I've decided to change the cat's name from Emilo, to The black panther. Just thought I would let everyone know.

Despite the fact that I just quoted a Beach Boy's song [Billy, Amanda and I just finished watching 50 First Dates, and it's the theme song...so, that's where I got that from...], I have some Ben Folds stuck in my head, a song called "Still fighting it", the lyrics are depressing, but the good kind of depressing, they go something like this:

"...[And] Everybody knows
It sucks to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
And you're so much like me
I'm sorry..."

Hmm... sorry for those of you who don't have iTunes, I don't know what will happen will you click on the above link. I don't know why I'm sharing this with you, I guess I've always thought you can tell a lot of what's going on in someone's head by the songs they're obsessed with at any given time.

You know what, I think I'm going to share a story with everyone. I just hope it sounds as good in writing as it does in my mind. Here we go:

Somewhere near the end of the cross-country bike trip, in Idaho, Tim and I, for reasons that would require an entirely separate story, decided to turn off the main highway that hugged the Lewis and Clark trail, and take what we expected to be a short diversion around an accident involving a semi. One of the many policemen blocking the “gawk’ers” from sneaking a peak, told Tim and I that we could either wait for them to clear a lane, or ride down the road to our left about a mile and then follow a dirt road that would lead back to the highway.

Sounded easy enough we thought, and considering that not too far behind us, two shifty homeless weirdo’s on bicycles [who constantly seemed like they were about to rob us] were approaching fast. So before the cop could finish his sentence, we took the back road and prayed that we could make a clean get away, knowing that if they caught back up and wormed their way into camping with us come nightfall, we would wake up broke.

Just as the cop had said, after a mile, a dirt road branched off to the right. It would have been hard to miss; the one car-width path was bumper to bumper with ‘detour’ traffic. Right away the road showed signs of trouble. The dirt wasn’t packed down, and our tires slipped with every pedal, it shot upwards at an unusually steep angle, but knowing that the cop probably had told the two strangers the same advice he told us, we pressed on.

An hour or so into the hill I had a flat back tire, while I was changing the tube, Tim found some berry bushes lining the dirt road, after agreeing that they looked like the edible kind, I ate them by the handful [since I was running low on food] as I was packing my tire-fixing-tools back up. Then we continued up the path, the cars had all disappeared and we were alone now. That’s when the stomachache hit… and hit hard. My first thought was, oh uh… those berries aren’t as safe to eat as we had thought. Shit. But as I was telling Tim about the sharp pains in my gut, I noticed my hands we’re black with WD40 grease, except each of my fingertips were squeaky clean. In the excitement I hadn’t realized I was eating oil-covered fruit. But, I just reminded myself that these things happen, and I could get some real food in my stomach after we reached the highway again. Which should be soon.

That’s when things really got bad. The farther and farther we traveled the steeper and more trail-like the road became. Every hour or so a random SUV would slowly pass us, some stopped and offered a ride, but we had three simple rules for the trip: [one] No hotels, [two] No hitchhiking, and [three] no giving up. One friendly lady, who pulled up shortly after Tim was trying so hard to peddle uphill that his chain snapped in two, said the road wasn’t really a road; it was an old goat trail that connected a few old farms.

The problem for Tim and I was that we couldn’t walk the bikes because for both of us, all the weight from our stuff was in the rear [not distributed evenly like you’re suppose to do… stupid bike guides… what do they know]. And I’m not sure how many of you have tried to walk a bike up an almost comically steep sandy hill, with 80 pounds of crap strapped to the back of it, but it doesn’t work out as well as you might think. And we couldn’t ride them up because, again, all the weight was in the back and we had to stand up on our pedals to get enough strength to move with barely enough speed to balance, and every time we stood up our front tire lifted off the ground.

So… it was fun. Especially five hours into it, and we hadn’t even reached the top of this “short detour”, by now we were cursing the cop and kicking ourselves for not just chilling in the woods while they cleaned up the road. But it was too late to turn around, for all we knew the top was right around the corner.

Long story short, it wasn’t right around the corner at all, it was much, much farther up. Whatever area of the “road-from-hell” wasn’t coated in sugar-fine dirt, was carved in obstacle-course canyons of rain washed clay. Tim and I must have pissed someone off in a past life, because we were being punished for something, we were sure of it. There was something about this shitty day - that was different from other shitty days. Now let me clear up something before I forget. I’m not sure how this story comes off to those of you who don’t know me, but even at the time, not just looking back on it now, Tim and I felt blessed to be on that trip… even the bad parts. So I’m not complaining [even if it sounds like I am…], this is all very funny to me.

Anyways, I’m suppose to wrapping this up aren’t I? For those of you still reading: After nightfall we made it to the nearest town, according to our maps, we had only traveled what would have been thirty miles down the highway. Both our knees felt swollen and seconds away from exploding. But most importantly… we woke up the next morning with all our money.

The moral of this long-winded story?

Whenever I feel like my life out here, in my new, strange surroundings is getting steep, when my feet keep slipping in the sand, and the weight of my bike is pulling me back down this never ending hill, I try to remind myself of the three most important rules I’ve ever lived my life by: “No hotels, no hitchhiking, and no giving up”. Of course two of those don’t really apply to everyday life, but… I know that someday, I will look back at this ‘uphill climb’ in my life, like I look back at the difficulties of the bike trip, and smile. Knowing that those moments of weakness are what made that trip special and unique, it’s the memories of hell and hardships that I love to relive the most. Those are the experiences that give me the strength and faith to grit my teeth and press on.

It’s easy to forget: “every hill has it’s peak”.