tick tick tick...

no pictures today though i hear that a picture is worth about 1,289 words. our time at the ranch has been chalked full of new adventures as i´ve already eluded to some of them. for the past few days we´ve been harvesting rye...with steak knives. yes, i am a bit thankful that half the crop was eaten by rabbits thank you very much because that meant that the long, slow, tedious process of cutting the rye was only long and slow. a big smile here because it was just something to do while i thought and observed what was happening around me.

i´ve come to enjoy a handful of oddities living in that little cabin and working on the ranch. the color of the garden patched together in shades of greens is as strking today as it was the first day i saw it. watching the sun come over the mountain and instinctively knowing how that correlates to human time. finding the cow and bringing her in (something i have now done all by myself and might i say not an easy task when considering that ¨cloud¨is very stubborn). watching the color fade from the sky as the sun sets behind the mountains and the moon pops up looking as though it is just suspened in vast creamy blueness. the stars, the stars, the stars. the sound of the birds squawking throughout the day. the feel of the earth moving as a stampede of horses runs by. bathing in the river in the hot, sticky afternoon heat. collecting water from river to wash clothes, dishes, and give water to the animals. simply stated, i like how life just flows and how the concept of time has reinvented itself yet again in my days.

we are planning to leave el bolson on saturday and simply head south. we may meander through chile, we may not. we may take a bus for part of the way through the desert to save time and we may not. who knows? well my friends, i won´t write for a little while yet. it´s thursday morning and we leave saturday and it will more than likely be a few days before i have an update for the blog...sorry to leave you wondering...well, actually i´m not because i think it´s kind of fun. sometimes i feel like i´m writing to myself because i can´t see the people who are reading and i thought i might have a little fun. hey, c´mon now, i´m allowed a little fun, eh?

ok ok. before i go i thought i should give a brief equipment update. the only problems we´ve encountered are with the tent, a headset, my melted bob washer, and some flats. the tent poles on the rei cirque 3 tent have bent! this happened a while ago on a blustry desert night and the tent still works fine it´s just well, reinvented a little. we have the necessary equipment to repair the poles when they finally go. bummer. my headset came unthreaded due to vibration and i may seek out some beeswax to use as a natural locktite. first, i need to find a wrench big enough for tightening it down. i´ll go find a hardware store here soon to find some washers to repair the bob...it shouldn´t be too difficult...what were they thinking making a perfect grill trailer and using plastic?!

but....the rest of my bike is running like a dream. considering we´ve been doing a fair amount of gravel riding, curb jumping, and ¨mountain biking¨, MY WHEELS ARE STILL IN TRUE!!!!!! the tension still feels wonderful and i´m starting to wonder why i even brought with extra spokes! :O) when i built them i had some reservations about using a sun rim but the cr-18s though heavy are awesome! i heard about a guy who was coming through chile and busted his phil wood hub! sucka! just kidding. i tried to keep everything really easy to fix on that bike and even though a phil wood shouldn´t bite the dust, stranger things have happened and thus, i am happy to have just a standard shimano hub with replaceable bearings and somewhat standard cones should the need arise.

my cycling computer popped off my bike yesterday and got shredded on the ride into town from the ranch. i haven´t described this ride have it? i think that this ride takes the cake in terms of a beautiful commute. we live on the river and have to get over a small ridgeline into town. the classic argentine method is cover as much up in as little time as possible. so, on this gravel sand, bouldered road are a few switchbacks to the top of the ridge and then a screaming downhill into town all in about 5 miles which takes about 35minutes to ride. the views are incredible from the top of the ridge. there´s an elevated mountain lake and the winding blue river azul all nestled into the mountains. so, you can see on this treacherous road how a cycling computer could just pop off! so, who knows how much we ride in a day now and maybe, who cares?

and finally a dirty, tired margo would like to add a word...ok she´s a little shy to say hello....give me a minute here. stop laughing, she doesn´t have hands and she´s being a little difficult. ok, margo would simply like to say hello and that she can´t wait to be riding on the back of my bike again watching the days go by and riding along in places she thought she´d only see in her dreams.

see margo, that wasn´t hard. i tell you, puppets sometimes are difficult to take on adventures.

peas.
jude.