the east side of town to catch our little van heading out to Nantes. By 20:30 we were packed in, underway, and ready for a drive through the night to the French Coast. I had first drive shift, and with Guzzer as my co-pilot, we cruised through some tunes to get us the first four hours underway to our stop. There, we picked up Mischa outta Köln and continued on.

Trying to sleep in a moving car is never easy, and that held true for the industrial Stadtmobil we had as our transport. I got a couple hours maybe, but was in and out of consciousness the whole way. But soon enough, we rolled into Le Pouliguen right around sunrise. First stop was to step foot on the beach and let the town know Pen15 was there. The old man that just finished his morning stroll along the beach caught wind of us, and despite him only speaking French, we took it as a warm welcome to town.

Next step, breakfast. When in France, of course, one heads to the local bakery. It was a lazy jaunt through town to get to the only one open that early, but we arrived and found some pretty good goodies waiting for us behind the counter. The French and bakeries are a pretty damn good combination. We grabbed some goodies then walked back to the beach to enjoy our breakfast in the sun and sand.

After breakfast, unfortunately, Mischa and I had to head over to the tournament headquarters for a little work. Neither of us took the day off to save vacation hours, but that meant we were in for a few hours of meetings and emails and such. Thankfully the tournament knew we were coming and let us use their HQ near the beach to get some work done. No wifi, but we made do.

Another unfortunate/weird side of all this was a text I received from my supplier colleague while working. We were in a truck together all day the day before, and he ended up testing positive for COVID. I'd just drove through the night with a different set of dudes, and was going to be cramming into an apartment with that same set of dudes for the weekend. Worried was one thing, for me, but moreso for the potential to transmit it from me to everyone else while sleeping, eating, and hanging out with everyone in our accommodations.

It was a boring day, and hard and annoying because the other dudes were chilling, playing boule, and having a fun time, but we were stuck in the grind. The other guys went grocery shopping for our future appartymento, and that included stuff for lunch, so when midday came around we met up with the crew to grub out on the sand.

Post lunch we all were pooped. That meant the beach crew all passed out on the sand, and the office crew found a way in meetings to catch some shut-eye as well. Definitely necessary. Soon enough, the work day was done, meetings were over, and it was time to let the weekend roll!!!

It took a while, but we finally were able to get our appartymento through Nick, the really laid back Frenchman who showed up a little later than expected. I went with him to the building to see which apartments we were going to get for the weekend. After talking with the gang, I needed to be in sleep isolation, just so I didn't get anyone else sick while crashing for the night. That felt really weird, as I'm used to cramming with everyone into a small room for a whole tournament, but that's what it came down to. So I got the 2-person apartment to myself and made great use of the place the whole weekend. Then the rest of the team crammed into the 5-(8-)person apartment to share. Now we had some digs.

Time to start partying. True to frisbee form, it was a damn good time with the gang. I was new to the team, but knew most of the guys pretty well, so I seemed to gel in quite well with everyone, and I was having a good time being back in this vibe.

Well, rather than a big 'ole monologue about everything that was done this weekend, let me summarize it.

Frisbee Playing: we had four games on Thursday, won 'em all. And that was only with 8 guys at a 5v5 beach tournament. NOT an easy ask. But we gelled together real quick, made some great, consistent plays, had a couple freak athletes to really steal the show. Saturday was more of a mixed bag, going 2-2 against some pretty good teams. But what that means, is we put ourselves into the semi-finals! We played against a team we lost to and had a REALLY hard-fought game. Although we played Friday and Saturday with 9, we were on the ropes but gave everything we got and ended up winning the semis 10-9!!! Crazy hard game, but what a killer win!

Unfortunately, that made us all absolutely pooped, and the Finals were right up next against the other team we'd lost to. They had about 25 dudes, tall, fast, ready and eager to run. But we'd used all our energy in the semis. Long story short, we lost something like 15-3 (I threw a fucking callahan...), and were just outplayed and outran. It was hard. I had energy, body was ready, but was just slow as fuck.

Despite that unfortunate end, it was fun as shit to play with this team. I haven't played Frisbee in a good long while, but this was EXACTLY the constellation of frisbee I see myself playing. High-level competitive ultimate, people that always put having fun over getting too head-deep into the game, and just having a damn good time while doing all of it. As a clear sign of what I mean, we made it to the Finals, but more importantly won the spirit award (because we were the most spirited/fun/friendly team). Shots of schnapps and a dance for each team after every game helps, but that's just the cherry on top of how much fucking fun Pen15 is. Pen15 AllStars. Let's Go. Can't wait for next year.

My Playing: as I said, I was worried how I was going to play. It'd been over three years since my last tournament, and I hadn't run in a damn long while, let alone sprint, cut, throw, and do anything frisbee related. Well, turns out, I didn't do half bad. Holy balls sand is hard to run on, but I had a number of good throws (a number of really bad ones, too), some ok defense, but I was pretty surprised. The first couple games I had a couple really good shots, but that kinda petered out over the weekend. Overall though, not half bad. And I gotta say, the love for frisbee was re-awakened. I think I'm gonna start going back to training, see if this awesome sport gets back more of a hold on my life.

Pen15 Partying and Shenanigans: Pen15 is known for shenanigans, playing hard, and having a helluva a good time at the tournament - both on and off the field.

The first way that is accomplished is the post-game shenanigans. Schnapps for everyone, bongo drums, and custom tune, and getting to sharpie Pen15 really artistically on the opponent. It's a good time, and by the end of the tournament there were tons of random beachgoers that came up and filmed the process. Hard for people not to like you when you give them alcohol, sing to them, and get to draw all over their bodies! Especially when it leads to a nice tan-imprint through all the sun at the beach ;-)

Another way that is accomplished is through the drink suitcase that we whipped out at the tournament post-game dinners and at the party. A bunch of plastic waterbottles in a suitcase, all filled with a random combo of liquor and mixer. Take it, walk up to a group of people, have everyone pick a hose, and drink! Definitely not a covid-conform activity, but the alcohol disinfects, right?

I got put in charge of the drink case for the party, and did my best to spread the love. Walked up to a number of eager looking teams and had some good drinks and laughs with a bunch. Then our favorite team, Ouf out of France, was super up for it, some more than others. They were our first game of the weekend and ended up being a really fun bunch of folks. But the drink suitcase, a great way to break the ice and get the party started.

Pen15 Team Beach HQ: every day, we set ourselves up loud and clear for all to see with our Pen15 Flag and established a home base. Nice to have a spot to chill before, during, after games and really soak in the beach tourney environment. Of course our HQ was stocked with a few camp chairs, snacks, tons of beer (in small coolers), an ever present readiness for a round of Durak, and good vibes allllll day.

In all, the tournament was an absolute fucking blast. We played well despite being low on numbers, we had a fun time together as a team and with most of the other teams, the weather held out and had a good amount of sun, we made it to the finals and won the spirit prize, just a damn good time. Every morning was a relaxed breakfast with the team, we chilled and boozed out on the beach in between and after games, and I just can't state how much fun it was to be back playing frisbee, and especially to be playing with such a fun group of friends. Baus.

Well after the bummer of a loss in the finals, it was time to chill, hang out, and round out the weekend on the beach. We all ran into the water after the game and did our spirit circle in the ocean, but then it was time for beers, durak, chats, and just hanging out. We had a shitton of beer to go through, but took it slow, played some cards, and just hung out in the waning sunlight. Such a fun group of dudes to hang out with after an exhausting but fun as shit tournament.

That night we got everything squared away and cleaned up in the two apartments, hit the sack, and then hit the road early in the morning to try and minimize the holiday-weekend traffic as we traversed all of France. Thankfully, only a couple spots around Paris were a little stop and go, but that didn't make the drive any shorter or easier. To leave a mark though, at one of the many toll booths, Mischa bumped out and left a little remembrance from Pen15 for all the passersby to enjoy ;-)

We made it back to Karlsruhe just fine, divvied up all the left over beer and goods, and then it was back home to get some rest before the work week. Again, what a great time. Thanks to Chewy for inviting me along for the ride, and thanks to the whole team for the great fun. Made me miss that kind of fun, competitive, but relaxed ultimate that's been out of my life for a while. Might be time to jump back into it!

A Week in the Alps

This year has turned out to be a complete epitome of no rest for the weary. Thankfully, in a good way! I was back at work the next day after Yes but Nau, but only had that week to work before the next adventure popped into my life. It was a standard week, but I got to Friday and it was time to pack and get ready to head out by the morning. Let's go!

Spark Notes - The Polarsteps Journey

A Quick Backpack Excursion

The first part of the trip and the time off, I needed to decompress. My way of doing that is finding a trail, taking my tent, and getting encompassed by nature for a few days. After a bit of research, I found a 24-hr parking lot somewhere in the Swiss Alps, and paired with the knowledge that wild camping is tolerated in Switzerland as long as it's above the treeline, I was in good spirits and ready for some quality time in the mountains!

Saturday morning I had a nice hearty breakfast, packed Rupert up, and off I went! I was aiming for a quick drive down, so I threw on a few podcasts, and soon enough I was traversing through Switzerland. Turns out the route I took mirrored the giant lake I adentured around back in Thanksgiving 2013! I cruised past that and through Sargans, and soon enough I was deep into the thick of the Swiss Alps.

The roads got smaller and windier, and soon I was hit with a choice - train through the mountains, or take the high mountain pass. After learning the cost for the train ride was 34CHF, that was an easy call - up we go! Turned out to be the very right choice. It was a long road up, but at the saddle of the pass the views were absolutely incredible. I naturally had to stop and take it all in on such a beautiful sunny day!

From the top of the pass it was just another hour or so and I'd weaved my way off the main road and up to the tiny mountain village of S-charl (kinda sounds like squirrel). Got parked, got my pack all squared away, had to exchange Euros for Francs for parking, overpaid for parking, but soon enough had my hiking boots on and I was ready to go! Perfect day for a hike, and I was ready for the march.

As I went into planning all this, I kept an eye on the weather. I left myself a little flexibility in doing either a 1- or 2-night excursion, depending on how much rain was on the way. The mornings to mid-afternoon were supposed to be clear and dry, but a little rain was forecasted for all the afternoons/evenings, so that was something I was wary of.

With that in mind, it was time to head up. That's one very characteristic and unique thing about the Alps. Hiking here is, for the most part, just straight up and straight down. The valleys are so deep that in order to get out of them (even if you start at a tiny mountain village), it's all still a matter of traversing up the valley to get to the higher alpine peaks and saddles, which at least have some variation in profile. But the start of this hike was just up, up, up, following a fire road until the bend in the valley right below the tree-line. I cruised on up that direction, took a breather at the little mountain hut/farm/barn, scoped out my eventual out/down from the peaks (see the second-to-last pic below), then continued on up the valley towards my camping goal for the night.

From the mountain barn it was time to head further up and along another valley arm. After an initial steep-ish ascent, it leveled out for a while to a beautiful grassy plateau with giant boulders riddled about, a gorgeous river running through, and great views along the ridgelines on both sides. Soon enough, that flat spot was over and it was back to going up. First gradual, then the final ascent to my destination was literally climbing and scrambling up a rock wall. A helluvan ascent in its own right, but definitely a great challenge to finish off the main hiking for the day.

Once I summited that rock wall, it was time to find a place to pitch up for the night! I set my pack down near the trail, and started some wandering to find myself a flat patch of ground. It was above the treeline, and everything was just rocks, so it took a little hunting. Unfortunately there wasn't anything good looking down near the lake, but on the edge of the rock wall I found a flat dirt patch with an incredible view out over the valley. Time to build.

After I pitched the tent and got my bed ready, I had a hunch it was gonna get windy. With a little energy I had leftover, I pieced together a pretty measly windbreak to try and protect my tent. In the end it didn't really do or cover much, but it at least gave me a meager sense of accomplishment for the time being. With that, camp was all set! I took my time with the evening making and enjoying dinner, and then taking in the beautiful sky before I called it a night.

As I had guessed, it was windy as hell that night. Thankfully my good 'ole tent held through, but it was pretty whippy and loud. Despite that, I got some ok sleep, then woke up to that beautiful view before getting the morning routine underway - delicious breakfast and coffee, find a place to get to race weight, pack up the tent and the pack, and soon enough I was back underway with a beautiful morning to accompany me!

To start, the trail kept going up. I worked my way up to the near saddle from the alpine lake, and took a quick breath as I saw the first of just a few other hikers I'd see all day. Soon enough I was at the saddle, and from there time to continue up and hit my peaks for the day! Along the valley that I climbed up the day before were three peaks over 3000m / 9850ft, and I was going to take the trail that linked up two of them.

Up, up, and more up and soon enough I was at the first peak! I did my usual - take off the pack, find a comfy spot, and sit and watch the world for a good long time - before continuing on. The journey up to the second peak was a little more trepidatious, as there was still a bunch of snow on steep areas and snow over sheer overhangs. Thankfully I was able to get through all of it with my super trusty boots without issue. Soon enough, I was ready for another round of rest and relax at the windy peak overlooking the beautiful Swiss Alps.

That is seriously my happy place. Somewhere in nature, with a beautiful view, warm and cozy despite whatever weather, and the time, place, and mental space to just sit and take it all in. Regardless of where in the world it is, that is my happy space.

But as is always the case, I eventually had to continue on. The route now took me down from the peak to the saddle, and from the saddle I had a choice. I wanted to get one ridge over, but on the map the only official way to do that was to go all the way down to the main valley (at least 500m / 1650ft down), then all the way back up to the same elevation and higher in the new valley. I was not feeling all that descent, so was looking for a way around that. Thankfully, there were some signs present showing a trail that just scurried right up the ridge in question! Taking opportunity when it comes, that's just where I headed. But first, I hung out at the saddle for a bit to take in some more views.

It was another steep ascent, but soon enough I was up there. The trail kinda disappeared though, and I was left to 'bushwhack' over the stones and hills to get to the trail in mind. Turned out to be longer, a little more strenous, and a little more tenuous than I anticipated. But luckily enough, wasn't too much for me to get through. Slow and steady wins the race.

Back on the trail, it was time to continue on up to the saddle. I enjoyed the gorgeous views along the lake for a while, but as soon as the trail went past the lake, the trail disappeared. Thankfully my awesome map had the trail and my GPS on track, but following the dotted line became another free-for-all as the trail was nearly non-existent. But I continued on, scrambled my way up, and soon enough was up to the next alpine lake ready to find a camp spot!

A good bit pooped at the top, I did the ritual of the night before of setting my pack down and looking for a camping spot. Well, the downside of only being able to camp above the treeline came out in full force there. The whole place was a hilly rock garden. I hunted around for any amount of flat ground, and this time also a second requirement, somewhat wind-sheltered. Tough ask, but the wind was howling up there and I wasn't up for trying my luck through a windstorm in a rock garden.

I searched and searched, found a copule potential candidates, but nothing had either enough dirt to get tent spikes even remotely into the ground, enough space for the tent to fit, or any amount of wind protection. I was really itching to set up shop, but wasn't willing to risk a middle-of-the-night broken tent or anything like that.

Time for the Executive Decision - keep moving on. Bummer, I was looking forward to another alpine lake campsite for the night, but opted for continuing on. So I grabbed my pack and continued on the trail. The plus side - the next stretch was only downhill. The downside - it's over 700m / 2300ft in just over a mile. Shit was gonna be steep.

And, it turns out, pretty dicey and technical. Just the kinda fun stuff. Not so fun this time though, because that weather forecast decided to switch nights. As soon as I started heading down, the rain joined in with the wind. Then soon after a little thunder. Then after that some hail. The icing on the cake? A good bit of lightning. Oh yeah, I was balls deep in a big 'ole storm. Sweet.

To make it even more interesting, the first half of that whole descent was moreso climbing than hiking. There were a couple pretty sketchy spots, and THANK GOODNESS I've got experience climbing, have some really good hiking boots, and know how to stay cool and maneuver my body in sketchy situations. It really started dumping, and I was a little sketched by the lightning, but all in all I was able to maneuver down and tackle it all without issue or injury.

Due to the steepness and sketchiness of the descent I didn't take too many breaks, and that prevented me from putting on my rain pants. What's that mean? Sopping pants, soaked socks, and walking in puddles in my hiking boots. Sweet.

By about halfway, once the trail conditions became a little more firm, I was trying to plan my next steps. I knew that mountain hut was there, so I set that as my first next step to find shelter, hopefully dry off a bit, and wait out the storm. But what came after that, that was open. Potentially going out to find a new place to tent, maybe just head down to the car, who knows. Either way, I trudged on.

Thankfully, I finally made it to the mountain hut and got under the shelter as soon as I could. As soon as I was there, it was time to strip. All the wet gear had to come off in the hopes of the wind doing enough air-drying to get them from soaked to at least damp. Hopeful, for sure, but I just needed to warm up.

As the hanging out and drying off wore on, the more and more a new option was coming into view - just sleep in the shed for the night and spare the whole tent thing. An open-air shelter, rain-tight, a breeze to keep things fresh, and dark ish to keep things somewhat secluded. Long story short, as I was making and eating dinner and watching the rain come down, I settled on that option. Time to get comfy.

At some point the rain died down, so I ran out to do my business somewhere in the trees. When I came back, I was surprised to see a guy with a Swarovski monocular and binoculars just staring up at the high peaks in the valley. I greeted him and didn't understand a word he said, so he switched to German and we could chat.

Roman was out and about doing some scoping for hunting season. He's a Swiss-Roma guy that lives nearby, and with his lenses he was spying on the chamois (ibex), goats, and deer all perusing the valley for food. No joke, it was impressive to watch him do so. He'd set up the monocular for one spot, point out the 6 ibex grazing, and then 10 seconds later would swing it around to a spot with 2 mountain goats over on another peak, then another few seconds to a deer grazing on the other side of the valley, just that the whole time. Pretty incredible! He was doing that to scope out where the game was feeding in preparation for hunting season in September, and was gracious enough to let me join in on the observations!

He was super kind and let me get some peeks on the animals up in the mountains while he was doing his research, and we had a nice little conversation to go with it. A dad of three, lives somewhere in the lower valley, and big into hunting. Interesting to learn about hunting in Switzerland and how regulated it is, how extreme they are when they go hunting, climbing up the mountain off trail and then slogging down the mountain with their kill, pretty intense stuff. Well at the end of the convo, I told him I was crashing there for the night, and he gave me warning that the owner of the place can be a bit of a dick, so get out and clear the place early. But then he also invited me back in September to join for a hunt! We'll see, that'd be a pretty damn cool experience to go hunting in the Swiss Alps if I can swing it!

Once Roman took off downhill, it was time to wind down for the night. I slowly got my tarp and pad and sleeping bag set out, and soon enough I was down for the night. Thankfully all my gear was still dry, so that night was nice and warm and cozy.

I was up early anyways, and holy weather Batman, what a morning! As soon as I was up and out of my sleeping bag, I creeped over to the edge of the shelter, and was greeted by an incredibly clear, deep blue sky to start the day. Just absolutely beautiful. I was tickled pink to have such gorgeous weather, just a bummer I didn't have a little bit of that the night before!

I took some time just enjoying the beautiful weather. Since I was just a short walk downhill from the car, opted not to setup and cook a big breakfast, but just went about getting all my things packed up and squared away. After I did that and found some more trees, I came back and got everything out from under the shelter and over to the picnic bench.

Damn good timing too, because not 10min later up came an old man to look things over. I assume he was the owner of the place, and he asked me where I came from. Made a nice little white lie saying I got drenched up high that night and got an early start. He bought that no sweat and we had a nice, cordial exchange before he headed back on down towards town.

I took my time sitting there, taking in the sunlight that finally arrived, and I needed a good few deep breaths to take it all in.

Eventually though, it was time for the last bit of hike downhill back to the car. It was sunny, the weather was fresh, and I was in a good mood. I slowly meandered on down the forest road, and soon enough I was back in S-charl! Luckily enough, Rupert and the Madonna were doing great just hanging out!

It was a quick hike, only about 15miles over three days, but a whole ton of elevation, and the first backpacking trip in a good while. It was awesome, despite whatever issues with weather that happened, damn it was absolutely fantastic to get back in the mountains with me and a tent. Gonna have to do that some more here in the next few months.

Biking in Rechental and Serfaus/Fiss

Back at Rupert, I did the typical unwind from a backpacking trip - take off the boots, air out some clothes, and just relish the good feeling of a couple days in the mountains.

My plan from then was to slowly get myself together, and then meander on over to Rechental a couple valleys over to meet up with my riding crew of Stefan, Phillip, Lukas, and Matze. After turning back on my phone and leaching some wifi off the cafe (damn Switzerland and the ridiculous cost of mobile data there...), I learned they were already geared up and getting their first day of riding in at the 3-Länder Enduro Trails. I told them have fun, I was gonna take a rest day, as I posted up at the cafe and enjoyed an incredibly relaxing, simple, and delicious breakfast of a coffee and two croissants. Absolute luxury.

From there it was back down to the car to head on out. Well, with that absolutely incredible sunshine, the incredible mountains, and the relaxing drive down, I had some great tunes playing through and I was put in an absolutely killer mood. Just flying on cloud 9, no other way about it jamming out down the windy road back down to the lower valley.

From there it was a just a matter of time til the stoke got so high, I couldn't help but change plans. As soon as they could, the ants got in my pants, and I was cruising, bruising, and impatient as fuck to get to the bike park!!! It was way too damn good a day to not go ride a bike! So I weaved and cruised my way up to Nauders, filled up on gas, found the parking lot and got all saddled up. Soon enough, the crew was down to the lot and it was time to ride! Commence one helluva riding week!!!

Perfect day for some incredible riding. I got a quick introduction and had to shake off the rust real quick, as these trails were the first taste of what would be an incredible bumpy, rooty, and rocky week. We hung out at the Bergkastelbahn outside Nauders for the whole afternoon, but then made our way over to Schöneben via Bunker trail, and holy shit Bunker trail is incredible! Felt like the World Cup DH I rode in France last year and was a helluva blast. (At the top of Bunker trail was an old tank barrier, kinda crazy because it was up in the mountains) We cruised on down that, stopped to enjoy the view, then got in a few laps at Schöneben, before enjoying an affogato at the cafe and then pedaling on from Italy back over to Austria to the cars.

After an incredible day of riding, we de-geared and headed back over to Italy and on down the valley towards San Valentino, enjoying the absolutely beautiful drive along the Rechen Valley as we made our way over. Just a gorgeous spot! Due to some initial confusion and booked out campsites, Stefan and I were slated to stay at a campsite across town from the rest of the gang. But as soon as we all checked in, the other crew said there was definitely space for us. Long story short, we ate the initial fee and moved over to the other site for the whole gang to be together. Definitely the right call!

Once we got our home base all set up and squared away, it was time for dinner. Cook at the site or head out to a restaurant? Since it was so late, we whipped out google and found ourselves a Pizzeria Kathrin and headed that way. Holy hell what a good find! I had the tomato and mozzarella appetizer (I'm on a bit of a mozza kick now, so delicious), and carried it home with the Pizza Diavola. Spicy, flavorful, crisp, an absolutely delicious pizza. When in Italy...

We all gorged ourselves at that delicious little restaurant. Helluva good find. But once we were done we slowly all rolled ourselves back downhill to the campsite. A little hanging out, but soon enough we all hit the sack.

Tuesday ended up being a bit of waiting game. Some pretty hefty rain was forecasted, so we weren't all chomping at the bit to ride (except for Matze, who got in late the day before). We'd all snagged the 6-days in 7 pass, because even just riding for four days on that pass was cheaper than the 3-day pass plus an extra day. We still had the rest of the week ahead of us, so we were ok with waiting out a shitty weather day for the rest of a (hopefully) good week.

We all woke up, and in typical German style had ourselves a fantastic smorgasbord of breakfast goodies. Thankfully the start of the morning was dry, so we lounged like royalty snacking and enjoying the great spread that was put together. After that was done, the breakfast table morphed into our living room, as we ended up spending most of the day (despite the rain) outside under the canopy. Lots of time hanging out, sitting around, and chatting. At some point we got a bug in ourselves and whipped out the tools and equipment and gave Lukas' bike a brake bleed, then some other maintenance on other bikes, but spent the day just twiddling around the campsite.

Hanging out and doing nothing really makes the time fly by. Soon enough it was dinner time and Philipp went full-on chef for us with a killer pot of pasta. We feasted like kings and had a few games of cards to round out the night then hit the sack.

Wednesday started with some absolutely fantastic weather! Blue skies meant it was time to ride. And the ride for the day was to be the whole shebang. Rechental is home to the 3-Länder (three country) Enduro Trails. Rechental is split between Austria and Italy, and Switzerland is at the top of the west ridge. Well, we were gonna hit up everyone of the lifts included in the pass, and that meant circumnavigating the whole valley. Ride time baby.

First we headed up Haideralm to get things started with the traverse over to Schöneben. Turned out to be more of a pedal than expected, but we made it over. Then up Schöneben and from there the long traverse over to Mutzkopf. It was a bit of a grind, but ended up with some awesome views looking down the valley.

Here's where I've got a bone to pick - the three country aspect is a TOTAL FUCKING LIE. We were on the official, signed, posted route for this. But the trail never popped into Switzerland. On their official map, the trail shows just a quick jog into Swiss territory, but on the trail map, the trail stays in Austria the whole time and on our GPS track for the day, we never entered Switzerland. I became (and am) inordinately pissed off about this marketing BS because it's a total lie. Goddamn scam.

We made our way over to Mutzkopf and got in a couple runs on the really fun trails there. Then, ready to continue the tour, we took a shortcut over to Bergkastel and headed up the lift there with the plan of getting some lunch and taking a break at Stieralm, supposedly a great spot. At the top of the trail we just needed to head down Almtrail and we were there. No sweat. Wrong. Flat. I had to push my bike downhill to get there.

I told everyone to go get a table while I fix the flat and figure wtf happened. Well, long story short, there was nothing wrong with the tire and nothing wrong with the rim. Couldn't figure out what the hell happened! Eventually Matze came over and helped and he suggested something with the spokes and voila. The short of it, 6-8 of the spokes had unscrewed and the nipples pushed through the rim tape making some big holes for air leakage. No way around it, had to put on a tube.

Shittiest part of all of that, I didn't get a break. Took about 40min including time figuring out what the hell was wrong, and although they brought my Kaiserschmanz (pancake balls with strawberries and cream) to me, I had to wolf it down in quick bites while getting my rim figured out. Soon enough, we had to kinda look at the clock, as the last lift at Schöneben was 16:30, and we had no desire to pedal all the way back to San Valentin.

One run down Bergkastel all the way and then back up and over to Bunker Trail. Seriously, Bunker Trail is awesome. We were awed afterwards at looking at the strava times of some folks on it, and it's insane how good some riders are. But we all battled and cruised our way down that to a mad-dash across town over to Schöneben. A race against the clock, we all luckily made it over to the lift with about 5 min to spare. From there it was a lift to the top and time for a quick breather.

We all deserved that little breather after that mad-dash, and soon enough got up and started the traverse back home. Another stretch of more pedaling than expected, but we all made it down through some fun singletrails and were greeted with a construction site saying no route back to town. Screw that, work day was over so we just cut through. Back at camp, a little bike washing, getting squared away, and then I got to rebuilding my wheel. Got some help from Stefan on how to true up a wheel, then got the cushcore and tire back on. Less than an hour and she was good as new! After that, dinner and drinks at the restaurant at the campsite and then time for bed. What a day!

Thursday was going to be a bit of a rest-day. Well, we all know how that works out. We ended up just heading up and doing Haideralm to scratch the itch, but that itch kept growing, and despite the rain, that trail was running like a dream. We lapped that a good few times for good measure and were enjoying the hell out of it. Eventually we came back to home base for a snack and break, then traversed over to Schöneben to go hit up those trails a good bit. I became infatuated with the flow trail for the massive berms and pumps and smooth trail (as a break from the purely technical trails throughout the valley) and cycled that a good few times with a massive smile on my face. Soon enough, it was time to traverse on back to San Valentin. This time, we had to ride around the construction site, but eventually made it back to home base.

That night it was pretty nippy, so we did our pasta cookout inside Matze's van. It was another feast, and we paired it with a good few rounds of Durak to round out the day. Another killer time.

Friday was planned to be our last day in Rechental, and we opted to drive up to the north end of the valley to ride for the day. Thank goodness, because I wasn't up for those pedally traverses - waste of too much ride time. With that, it was an early rise and ready. We were there early, and almost got first chair to start off one helluva ride day!

When we got to the top of the Bergkastelbahn, we notced the Zirmbahn was running! The past few days that top lift was closed for snow, but seeing it going was automatic reason to continue the ride up. The morning was pretty cloudy, and at the top it was nippy as fuck. But we got our blood flowing quickly with a ride down the Zirm trail, and what a flowy, pumpy, fun track! Good to get through quick with the cold, but an enjoyable ride for sure.

After working all the way back down the mountain, we headed back up and opted for another go at Zirmtrail. This time we took it a little slower, stopping to hit and enjoy some of the many fun berms and jumps along the way. The trail was running so good, it was time for a third lap, so we hopped back on up the lift for some more jump train fun. Love me some flowy jumps! Bummer there's nothing like this in Karlsruhe.

Sometime around midday we stopped back off at the cars for some lunch and snacks. Then, from there, we pedaled on down to Nauders and over back to Mutzkopf for some laps. But not without stopping off at the bakery for a little cap-n-snack along the way!

Once at Mutzkopf, we were all a good bit pooped, but it was time to ride. We got in a few laps, then the majority of us opted for a break in the shade at the top, as Lukas was chomping at the bit, he headed down for another. While we were taking a break, a couple riding buddies of Stefan's came up and hung out to chat with us for a while. That ended and they rode off, and soon enough our Lukas came back up. We got in another lap or two, then by that point we were all drained and ready to call it. From Mutzkopf back into Nauders, we stopped off at the grocery store to end the killer day on another good note. Only downside was the pedal uphill from Nauders back to the parking lot.

Unfortunately, Lukas had to jet back home after the day. We loitered around a good bit with snacks and getting de-geared and what not, but eventually he headed off north back home, and we headed south back to the campsite. Once everyone got all cleaned up, we did the majority of the campsite teardown that evening to prep for the morning. But eventually dinner time came and it was back up to Pizzeria Kathrin for another killer pizza, this time the Hoadr (no idea what that name means, but it was damn delicious).

For Saturday we had an early rise planned out, because our riding for the day wasn't in Nauders anymore, but we targeted the bike park in Serfaus/Fiss, which was about an hours' drive away. As it was opening day for the place, we wanted to get there early, have our breakfast there, and then from that dive straight into the shreddage.

We woke up to an absolutely beautiful morning, with nothing but blue skies and beautiful mountains all around us. Soon enough we'd gotten the last of the campsite packed away, and our little caravan was on the road headed north in the Alps! It was a windy road, and although we were stuck behind a farm tractor for a good while and had a nice pitstop at a grocery store to fill up on vittles, we'd made it to the Serfaus parking lot in no time with tons of breathing room to leisurely eat and get ready. Ride time baby!

In short, holy shit what a cool bike park. A good mix of trails with some technical stuff but a good few trails of just plain old flowy berms and jumps. Just my kinda jam after a full week of purely technical rocky rooty stuff. We got in a good mix of lines in, and I got more comfortable with my jumping skills, and then on the last run before lunch, I went and hit the house drop. There's a little shed on one of the trails, and they cut a hole in the roof and made a drop out of it. Honestly it looks way cool, but the jump was super smooth. There are some pictures of me doing it somewhere.

Lunch turned to be a luxurious affair back at the cars. We all had our snacks and grub and congregated at Philipp's rig to pig out. I pimped the hell out of my grocery store sammich with some avocado and dried tomatoes, and it turned into a delicious feast. Quite the killer way to take a break after some incredible riding.

With a proper lunch in our bellies, we pedaled off to a different lift to go hit the Top of the World trail (here called Frommestrail) at the peak. It was a steep pedal through town but we made it to the lift and on the way up sandwiched a gondola car that had a dining table setup to be a 4-star restaurant inside. Damn thing was the reason why the gondola crawled through each station, but we eventually made it to the top and had to pedal up a bit to get to the very top for the start of the trail.

Turns out my Madonna was NOT ready to ride. On the last stretch of uphill pedal my drivetrain gave out. No fucking clue what was wrong, so I pushed up to the top of the hill to diagnose. Somehow, someway, my derailleur hanger grew a good 15deg bend into it and was fucking up the shifting. Just fucking fantastic. To add to it, my pulley cogs almost became unscrewed and jetted outta there, but I caught that in time. Had to fix the B-screws and limiters to get it into some kinda functional form, but it was yet again another rest break that was chewed up thanks to bike problems. At least I got a little bit of time to enjoy the view at the top. And what an incredible view it was.

From the top, it was time to go down. But down and up we went as we cruised downhill. This trail definitely gave me strong Top of the World vibes from Whistler, as we cruised down the mountain with incredible views to try and enjoy the whole way. The first good bit was super rock and mountainy, but that slowly morphed to a good mix as we got further down the mountain. We also had to skirt wide off trail due to a couple aggravated bulls on the trail, but we slowly worked and weaved our way down.

At some point, all of us lost our energy. Just downright pooped. The trail kept going and going and going, but we were all just tapped out. After long last the trail ended and spit us out on a fire road, and we all just coasted on back to town with a strong requirement of a coffee and a break before we could do anything else. Thankfully, we found a cafe and plopped down for the good 'ole Kaffee und Kuchen. What a lifesaver.

Now with a little sugar in our bodies and some time out of the sun, we jumped on our bikes and pedaled back down to the cars. At that point, I was ready to call it a day. Somehow Philipp and Stefan found the energy to head up the bike park lift again, so I figured I'd join for one. Well, one lap turned into three because I was just feeling fucking great on that jump line! Had to get in as many laps as I could.

We cruised and cruised and almost lasted til last chair. But Stefan and I got to the bottom from the jump line and expected Philipp to pop out as well, but that didn't happen. Long story short, the trail crew closed down the mid-section of a trail before the top section, and he rode right into a trail closure which caused a big crash. He got scraped up pretty good, but the park just completely failed to own up to their poor operations. Quite the shitty end to a great riding day, but thankfully Philipp is a trooper.

Well, with those last incredibly fun runs in, my riding week came to a conclusion. I made the adult decision to head home on a Saturday so I'd have the Sunday to take it easy and recoup from the week before starting work back up, but that meant it was time to hit the road. I took my time de-gearing and hanging out with the boys after the riding and it was great to wrap up a great week with them laid back in the parking lot. But, soon enough it was time to jump in Rupert and hit the road. I bid them all adieu and thanked them for the great week, and was off and running.

It was a gorgeous drive through the Alps, as I'd opted to take the non-toll route, which popped me on some curvy mountainous country roads to avoid the pricey tunnels and autobahns. But what a beautiful stretch of nature there in central Europe. A little traffic once I got further north in Austria (me and all the other vacationers heading home), but in all it was smooth sailing and I got it all done in one fell swoop. Always good to arrive home again.

Covid - Round 2 - Electric Boogaloo

No joke, what a game changer not getting home and having to go straight back to work the next day. I got some sleep Saturday night and had all day Sunday to unpack, put things back where they belong, and just leisurely take it easy before work on Monday. It may be that I'm just getting old, but I gotta plan that buffer in more often...

Well, Monday was back to work. Kinda felt like this extended stretch of time where I was only at work for a few days before the next thing came up had come to an end. So the day was all about getting back on track and prepping for the SW integration workshop planned for the next day. Well that got pushed out to the Wednesday, and I headed home feeling somewhat kinda accomplished and ready to get back into a rhythm.

Tuesday I woke up and was honestly feeling pretty shitty. It didn't help that Lukas had let us know that he'd tested positive for Covid once he got back, and Matze had just tested and came out positive as well, so I was trying to keep an eye on if I'd escaped a near miss a second time after France, or if I'd caught it this go round. I called in sick but went in to get my laptop at work just in case this was going to be a long haul.

As luck would have it, I took a self-test, and although it was very faint, that test line was visible, so I knew I was coming down with Covid again. Round 2, here we go.

I went and got an anti-gen test that afternoon to try and cover the official process, but because the line was so faint, the test came out negative. Either way, I knew I was positive because of the self-test, the deep voice, the scratchy throat, and the overall sickness feeling, so I started my quarantine then and there.

By the next day it was full on. Self-test after I woke up and that baby was bright and clear - I was infected with Covid yet again.

Unfortunately, this time hit a little harder than the first go-round. Almost exclusively because of the extent of the throat pain. Damn thing dried up like a desert to the point it hurt to swallow. Because of that, I didn't get much sleep for the first four days. Kinda sucks when a basic bodily function now causes pain, only then do you realize how much you do it. Every time I'd lay down to go to sleep I'd still need to swallow which would keep me awake and cue endless annoying cycle. Not fun.

So to try and circumvent this, at least during waking hours, I had to have my buddy Christoph run and get me some cough/cold medicine (Thank You Christoph!!!), but that only helped so much. To really help, I ended up drinking more tea and a fuckton more honey than I had over the last years. This was even annoying though too, because although I was sick over a long holiday weekend, the worst part was the heatwave going through town, and I was forced to quarantine. Even though it was the only thing that could soothe my throat, hot tea and honey is not what I want to drink when its 38C / 100F outside and I'm trying to stay cool stuck in my apartment.

All that said, huge shoutout to my hot and cold mugs that kept me hydrated and my throat as soothed as possible through all of this.

Despite the massive discomfort, lack of sleep, and hot weather outside, I made it through my quarantine decently well. How'd I stay occupied thist time? Well other than the massive time waste with Reddit, and a good bit of continuing through Horizon Forbidden West, that weekend was Windmill Windup, a giant frisbee tournament in Amsterdam, and I had it playing pretty much the whole weekend. Watching some frisbee games, writing up this blog from the last few months, drinking some tea, trying to nap, all in my completely blacked out apartment to stay out of the heat as best I could. That occupied a good three days of my time, and was nice to watch some frisbee again.

But in all, this round was a little stronger than the one last April. My throat, now typing this on Day 8 of quarantine, is still not quite back to normal. Hacking up a good amount of gunk, and I'm still pretty tired. But, thankfully, I tested negative this Tuesday morning, and looking to be on the right trajectory to be out of here soon. Might try and just take the whole week off to get caught up on sleep and what not. We'll see how that goes.

I sure didn't expect to get hit with Covid a second time, but now I'm 2x recovered, 3x vaccinated, and hopefully as bulletproof as it gets (for at least a few months) with all of this stuff. Unfortunately this pandemic ain't going away quietly or quickly, but I'm in a decent spot to stay healthy for a good while.

Let the Commentary Begin...

I've been noticing, not having Facebook or Instagram or any of that social media crap has left me without a place to share my thoughts quickly with the world. In no way, shape, or form do I need or require such a thing, but sometimes it's nice to just send off thoughts and share things with the void. If nothing else than to just get it all out of your head and off your chest.

Well, since I've got this platform, that's what I'll do here. It's mixed with a bunch of random surface level thoughts and insights, a good few rants, but also some personal anecdotes relating to some things (especially the job thing) above. Dive in if you feel like it, don't if you don't.

Nikola and My Direction in Life

For the whole of my trip back home and the good few weeks directly afterwards, I was slapped with an unexpected opportunity and decision of if I wanted to toss my life into a blender really quickly in favor of a totally new and exciting opportunity. The contact from John at Nikola was a total surprise, but from that moment I was forced into a very difficult decision of do I want the job or not. It was essentially offered to me from the get-go, but it came down to me deciding what was best for me, and if this job was part of that.

Immediately, I was faced with a couple of questions that had me concerned. What is their company culture like (especially with the CEO shakeup that took place in 2020), and what are the overall benefits like? Well, after visiting both facilities in Phoenix and Ulm, I no longer had any worries about company culture. The workforce is all kinds of young, motivated, energized, and extremely proud of the hard work they do. It shows in their product, going from design ideas to full on pre-series prototype of a fully functional Class-8 Battery Electric Semi Truck within one year. That's damn impressive.

The benefits package would've been pretty good too. I'd've taken a bit of a paycut for base salary, but that would've been boosted by a ridiculous stock package. As I would've been based in Germany though, the rest of the deal needed to be considered as well. After getting the contract, it did not include Gleitzeit (over hours), or a few other provisions I'm getting with my golden handcuffs package through Daimler. Compensation and such would've been a jump, but some of the work stuff would've been neutral or a decline in comparison to my current gig.

But for me, the biggest point turned out to be location. There is no way in hell I'm going to choose to live in Phoenix, which if I were to work for Nikola in the US, that's where it would be. No go. A couple of the folks down there tried to sell me words saying Phoenix isn't that bad, but even they showed they're not huge fans of the heat and dryness of the area. That kinda climate is not for me.

In Germany, which again, is where my role would've been based out of, I'd be working in Ulm. I had no actual experience with Ulm, so the interview was my time to check it out. Long story short, Ulm is 1/3rd the size of Karlsruhe, and I find Karlsruhe already a bit too small for me. The plus side is it's that much closer to the Alps, but not having any kind of network there, it would've been starting all the way over from square one for my social life.

At this point, I'm grappling with the idea of moving back home to the US and when, not toying with the idea of extending, let alone moving to a completely new place in Germany. So the location aspect was a huge detractor for me, and something that would remain in focus throughout the process.

For the actual role itself, it would've been the exact next step I envision myself. I would've been tasked with starting, establishing, growing, and managing a Testing and Validation team for the Nikola fleet based in Europe. That means I'd've taken that jump up to the management level, which is what I'll likely shoot for when I return to DTNA in Portland. Honestly, this was extremely attractive. Not only would this give me my out from Daimler, but in a similar field where I have expertise, and give me the chance to apply and learn leadership skills trying to build out a new team that will be critical to product viability in the European market. Extremely attractive role from my point of view.

Well, to save a whole extra book on the decision and how much I hemmed and hawwed with which direction to lean, I ended up declining the offer. It was truly an attractive role with a growing and expanding company in a field of transporation that is only going to explode. But for me, it came down to a decision between my Personal life and my Professional life. If I accepted it would've been a huge boost for my Professional life, but unfortunately at the cost of my Personal life. I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice.

What were those compromises in my Personal life that I would've had to make? Well, in my eyes, quite a few:

• Moving to a new, smaller city within Germany would require me to completely start from square one. New social circle, new places and people to do the things I want to do (mountain biking, frisbee, swing dance, everything else). And, it being a smaller city, only about 100,000 people, the abundance of options would be even smaller than what I'm used to. That would've been a tough, annoying, and slow adjustment.
• Taking this role, I'd feel personally responsible to essentially extend my time in Germany by another two years further than what's already on paper. At this point, I wasn't ready to commit to that. As I said, I'm in the step of deciding when within the next two years (now year and a half...) is gonna be the point where I say I'm ready and head back to Oregon. Extending beyond that would require me to stay away even longer from family and friends and home. That prospect, especially while I was at home visiting, just seemed preposterous. I'd be able to do it, but if I'd want to do it was a huge question mark.
• My "escape route" back to the US would not be back to the PNW. Because Nikola is based in Phoenix, that'd essentialy have been the default return point. As I said before, no fucking way. And personally funding an intercontinental move, although doable, is not something I'd want to have to fund.
• To be honest, dating prospects in Germany in a smaller town could only be worse than what I've got right now. It's a fatalistic mentality for sure, but I've kinda written Germany off as not having anything potential for dating in store, and going to a smaller place would only make that worse.

As I said, it was a hard decision. But in the end, I had to value the prospects and plan of my Personal life over my Professional life. I'm quite at peace with the decision, and although there would've been some good perks to switch, I've got no reason to really complain about my current job and setup, so I'm going to ride this out and see what comes next.

Adding on to that, I'm slowly becoming pretty apathetic to work in general. Not sure if I should be sharing this, but as long as I have a paycheck coming in the door, that's what counts. What I do in my own personal time for my personal life is WAYYYY more important to me than anything I do at work. Doesn't mean I'm slacking or doing a poor job at work, it just means I give way more shits about what I can do for my life vs. what I can do for a company. That might change if I find a more intriguing role, but that's where I stand right now.

The Constant Coming and Going - Blessing and Curse

Something I've been doing to myself for the last long while, last many years honestly, is come and go so often that I lose a rhythm in my life. Again, it's something I've brought upon myself either through work or for travel, but I so often get to the point where I am in a place long enough to feel integrated/welcome/engaged with the community and local goings on, then I'm gone for a good month or more which completely resets my social standing with all around me. That refresh of getting integrated and feeling a part of a community is a bummer.

A great example of this was my trip back to the US. I'd been in Karlsruhe for a good couple of months, had a good weekly thing going with my buddies Christoph and Mischa for bouldering and activity, had a good connection with some great MTB riding friends, had further established connection to some great frisbee buddies, and was enjoying that social level I had going. Then, I was gone for five weeks. Off in a different continent. Back visiting friends and family at home, but by the time I got back to my home in Germany all those things were essentially gone and I've had to restart trying to reestablish all those commitments.

And then while doing that, I had a week away mountain biking, and now a week stuck at home with Covid. Is this adult life, where you're constantly in a cycle of being home for stretches and then being gone enough to shake up your home world? I don't think it is, but this is something that's been affecting me for years, and it gets tiring and annoying having to constantly try and reawake social connections, especially when that's something I kinda suck at. Perfect example, and this was even the case back in Portland, is that friends ask themselves if I'm even in town or in the area before reaching out. That's honestly quite a bummer, knowing that hesitancy is there in people's minds when they think about connecting.

On the other side, I get to do and see a lot of things, which is why I'm out and about so often. It's not that I regret that - this active life has exposed me to so many awesome things, there's no way I could regret that.

This is definitely some first-world problem complaining here, and to the level that it's self inflicted, but it's something that kinda grinds me every time it happens. Not sure if I'm just exceptionally poor at keeping and maintaining contact and relationships, but it's an ongoing struggle for me.

Being Home and the Struggle to Leave / I Could Become a Hermit

Back in those fabled times of Engineering School, somewhere in my series of statics and dynamics courses I learned about a concept called stiction, or static friction. In short, stiction is the little extra force required to get a stationary object to move. Once it's moving, the force required to keep it moving is less than the overall force required to get it to start moving. That difference being stiction / static friction.

Well, in terms of real world applications, I, personally, have a very high level of Stiction. Essentially, whenever I'm at home, I find it really easy to just stay at home. Even when I have something planned, my mentality once I enter the front door is to stay and just kinda veg or tackle whatever projects I have here at home. I usually have so much to do, or so many things that I want to do, that this argument is usually an easy one to make. Even just the thought of going down the stairwell and around the corner to the store to get an ingredient to make something delicious can be a hurdle.

But, those times where I find the momentum to follow through with plans or to get up and get out and do something, I'm happy as a clam. Out adventuring, exploring, riding, socializing, doing something, just taking advantage of whatever is at hand. Once I'm out, I'm stoked and ready to roll.

I'm not sure how or why this immense stiction in me has developed, but it's something I'm working on minimizing. I recognize it's there, but I'm doing my best to think up or plan enough things to do, even for those times where I've got a free night after work, to still get out and go do something. It shouldn't be as much of a struggle for me as it is, so it's a focus for me as I am always working to improve who I am and how I go about the world.

Trail Styles and Consistency in the Alps

Jumping topics, one thing I kinda griped about last year riding at Portes du Soleil was how all the trails were flowy trails. There wasn't a lot of variation of technical trails in the mix. That said, the trail quality was absolutely top-notch. The only gripe was a lack of variety.

Well, this year in Nauders and through the 3-Länder Enduro Trails, I kinda have a similar gripe, just inverted. All of the trails there were super top notch - Bunker Trail, Haideralm, Green Trail, a huge mix of incredibly technical, rocky, really rooty trails to really work on the technical skillset required to ride mountain bikes.

The problem here being, there weren't many flow options. There was one trail on Schöneben and it was a ton of fun. But out of a whole valley of 5 lifts of trails, only one of which being a flowy, fast, bermy fun trail? That is a very skewed/lop-sided ratio.

I'm not sure why this seems to be the case. This is just a sample size of two bike parks/regions, but each park picks a trail focus (technical or flowy/jumpy), and builds purely based on that category. I'd never experienced this in the US really; most of the places I've ridden seem to scratch all the trail-type itches in a place with multiple trails. But why is this the case here in Europe? Why do centers build based on one trail type and then forget the rest?

I can't answer those questions, but it seems kinda weird that those questions have to be asked. Mountain biking comes in tons of flavors, so it seems a little senseless for a bike park, bike region essentially, to pick just one flavor and build exclusively that. A little short-minded in my bike-park-planning mentality, and really annoying not having any kind of variety in my bike-riding mentality.

Cuisine in Germany

One fine Sunday afternoon, Franz and Steph with baby Anton were in Karlsruhe visiting family and friends. I ended up pedaling over to the park to see them, then we walked back to my place to sit and warm up for a bit. Well, Franz is an absolute wealth of knowledge, and every time I'm with him I learn something really cool and intriguing about Germany, Europe, or the World. Pretty awesome to have so many friends like that!

The cultural tidbit from that encounter - Germany has different cultural foods available almost purely because of guest workers.

After WWII, West Germany had a guest worker program (Gastarbeiterprogramm) that established relationships with a number of European countries to recruit workers from those countries and provide those workers with temporary visas to come to West Germany and work. Those agreements were established with countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, and eventually Turkey, among others. Well this program brought citizens from those countries to Germany (technically on a temporary basis) to live and work for a period of a couple, two, three years.

Well as Franz clarified, those foreign nationals who came to live and work in Germany wanted their own home cooking. Not sure if some people just started doing it on the side or if others came over specifically for this, but in the areas where those foreign nationals lived, restaurants with the home-cooking of those foreign nationals popped up. Italians wanted their pasta, Spanish and Portuguese wanted something a little spicier to remind them of the Iberian peninsula, and the Turks wanted something that reminded them of that bridge between Europe and Asia.

German cuisine, it's no secret, is not exactly exorbitant in its flavors. Delicious dishes, no argument there, but the expansion of presence of foreign cuisines available in Germany all stemmed from the presence of foreign nationals being present in Germany for work and wanting a taste of that delicious home cuisine.

To add to that, these local German foreign nationals likely used their cuisine to sprout some new favorites. As one example, Yufka, which is my go-to at any döner shop, was likley invented in Stuttgart by some guest workers. Crazy!

Working in Germany

One night after bouldering with Christoph and Micha, we pedaled over to Micha's place for a few beers and to hang out and chat. On the table was a thick book, kinda looked like a dictionary. I was curious so I popped it open and took a look through. Well one of Micha's sons is gearing up to graduate from high school (equivalent-ish) over here, and is trying to decide if he want's to go for his Abitur (the more-accurate equivalent of a high school diploma, but not a direct comparison), or do an apprenticeship.

This book I had in front of me was the catalog of what the German Government deemed to be all potential/viable apprenticeship programs. Although this seems to be pretty common knowledge for Germans, I was pretty astounded to see this, that all possible appreticeship options were listed, documented, clarified, rated, and described on what each individual apprenticeship involved.

This just seemed so incredibly typically German to me. Lists, order, clarification, massive documentation, a bit complicated in terms of bureaucracy, just very German. That does not mean to say that this was not sensible. This would be an incredible resource for someone to use to figure out as a teenager - what the fuck do I want to do with my life? Apprenticeships are poo-pooed in the US for reasons that don't make sense. Having a guide to clarify what other options are available to students to help decide the direction of their life is absolutely a blessing.

Pretty cool to see how that all plays out, and how it's packaged and presented for students to try and make an informed decision.

My Feelings are a Quick Metronome

I've noticed that I can be a pretty emotionally unstable/chaotic person. What do I mean by that? Well, my mood/mentality/feelings can sway from one end of the pendulum to the next quite rapidly, and I don't necessarily think that's beneficial.

Here's an example. A lot of times recently I've put myself in a bit of a slump feeling that I've become a bit of a hermit - not doing enough socially, not have enough going on, not interacting with enough people or meeting new people - and I get down on myself for that. Then the next day I could have something fun or active going on and I'm stoked about that and feel good about myself for it. But then the day after that I might have a quiet night at home after work and I let those negative self-impressions creep back in.

I've always tried to push myself to maintain an even keel in my life. I've rarely really succeeded in that, but it appears that this might be the culprit here. I've got a lot of nights during the week that I don't have anything planned. That's not a bad thing. Time to myself is something that I as a human being require and need, so having a few nights per week to do what I need/want to do on my timeline is a good thing.

But even though I require that time to myself, I still get down on myself when I have that and feel like I could be doing something cooler/better/more fun/etc. That's a pretty unhealthy mentality. Even without social media I'm wrapped up in FOMO and that is not a good status quo to have.

I know this when I stop and really think about it, but I've got a good life going. I've got a lot of activity, adventures, and people around me. I may have wilder expectations for myself than what is current or realistic, and I let those expectations cloud the realization of what I have right in front of me.

Even Keel, Nial. Keep a view of what all is going on and what I've got going for me, and don't let the constant wishes for better cloud the reality of what's already there.

Reverse Culture Shock

Way back in the fabled phase of life with CBYX, when we returned to the US, we learned about an aspect of traveling/living and then returning abroad that is not always directly related to an international experience. Reverse culture shock is when, after living away for a while (whether it be international or just in a different area) you return home, and you have to re-adjust to being back home. That can take many forms, but essentially, it's a bit of a state of mind that most people don't associate with international experience. The adjustment to the foreign country/place when you move there is clear and present, but the weird adjustment moving back isn't at the top of everyone's mind.

Coming back home, regardless of when, is an absolute pleasure. I love the PNW, Oregon, Washington, and a lot of aspects of life in the US. But even though it hasn't been so long since the last time I was here, this trip home feels a little different, as I'm feeling some clear aspects of reverse culture shock. Maybe it's not some aspects, maybe it's just one, but that one sticks out pretty clearly.

When we learned about this thing called reverse culture shock, one aspect that stuck out to me (and a lot of people) was how interactions with people back home once you returned, may not go how you would've expected. Living abroad, going away, you get some pretty incredible, diverse, challenging, and crazy experiences. That is definitely the case for me, regardless of how well I remember them.

But coming home, everyone you love, interacted, and dealt with at home way back when, has also been cruising along on their own journey of life. What this kinda leads into, is that you may be back, having had experienced some incredible, challenging, or awesome times, but those things can be covered quickly in a "How was it?", "What was it like?", "Does it feel good to be back?", and then after those questions are quickly answered, life continues on and your recap of life in a foreign world could essentially be complete.

Writing this in the moment (sitting at Steeplejack Brewery, a new one in my old neighborhood), I've seen a number of awesome people - close friends and great people - so far in the week and a half I've been back. For a good portion of them though, I felt like the interest in what's been going on with me has been pretty muted. Playing my own devil's advocate for a second, I'm not a great conversationalist (I'll touch on that in a sec), and I am really good at downplaying anything about myself. So neither of those help. But on the flip side, questions and interest from friends can be pretty surface-level, and as soon as those boxes are checked, on to what is current, now, and relevant.

I've had to remind myself that this is the case. A lot has gone on in each and every one of my friends' lives, and since I've been away for now over two years, the amount of overlap and intersection in their lives and mine has slowly dwindled. This is natural with so much distance in between. But that doesn't take away the sadness that is the feeling of losing a bit of touch with some of the people you hold dearest.

Thankfully, all of the folks I've seen thus far are some amazing, true, deep, loving friends. So I'm chalking this feeling up to self-confidence and unwarranted negative feelings and worries emanating from my weird psyche. As with most things and thoughts in life, that is very likely the true source of this feeling. But, despite that, it makes me sad to know and experience the fact that my decision to live and work abroad has increased the gap between me and some of the people I cherish the most.

German Arrogance or Open Comparison?

The main reason I was able to come back to the US for this trip has been the backdrop of a workshop. Along with me, my coworker and boss also joined. This has meant that often the job of babysitter has been forced on to me (which I'm quite resentful of, because I'm also the babysitter when people come to Germany), and even in situations with the whole group, I've become really annoyed/frustrated with how they're showing their Germanness.

"We don't have that in Germany"

"This would never be allowed in Germany"

"In Germany you could never do that"

"This is how we do that in Germany"

Expressions like that are common coming out of their mouths in interactions (and not just their's, but is common amongst German's on the whole when they're outside of Germany), and honestly, it pisses me the fuck off. Trying to take a step back, it's possible that these sentiments could come from one of two viewpoints/stances - A) a point of comparison. As in, "oh, this is interesting what I've seen in the US, here's a comparison to how we do it back in Germany." Or B) a pure stance of arrogance. As in "sheesh, this is how it is in the US? Well, Germany is like this."

For my one colleague, I could see it as a bit of a mix. He's a cool dude, so I'll give him the slight benefit of the doubt. For my boss, I've got a strong feeling it's the latter. It got so bad one night, that I just grabbed my beer from the hotel lobby with the small group and left, I just couldn't handle the germanness anymore.

After getting some feedback from my CBYX friends, that helped a good bit. Then I had a call with a German colleauge who's lived here in the US for the last 10ish years, and he pretty much confirmed my understanding. He's had this kind of mentality and interaction with friends who have come over to visit, and hearing his frustration of how present this mentality is, was a bit of a downer to hear. Then, he shared the motto of the state that I live in in Germany - Baden-Württemberg - "Wir können alles außer Hochdeutsch". That means - "We can do everything except speak high-German (the neutral/baseline form of German)". As in doesn't matter what it is, we can do it. Arrogance to a T.

The whole exposure to this mindset has me struggling. I've gone through a good bit of cultural training (it was a long time ago though), and feel like I have, or at least had, a fairly open mindset. But having to swallow this mindset has been a struggle. I don't take well to people being so prickish about their backround/history/culture/etc. and not being open about what's in front of them.

To be their devil's advocate, not everyone has had or been exposed to the many cultural trainings and experiences I have, so that mentality of openness isn't present. Therefore, a lot of people may not realize this is the case (as it quasi-turned out to be with my boss. We chatted about it a week after I got back and he didn't realize/didn't think he was being so arrogant). Regardless though, this mentality drove me up a wall present in my home country. It's something I need to continue to keep in mind as I'm living as a guest here in Germany, but it sucks that I can't expect the same for when the rolls are flipped.

I'm a Poor Conversationalist

Contributing to the feeling of reverse culture shock, I've reinforced my impression and feeling that I'm not good at starting, having, or keeping conversation going. I have always felt that I am really good at listening to people, understanding their words and sentiments and usually prodding the conversation along based off of what they say. I'm pretty proud of that, as I consider myself (in certain situations) a fairly soft-spoken person, and listening is a quality I hold very dear.

The reason this reinforcement of me as a bad conversationalist has popped up, is I feel like in a lot of reunions with close friends while being back in town, the conversation has been kind of left hanging. We work through a topic, cover something fun, the other person does a majority of the talking and I follow along, and then as soon as that topic reaches its end, there's a lull. Still being a good bit socially awkward, that lull is very visible and tangible to me, and it's a bit weird.

Being realistic and not socially-awkward - that's not always a bad thing. Conversations ebb and flow as topics change, the vibe adapts, and things move forward. That's normal. But the reason I'm making this point is, a lot of times when the conversation drops, I feel an expectation (in a lot of cases) to have something interesting to share, something witty to inject, or just have something to contribute.

On the one hand, I am who I am. Nothing wrong with that, so maybe this expectation is unwarranted or not valid. But on the other hand, I want to be able to keep, grow, and maintain conversations with people to maintain an interesting interaction. Maybe I'm better at this than I give myself credit for, but either way, I feel like it's something I can improve.

Thankful for Physical Health and Fitness

This is kinda cheesy and generic, but I am really really fucking thankful that I am a healthy human being. Going through breaking my nose and now having Covid for the second time, along with considering all of the active things I do in my life, the fact that my body is mobile, fairly healthy, and decently fit, is an extreme blessing that I take for granted.

The fact that I could get up and go for an 8 mile run after not having run in a good half-year, that's incredible. The ability for me to go on a 3-day hike with a 35 lb. pack and a shit ton of elevation gain without questioning it is both a source of my sanity but also something that not everyone could just get out and do. The constant battering and abuse I put on my body through mountain biking is a source of joy and adrenaline for me, but is thankfully still able to take place because my body is strong (and recovered) enough to take the abuse.

I always get down on myself for not exercising more than I should, or not going for enough walks, or..... But on the whole, I am extremely lucky to have a functional, capable, semi-fit, and healthy body to enjoy life and the many things in life that I find exciting, adventurous, and a source of escape. I'm really lucky in that respect, and I hope that this body continues to hold up through the many decades ahead of me.

Next Up

It's crazy to sit back and see that 2022 is already half way over. That's absofuckinglutely insane. The first six months of this year have flown by, and I imagine the next six will go by as fast if not faster. It's crazy how time just flies as you get older.

Well, considering June is already done, July is kind of an open slate. I don't have anything big planned or forecasted, but I hope to fill up a good number of the weekend with some trips, either mountain biking or backpacking. At some point I want to try and make it up to Birmingham, UK to see my buddy Luke and his fiancé Danielle (aka Jelly) while they're up there working at the Commonwealth Games. Gonna have to get to planning that.

Then in August, a bit of a similar scenario. Most/all of my coworkers will be out on holiday, but on principal I won't be taking vacation days then because everyone and every family in Germany will be traveling then. Not a fan of taking a holiday when everyone else is at the same time. But simliar thing with August, weekend trips and adventuring along with a wedding for Scott to celebrate!

Now September is when the fun goes down. How? MOMMY'S COMING TO VISIT!!! That's right, Mama Bear is heading over here to come hang out and explore for two weeks, and I can't wait!!! She's already getting some research in of all the crazy, random things she want's to do (requirement - a visit to the Thimble Museum in Creglingen), and I think some hiking down in the Dolomites is also a must. No doubt, I can't wait to have her over here!!!

Then a day after she flies out back to the US, I'll be flying to Boston for my boy Dusty G's wedding. Him and Becca are getting hitched on Martha's Vineyard (holy shit that place is expensive), and I can't wait to celebrate with the both of them!!! Both incredible, lovely, hilarious people, and I'm stoked for them to tie the knot.

Then after September, I have no idea. But this summer will find a way to be crazy busy and adventurous, I have no doubt of that.

In all honesty though, I have had a strong urge for quite a while to have about a month off and just go adventure. My trip to Nepal has been constantly in my head, and a trip of that flavor is something I really need again. A new country, a new culture, beautiful nature, incredibly lovely people, the chance to really dive in and explore it all. Unfortunately, nothing like that fits into my schedule or vacation days right now, but I still need to find a way to make this happen...

Well gang, HUGE kudos to anyone who got all the way through this!!! I know these are gigantic novels, but thanks for taking your time to ramble through my thoughts and musings.

No matter where you find yourself in the world right now, I hope you are taking care of yourself, staying healthy, finding big and small adventures in every day, and appreciating all the many wonderful things around you. :-)

Dates Covered in Post: January 8th -- June 22nd, 2022
Original Publish Date: June 22nd, 2022