Baroque Biking

I haven't written in a while, and seeing how summer is coming to a close, my adventures are becoming increasingly intermittent *sigh*.  I have an ADK trip planned with my Bears, but in the mean time I have to keep the blood pumping.  So recently I rediscovered a past love that I selfishly neglected for years; her name is Shiva.

In the years since I stopped biking it turns out the sport has become even more extreme...well extremely expesive.  They now make bikes with 29'' tires and suspensions that look fit for jeeps.  An entry-level "good" mountain bike will now run you, oh, $1,500.  I do not own such a bike.  Like most things I love, my bike was made in the 90's.  She weighs more than a pack of sled dogs, squeals incessantly, and costs less than half the price of an Xbox, but she is twice as fun and has the added bonus of making me look super-fly as I pedal through town.

Since rediscovering her in a storage space at my grandmother's home, she has forgiven me and decided to let me zip and zoom on her once again (I hope that didn't sound too dirty).  Since then I've traveled about 100 miles on the Erie Canal, visited two of the Finger Lakes, and on one overly ambitious day, went on a 65 mile loop that made my bum sore for days; it was totally worth it, except when I fell asleep on the stairs because I was too tired to walk the rest of the way up.  Recently I took a ride with Allie around Onondaga Lake Park to a health food store about 12 miles away.  We rewarded ourselves with smoothies, which Allie proceeded to immediately knock on the ground, shortly before she proceeded to do the same with her bike.  The moment could not have been anymore quintessentially Allie, until she laughed it off and put a smile right back on her face (after a bit of pouting).

Feeling revitalized I was actually able to keep up with her heading back towards the park.  Allie is a far better biker with a far lighter and faster road bike, so keeping up with her can be a truly monstrous task.  We parked our bikes, unfolded her/our Kammok (an awesome hammock contraption), and took in the picture perfect day.

It was about then that I was in the middle of my good mood streak; nothing has really been able to get me down too much for a few weeks now.  Despite having a multitude of short and long-term obstacles that need to be tackled, I've been able to focus on the bright spots of my days and force the darkness to to the far extremes of my mind.  It's kind of like a Baroque painting that teems with life in the center, but is drenched in black on the outskirts.  As long as I keep it moving, on Shiva, on the Trail, with my Bears and company, I'll keep a smile on my face as I take the obstacles on.

Upon completing this post, Allie and I took a 25 mile ride that climbed some 3,000 feet in elevation.  It was long, painful, and I no longer like biking; please ignore everything I just wrote....I'm renaming my blog Golf Lust, it just seems less painful.
 

The Poverty of Political Philosophy: Why I'd Rather be Hiking

Although I would like to focus solely on my adventures, the reality is that most of my time is spent in painful, monotonous, boredom and frustration. As time has gone on it seems I have lost patience with deferring my desires to another day. Those thoughts all start the same: “When I get done with grad school I'll finally...”, or “Next year, when I save up the money I'll...” That's not to say I need instant gratification, I just feel like I've worked hard enough to start seeing some sort of payoff, and I'm letting my youth pass me by as I'm waiting for a financially secure day to come along. However, that day is becoming more and more remote in my thoughts.

The curse of being a political scientist is that you always have a pretty good sense of your odds in the workforce and society. In our current socio-economic wasteland 4/5 of Americans will experience poverty at some point in their lives, most of the jobs being created pay between minimum wage and $12 an hour, and even fancy Ph.d candidates like me only have a 15% chance of finding university work once they attain the elusive “Dr.” title. I've always been aware of all of this, but as I get closer to writing my dissertation, and the country continues its self-inflicted decline, despair and resentment are beginning to set in.

I'm typing this entry in front of a wall of books, most of which I've attained in the past two years of grad school. I used to fear I would never be able to match the intellect of those on my shelf; the Sartres , Chomskys, and de Beauvoirs just seem like once in a generation minds. It was always motivating to look back at my stacks though, as I imagined the titles of my future great works adorning someone else's shelf one day.  My fears are different nowadays though, they're much less grandiose, more basic, proletarian even. I fear I won't even get a chance to prove my intellect, to write the books. Hell, I fear I'll be taking my Ph.d to start serving at the local bar due to lack of employment and exploding student loans. “Hi, I'm Dr. Boatwright! What will you be drinking tonight?  Oh, I'm sorry, we're out of Red Bull so I can't make a Jager bomb. Have you heard of a Car Bomb though?”

Or, even worse, I'll continue my work at Lowe's, the part-time job that I just can't seem to escape. Lowe's is a fitting place to be miserable and resentful: it's a concrete box with no windows, and if you stick around for 30 seconds you will see something idiotic occur. Of course I've looked and applied to new jobs, but I live in Syracuse, NY, where “Poverty is the city’s overwhelming social characteristic”; the market for quality jobs isn't exactly exploding here. The periodic thought I could be trapped here is one of the primary reasons I've become an adventure loving day dreamer.  I would be lying if I said I hadn’t seriously considered walking out and catching the first bus to anywhere.

There's something so liberating about a trail through the woods, or along a river, or anywhere away from the socially constructed mess we call Western Civilization. There's no fee to walk the trail, no billboards or consumerism, one doesn't need a degree or certificate, or to jump through the hoops that authority regularly places in our way, and whether you reach your destination is solely the product of your own labor; you are in complete control of your destiny. I don't think there's many places or times we can say that in our lives anymore. If I could find a way to trade my degrees for a full-time job exploring and VW Bus to live in, I probably would. Until that day though, I'll struggle on with the rest of you. 

"There's a place up ahead and I'm goin' just as fast as my feet can fly
Come away, come away if you're goin', leave the sinkin' ship behind."

Welcome to Trail Lust!

I never thought I would be one for blogging; it always seemed like an incredible waste of time. However, after having the dual experience of reading Allie's blog (you don't know Allie? Well you should!) and spending as much time thinking about hiking and climbing as I do, I figured it was time to stretch out my thoughts somewhere. So here it goes!

My blog's name is Trail Lust, which is fitting for someone whose thoughts of being outdoors are only interrupted by the need to eat and time spent with loved ones....and I guess a healthy love of Guinness, but that's another story.  I have short, medium, and long-term goals on my adventure bucket list and I hope to share them with anyone who has a similar obsession with towering slabs of granite and the narrow, compacted strips of Earth dubbed "trail". 

I hope to bring stories of my current objective, the Adirondack high peaks, along with the Colorado 14er's, the great three national trails, sites from out West, and if I should ever strike the lotto and find the cash to do it, the tallest 7 summits on all 7 continents (a boy can dream right?).  Also be prepared for the anxiety of having such a strong wanderlust and feeling increasingly trapped by an ever increasing list of undesired responsibilities and the uncertainties associated with them; who wants to grow up anyway? Is it possible to grow down???  Maybe I should be writing a blog about that....sh*t.  Well I already made this page so I guess it's too late.

Before I sign out, let me introduce my climbing partners!  My best friend/basically brother since the third grade, Brian (aka Grizzly Bear).  He throws stuff at me far too often on the trail and is deathly afraid of heights oddly enough, but he is a killer outdoorsman (you'll have to excuse his F-bombs when I post video):

And the aforementioned Allie (aka Brown Bear), the only girl I know who is enough like me to spend days in the mountains singing Ja Rule, and bold enough to tell me to shut up 10x's on end when I'm talking too much.  After knowing each other for the last decade though, I wouldn't expect much else:

Enjoy the ride!  Your fearless leader, Stephon (aka Black Bear).