Road Trip!

What does a 7000 mile road trip in late summer have to do with kiting? Well, not a whole hell of a lot I admit but there are some kites involved. Kite buggies vanishing into thin air in the desert on the Cal/Nev. border, Peter Lynn Venom 2's flying over petrified dunes in Moab and some dirty kite deals made with some questionable characters in the dark, seedy corners of northern Minnesota. We drove an electric roller skate, dodged tornadoes, forest fires, and floods. Add a broken spatula handle and Molly's appetite for lamb's brains and entrails and you have a pretty interesting story right?

Interesting? I can't really make that judgment. It seemed interesting while we lived it but you'll have to make up your own mind.

First a brief explanation on how the trip came to be. Molly's sister Lora came home from Pahrump NV to have a her baby. Lora drives a Toyota Prius which, after driving the "car" back to Nevada, I've decided it is less of a car and more some sort of bastardized car/golf cart hybrid. More so than a gas/electric hybrid. Sure it gets almost 50mpg but it's freakish to drive, annoying to be seen in and uncomfortable as hell. I will admit it handles well and has a little more giddy-up than I would expect but I'm not sold on the whole hybrid thing. The Honda Civic CRX from 1986 averaged 46mpg and was a hell of a lot more fun and comfortable than the Prius.

Vampire Baby

Anyway, Lora owns a Prius (heheheh) and she came home to have her baby (a vampire baby). She had the kid and was going to drive back to Pahrump Nevada with Molly as co-pilot, the baby, the baby's stuff, Lora, Lora's stuff and a Chihuahua named Princess. That's right, "Princess" and no I did not make that up. All shoe horned into the Prius. Tight quarters for sure. When the time came to actually head back to Pahrump it was decided the night before that they should take the Odyssey and leave the Prius. More room, more comfort and more protection. Then in the fall we would head out and pick up the van, drop off the Prius, and drive home.
I won't bore you with too many details about the drive out. The first day we we're cruising through Ohio at about 11:45pm when I got bagged for doing 80mph. I was passing a double trailer aggregate truck that was drifting all over and just happened to do it while passing an Ohio State Trooper. The speed limit was 65mph.

When he pulled me over he didn't ask for my license and registration. No, the first words out of his mouth were "Sir, you WILL be receiving a ticket this evening." Then he asked for my stuff. He asked me if I knew how fast I was going when I passed him. I said "As fast as I want to fly my kite!" and started laughing.

He pulled me out of the car at that point and threw me to the ground. Even while his boot was firmly planted upon the back of my skull, pinning me to the cold pavement, I couldn't stop laughing. It was too funny.

Yeah ok, I made that up. I did get a ticket though and the Trooper had NO sense of humor. I suspect the Prius had some bearing on the situation. The ticket was for $124.00. As far as drifting trucks go there were a ton out there. I haven't driven across the U.S. since cells and texting have become so prevalent and I hate when drivers are on the celly or texting while they drive. But now the young truckers are doing it in semis pulling multiple trailers? Jesus that's stupid. Hang up and drive people.

Sorry, I'm getting a little of topic. Moving on....

Car Camping

Dog Breakfast

So day one I got a ticket which put me on edge for then next 3 days. We spent the night in the Prius (worse car camping ever) and the next morning we were heading for Nebraska when we ran into some weather.  Molly had run into weather in roughly the same area when she and Lora went out and said it was the worst storms she'd ever driven through.

And this weather looked to be the same. You could tell that we were in for a hell of a wallop.

We checked the weather reports and all hell was breaking loose. Tornadoes, bad hail, torrential downpours and flooding, the whole lot. We had to pull in under an overpass for a brief period while a hail storm passed by. There were a lot of cars under there with us but some were forced out by some minor flash flooding. While we we're down there we looked at the map and found a northern highway to skirt the weather. We figured it would be slower than the interstate but safer.

We left the overpass and continued on. As we turned onto our off ramp to the northern route I watched the rest of the traffic continue south. It was striking. The sky looked as ominous as could be as those poor souls headed right into it.

Crazy Clouds

Our route was perfect. Sunny, warm and always just north of the storms. Our route eventually brought us back to the interstate just missing the tail end of the storms. Once on the interstate we saw some of the carnage left behind. Cars and semi trucks spun completely around and blown off the roads by the winds. Reports on the radio about all kinds of storm damage some right where we were and all of it along our original route.

Looking South

Looking East

So we dodged that mess. Onto the next mess in Utah.

Eisenhower Tunnel

We had stopped in Green River for the night. The next morning the news report said that the interstate was closed due to a forest fire that had been sparked by lightning and raged for the last month. The fire had made it to the highway. In Green River we were over 100 miles away but you could see the smoke clearly. It made for awesome sunsets. We ate breakfast and made our way along the interstate to where they had it closed. We got lucky and in spite of the thick smoke they had reopened the highway.

Smokey Sunset

It was slow going but it was better than taking the detour.

Molly and Emalyn





Sirius and friend Mia.

We got to Nevada and swapped out the cars. Things were tight in the Prius all loaded. All our stuff and Sirius made for tight space in that thing but when I took it all out and put it in the van EVERYTHING fit behind the van's third row seats. Stupid Prius.

We were going to be cruising in luxury now.

We didn't stay long in Nevada. We did head out to a local dry lake while we were there, to check it out and maybe fly a kite. The Oddy did great off road as long as you picked your lines well. When we got out to the lake I could see something hauling ass on the other side. It was kicking up a huge plume of dust like a dirt bike or a car as it went along. Then I noticed that they seemed to be following something, something that wasn't kicking up dust. I realized it was a buggy and a kite. I'd never seen a buggy on a lake bed and I really wanted to go see this. We shot across to the California side in hopes of getting to talk to the buggier. By the time we got there however the buggy was gone. No wind, no kite, no buggy. We drove down the route we saw them take but no luck. Poof! they were gone.

Desert Dog

We left Lora's the next day made our way back to Utah to visit Moab. We started going to Moab in 1995 after we saw some inline skaters riding the "slickrock" sandstone there. I was recovering from my first shoulder surgery and wasn't riding bikes at the time. The mountain bike thing was just starting to build momentum there. I love Moab. I'm sad to see how it's been built up and lost a lot of its character and been reduced to catering to the lowest hanging tourism fruit. Feels just like home!

We stayed at the Motel 6 one night.  I'd been carrying around an old spatula handle for itching under my cast.  I know they say not to do that but this cast was really itchy. 

Anyway they also say that you could break something off in the cast scratching.  Yeah, well I could hear Deb (my caster) telling me that when I snapped the spatula handle off scratchin' in the motel room. D'oh!

We spent a few days there. Hiked the La Sals, some canyons and Flew the 8m Venom 2 on the Slickrock trail. I wish I had a Ground Board to ride the sandstone. I know a few places out there that would be epic kite ground board action. Maybe someday.

Molly

After Moab we went north to South Dakota and the Badlands. Along the way we passed through Wyoming and some of the biggest open spaces you've ever seen. I don't know how much snow they get out there but the kite touring would be amazing. No power lines, minimal fences, huge open spaces.

We then passed through Custer and Sirius got his first look at a buffalo. I think he thinks HE's a buffalo.

We got to Wall SD and stopped in at Wall Drugstore. A tourist trap on a grand scale but also a place to get homemade donuts and 5 cent cups of coffee. If you like coffee and donuts it's a damn good time. While we were there Molly and I took turns riding the giant Jackalope (antelope/jackrabbit hybrid). Wall Drug has a series of fountains that are timed to music. Molly challenged herself to walk through the musical water fountain area without getting sprayed. A crowd gathered as she attempted this feat and to all our amazement she made it through without getting wet. But there was one fountain that she didn't see and had stopped right in front of at the end of her walk through. That one got her. We all laughed.

The Jackalope and freshly sprayed

We left Wall and went to the Badlands National Park. We hadn't been in a while and it's changed a lot. It's still beautiful but you're pretty much stuck sitting in the car these days. No hiking off trail, no exploring. We stayed maybe an hour and a half and headed to east to Minnesota to meet up with the Saude. Aaron Saude.

LEVINS!!!!!

Ahhhhh Minnesota. We passed through the town of White Bear Lake where Joe Levins beat me to the 70mph mark a couple years back. We stopped and checked out the lake and hit a coffee shop the whole time yelling "LEVINSSSS!!!!" while shaking my fist in the air. I was hoping that on some off chance we would run into him but it didn't happen. That would have been awesome. White Bear looks like a pretty nice place to ride ice and water. The winds were awesome when we were there.

We continued north to Sandstone where Aaron, his wife Emily and their two future kiters Brock and Cora live. Brock is very much an Aaron 2.0 and Cora is friggen cool as a cucumber. Emily is awesome and has a solid handle in raising all three Aaron, Brock and Cora.

Molly, Emily and Aaron toasting.

While there we ate. I mean we ATE. Emily and Aaron are carnivores after my own heart and the clogged arteries that feed it . Yes there was bacon involved, there always has to be bacon involved. And marshmallows the size of Cora's head. They make for some serious smore action.

Hard to go wrong with chocolate, pizza and donuts.

For the last few months I've been hearing about a project that Peter Lynn and others are working on from time to time called the SLArc. SL for "single Line". Yes an Arc that flies on one line and is self correcting.  There are several reasons for persuing this and I won't get into the details but it's a very cool and intriguing concept. Any Arc can be converted to SL and Aaron had a 16m V2 that he had set up for testing. His however is not purely an SL as it is controlled by a bar like any normal Arc. His is set up primarily for traction purposes.

Aaron spreadin' the Peter Lynn Gospel. (notice the bridle)

SLArc

We got to fly the SLArc while we were. The wind was light, shifty. Not great wind to fly in general but interesting winds to test fly in. I figured if we could get the kite up in the bad conditions and have it fly well then we would know that it would be useful in better conditions.

There was a lot of running involved. I didn't have my harness on and just had the kite attached to my belt. At one point I accidentally pulled the chicken loop safety and lost the kite. To my dismay she flew better without me than with me. As she drifted slowly away and towards the power lines it was decided that when it hit the lines that we would abandon the kite and leave the area immediately. Never mind that Aaron is the local Peter Lynn dealer. I can hear the cops now, "Uh Mr. Saude, are you sure you don't know anything about that kite that knocked out power just down the road from here?"

Aaron, shaking his head "no" with a mouth full of fist sized bacon wrapped marshmallows.

We didn't lose the kite.

While there Aaron and I also did a "Dirty Kite Deal" the 8m v2 Lives in Minnesota now and I'm the scared owner of a couple of F-Arcs and a huge light wind, that's right I said LIGHT WIND Arc. One F-Arc is ready to have the SLArc mod installed but first I'm going to get a handle on how the F-Arcs fly before I start changing them. Pretty psyched about flying them. They're ridiculously high AR compared to my other kites and seem very fast. The big kite (I call her Big Blue) is amazing. She's at least 24m square but only weighs just over 7lbs with the spars. The material seems very similar to the Skytex stuff you see on Flysurfer Silver Arrow series kites.

F-Arc (so skinny)

Big Blue (So not skinny)

I have garage envy. Aaron's garage is sick. We didn't stay long at the Saude homestead but it was very much the highpoint of the trip. Emily sent me off with a couple of "poop sticks" to scratch my cast with. They worked awesome Em, thanks!

Go Wilmot!

We headed south to Wisconsin to visit where I used to live and then on to Chicago to go to a restaurant that I hadn't been to in 35 yrs. On the way down there was a ton of rain and once again we skirted the weather and this time major flooding. We stayed a night in Wisconsin then headed to Chicago.

I was born in Chicago, in Greek town actually, and there's a restaurant there that my parents used to frequent called The Parthenon. I'm named after Chris Liakouras, the owner of the restaurant.

The restaurant has changed a bit but it is still recognizable to me. I had what used to be my favorite food, saganaki (can't go wrong with flaming cheese) and a gyro. Molly, feeling a little adventurous in ordered up the Lamb sweetbread platter. If you've ever watched the food channel you probably know what sweetbreads are. First of all there is no "bread" involved. Sweetbreads are also known as "organ meats" (brains, intestines etc.) No, I'm not kidding that's what she ordered. The waiter seemed a little impressed by her choice and more so by her decision to have it broiled. I overheard the order but I assumed Molly knew exactly what she was doing so I didn't say a word.

Chi Town.

Our meals came out and they were awesome. Molly's platter looked and smelled great and she dug right in. I sampled some of it and it was really amazing. After a while Molly commented how some of the meat was kinda chewy while other pieces seemed to have an almost creamy texture. I suggested that the chewy bits were probably intestine and the creamy bits were either brain or kidney.

She just looked at me for a moment and said "what?"

We then had the whole "sweetbread" discussion. That it had nothing to do with little pastries as Molly had assumed. She sat there for a moment digesting what I explained to her (as well as a few lamb brains) and responded with "Well, this will make a good story!". She continued to eat. After the meal I had the opportunity to introduce myself to Mr. Liakouras as we left. He's a very nice gentleman and I was glad to get to meet him though I don't think he believed me when I told him I was named after him.

Frosty

We left Chicago and were home the next day. We stopped at Robert Frost's grave on the way but beyond that pushed right through.  The first thing I did when I got home was head out and throw one of the F-Arcs in the air. Very Interesting. I can't wait to get them out on the snow.

Next week "Out with the old in with the new."