When I say rain is evil, I speak in terms of the outdoor enthusiast’s point of view, or at least my own outdoor enthusiasm, which is dampened (pun intended) by rain and cold weather. At least it’s not snow, which it could well be up here in Montana! I’ve seen snow in late June here in the past, many years ago. Anyway, it’s supposed to rain again today. Third day in a row. We had two days of high 70’s and now we’re looking at our high today being in the mid-40’s, only four or five degrees warmer than our low. There’s another bright spot, though – it’s not freezing at night. I’m thankful for that. I’m ready to be outside, though! Outside, outside, outside!!! I’m sure Squiggle Bug is saying the same thing in his own 10-mo way. Regardless of what I think, though, it’ll probably rain today. So what do I do?
I’ll work on mounting my panniers on my bike rack, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll try to find a detailed map of the city of Bozeman. I can count the teeth on each cog of my new bike and calculate the gear-inches of each combination, graphing them as I put them into chart form. I can go climbing at the overly-busy climbing gym (Saturdays are nuts at the climbing gym). Then, there’s good old-fashioned reading. I can write. I can organize my bike gear, speaking of which, I really should try on a pair of those chamois shorts that I got… If they don’t fit, then I should send them back! Or I could keep them for when I lose weight and need to downsize my clothing per square inch in order for things to fit (which will be exciting!). I can get ahold of Lou and see where exactly we’re supposed to be posting our pre-Genesis Challenge preliminary goals. I should actually do that. Really. I can get the returns ready for various places and get some of my money back for things I’m not going to use or that didn’t turn out being what I expected them to be. There are lots of things I can do. I can clean up the kitchen and make my husband happy. That would be ideal, and in an ideal world, I could have my own land, my own wildlife preserve, my own house, my own library, my own art studio, my own workout room, my own climbing gym, my own workshop, my own…you get the idea. Ideally, we could all have that. Ideal isn’t real, though. Let me say that it occurs very rarely and only in a person’s perception of things…
I want to get those panniers mounted and I want to get my gear-inches figured out and graphed, for sure. I also want to climb. I would love to ride my new bike, which has just under three miles on it at present, but I don’t want to ride in the rain. If I were a true adventurer, though, I would put on my water-resistant pants and my water-resistant jacket and go for a ride in the rain to see how my ADV 3.1 performs in the rain. Maybe I will ride my bike today! We’ll see how I feel later and how the weather shapes up. One thing I can’t do for sure is boulder outdoors in the rain. I don’t want to ruin or break any sandstone holds and be the talk of the local community for ruining such-and-such a bouldering problem with my stupidity, and I don’t want to ruin any problems, anyway. That’s the thing about the outdoors – we have to protect what we have at all costs because it’s only there until it’s gone, and can never be retrieved once lost!
So, I’m looking at another rainy day. The rain makes things green and helps them grow, and I love the green around here in the springtime, so there’s that to look forward to. The winter was so long that we’ve gone almost straight to summer in terms of temperature, with the exception of these rainy spells. It’ll get warm again (probably too warm), and I’ll be able to ride my bike and climb outside, which will make me extremely happy! Until then, I’ll make sure all the preparations have been made in anticipation of said opportunities for outdoor activity!!!
CLIMBING 4 THE REST OF US 