That would be capitol.

Simon And Lisa Discuss Their Round The World Trip

So, once again the AT trip is canceled... But Michael had a pretty good excuse for it. Another week of eating trail food for me!

Last night I went to BMW Moto of Atlanta to see a presentation by Simon and Lisa Thomas of http://www.2ridetheworld.com/. They're on a multi-year journey across the globe and currently traveling in the US. Part of what they do on the way is stop at BMW dealerships to give presentations. They're quite tech savvy and have put together a very good multimedia show where they talk, show videos and slides, and play music. Most of the presentation covered Africa with the second shorter half covering South America, specifically how Simon managed to break his neck but continue riding for 3 weeks before getting to a hospital. It's really an amazing story and they have some great photos and video of the places they've been, some of which is linked from advrider.

One interesting point that came up when I saw a picture of the two of them in front of Volcan Tungurahua in Ecuador. When I was visiting Ecuador, Tungurahua began to erupt so I was unable to take the bus from Quito to Cuenca. Meanwhile Simon and Lisa were unknowingly headed for Baños, the town that was being evacuated because of the eruption. They were somewhere south of Quito riding their bikes over hardened lava flows while I was diverted to Papallacta.

Here's one of the videos from the presentation:

The rest of the videos are here.

Lisa's bike, Tarzan, a highly-modified F650GS. It has 100-something thousand miles on it without a rebuild and weighs over 700lbs full of gas and with all the gear. Of the two bikes, her's has experienced fewer problems (actually just a shock and mount replacement) despite traveling through all of Africa, including the Sahara, and through the Amazon.

Simon's bike, Tinkerbell, is an R1100GS modified similarly to Lisa's. It's had the electrical harness replaced, replaced shocks, and frame reinforcements, along with all the cool Touratech mods, etc. 150,000+ miles on this one.

This is one of Bob's (owner, BMW Moto Of Atl) bikes. Think he said its an '82.

And the HP2 Enduro. The $20,000 big brother to my bike. What I find odd about this bike is that it's like the R1200GS, but stripped down with less junk, yet it costs more.

The bikes are cool and all but the real value of the presentation was in the photos and stories of the people and places Simon and Lisa have been. They emphasize that people all over the world are generally honest and caring and that if you have thought of doing a trip like this or have some other unrealized dream that its important to do it now, not to wait until you have the money, or the time, or whatever it may be that's holding you back. Check out their photos at http://2ridetheworld.com/gallery.html

Finally Some More AT!

This Columbus Day, while most little Ferdinands and Isabellas are decorating their Columbus Day mast with decorative sails in anticipation of New World gifts of gold and silver, Michael and Wanda and I will be back on the ol' AT. You may recall our last trip was canceled due to illness (Wanda, a native Alaskan, contracted smallpox from a settler). Then other things cluttered the schedule like Michael getting a new job, moving to a new city, and other lame excuses. But tomorrow we have a plan. Here's the email from Michael:

Ok so a 2 day, 1 nighter. Here are my thoughts.

We left off at Neel's Gap. Roads and parking areas seem to get farther and farther apart as we progress north, so we'll have to change our strategy a bit. How about going from Neel's Gap to Low Gap shelter on Sunday (11 miles), then from Low Gap shelter to Unicoi Gap on Monday (9.9 miles). A lot of it is *supposed* to be really easy.

This would involve getting an early start both Sunday and Monday. Sunday, because we would have to drop a car off at Unicoi Gap and get started at Neel's Gap (which, as you remember) involves parking farther down the street and walking a 1/4 mile or so to the trailhead. Monday, because we still have to hike 10 miles, get the car, drive to the other car, etc., etc. and still get back at a decent time for work the next day.

So the agenda would look something like this:

Saturday

* congregate in Atlanta in the PM

Sunday

* early start (6:30 maybe?)
* drive to Unicoi Gap (hwy 76) and drop off end car
* drive start car to Neel's Gap (hwy 19/129)
* 11 mile trek to Low Gap shelter for camp

Monday

* early start (early is relative to our usual start times on these trips... I mean like up at 7ish and 8am on the trail)
* 9.9 mile trek to Unicoi Gap
* back to Atlanta

Should be pretty easy I would think, at least logistically speaking. The hiking looks to be simple enough as well. No dogs involved this time, unless we get some boots for JD ;-)

Thoughts?

The Good Life At The Dog Park

Where else can you dig a hole and sit in it with friends?

More On Those Disgusting Durians

Digg has article today on durians:

"Adventures in eating: The taste of 3-day-old wet garbage?

delsquacho.com — If you haven ’t heard of a durian, its because they are banned in most public places because they smell absolutely horrible. They also are roughly the size of a football and look like the business end of some sort of medieval weapon. Some consider them delicacies. This guy doesn't."

But the site is hosed so I had to do with the comments, some of which expose the truth of this nasty fruit:

"My local Vietnamese restaurant makes a Durian shake that's to die for. In a good way. It does have a bit of a gasoline aroma, but that's really not as bad as it sounds."

"It's better to eat it frozen; then it tastes like vanilla ice cream with a lot of onion powder."

"The first bite is really bad. It tastes like banana, rotten onion and kerosene. But it tasted better with every bite. Overall I would say I liked it. I finished the whole thing."

I'd say all of these are accurate in terms of flavor. How people like it I will never understand.