go west, young man.

Blech. Been home for the past weeks and nothing felt blog-worthy, it's not until I leave town that I starts the blathering. Sheesh.

Anyways. Going to California. Adventure-buddy Emily is driving out to take friend's parents belongings out to San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley area. Yes, convoluted origin/reason, but hey... what do I care, right? Free trip out West and all I have to do is some driving. I've always wanted to see SF/Oakland, so off I go. Bringing a bike, going to do some couch-surfing at friends of hers, then be back after a few days.

By the time I get back to some WiFi to post this, we'll probably already have seen the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. [ok, yup, we saw it. Gosh, I thought those heads would've been bigger. The pageantry and tacky touristy-ness of Keystone, SD more than make up for the smallness of the actual Mount Rushmore. The carved rocks are big in our minds, but it's the commerce that actually dwarfs them. Welcome to America.] And the talk in the truck right now is "hmm, when we hit the mountains, we could get a bike out and do some asphalt downhillling in the mountains near Tahoe..." I'm reminded of the California Death Ride where my top speed was 52 mph. I don't know if I'll be able (or willing) to do that on the single-speed with only a front brake, but we've got some time before we need to decide.