Sunday, August 28, 2011

28 Aug 2011; "Why in the World Would You ...??"

  In January this year of 2011, I "graduated" from a career with Intel after 30 years with the company. Some people call it retirement, I cannot help think of it as a graduation though.  I am still blessed with good health, lovely wife and family (four sons still in Albuquerque) and now I have time to pursue what I am led to pursue, and this year that has been cycling.  And now that I am retired, I can seriously consider those items on my bucket list.  One of those items near the top of that bucket list is to cycle from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast. And that is where one might ask the question, "Why in the World Would You ...?"
  This trip incubated for me during my junior high years in Santa Monica, California.  As a boy growing up in Santa Monica, I rode my huge Huffy 3-speed everywhere.  I rode it to school, I rode to the Santa Monica pier to fish, I carried papers on it as a paper boy delivering the Santa Monica Evening Outlook and on the weekends, if I could get someone to ride with me, I would ride it north on the Pacific Coast Highway and ride up Topanga Canyon as far as I could.  I look back on this ride now and I am astounded I was doing this weekend ride on a huge fat tired Huffy 3-speed and I feel blessed I never had an encouter of the worst kind with a motor vehicle.  My parents were school teachers and every summer, my brother and I and my parents would cram into a VW sedan "bug", pile a tent and clothes on the top of the bug, and head north up the Pacific Coast, usually up Highway 1.  Usually these were fond memories, except when my father ran out of gas, but we keep those stories uncirculated in the family.  Later my little brother and I were joined by a little sister and another little brother and we outgrew the VW sedan "bug" and bought an old split windshield VW Westphalia camper van and every summer we would continue, as a family, to travel and camp up the Pacific Coast. 
     Skipping forward, I left California years ago and have now resided in Corrales, New Mexico for more than 30 years.  I have always owned a bike, and often it was a mountain bike.  I have concluded that I am now too old to keep going over the hande bars on my mountain bikes and have become almost exclusively a skinny tired roadie.  And yes, before you ask, I have gone completely over to the dark side and wear spandex and bright colored, tight fitting jerseys; so what!!
   Anyway, my history and fond memories of the Pacific Coast, my continued relationship with cycling has made the CanMexPac ride one of my top ranked bucket list items. And now that I have the time, the health, the support of my wife and family, and two other good friends that are of same mind, it is time to give this bucket list item a very sincere effort.  At this time, I will say my other two friends that are of like mind are Jim McGirk and Bill Rahe and I will introduce them in my next blog.