Category: Road trips

Apple of my eye

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
At left, the 2012 MacBook Air. At right, the 2006 MacBook.

Well, shit. After railing against Apple in comments for relentlessly driving us toward machines we can’t repair, upgrade or otherwise alter without a visit to the Genius Bar and/or the Devil, I’ve gone and bought myself a 2012 MacBook Air, the top-shelf 11-inch model.

So, yes, I’m a hypocrite. But I’m also the new owner of a pretty cool mini-laptop.

Longtime consumers of the DogS(h)ite will know that I manage a road trip about as often as does Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Still, I do manage to slip the leash from time to time, and when I do, my companion generally is my most “modern” laptop — a 6-year-old, 13.3-inch Intel MacBook that has already blown one hard drive, smells worse than Mister Boo on a hot day and weighs as much as a WorldTour pro’s bike (with the WorldTour pro sitting on it).

I can wrench a bit on this old black MacBook. Change batteries, upgrade RAM, swap hard drives and perform other basic tasks. But it’s not exactly cutting-edge technology.

And as the road test dude for Adventure Cyclist (harumph), with Interbike looming on the horizon like a carbon-fiber meteor from Hell, I do have a certain responsibility to embrace new technology, no matter how ridiculous and/or expensive. Right? Right.

Plus I had the money and Herself said OK.

So, yeah. I have a new laptop. It’s bound to make me smarter, funnier, thinner. Ask anyone in Cupertino.

Back to the grind

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

Bilbo Baggins’ Road goes ever on and on, but mine came to a halt on Sunday. Monday I spent in the usual post-expedition fog, and today it was time to get back to business.

Herself lacks my interest in the culinary arts, so it’s a given that when I come home from a road trip there will be exactly jack-shit in the house to eat. After we burned through the steak, spuds and salad it quickly became apparent that someone would have to replenish the pantry, and as usual that someone was me.

Muchos grassyass
The Turk' catches some rays in the backyard.

So today, I hit the grocery — and man, did it ever hit back. Two hundred smacks down Whole Paycheck’s organic rathole for tasty bits of this and that. I should just sign over my Velo checks to these dudes and be done with it.

The good news is that the week’s menu will include fusilli draped with a spicy all’arrabbiata sauce full of red pepper flakes, capers and black olives; kung pao chicken with white rice; sausage and cheese enchiladas in red sauce with Mexican rice; chicken quesadillas; and chicken enchiladas in green sauce with a side of roasted potatoes in red chile. Can you tell I’ve been to Santa Fe recently? Yeah, me too.

Meanwhile, the Turk’ has been enjoying plenty of outside time since my return. Getting him in a harness is like sticking a hand in a running blender, and since he’s mostly my cat he’s mostly my problem.

No worries. I’ve been getting my furry brother hooked up so he can live the feline dream in the backyard, hunting grasshoppers and enjoying the last few days of summertime in Bibleburg.

Return of the Interbiker: The last good breakfast

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Sausage and cheese enchiladas
Sausage and cheese enchiladas at the Guadalupe Cafe in Santa Fe. The wait for a table was hitting 45 minutes when I got there, and worth every second.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Well, the last one that I didn’t have to cook, anyway.

I swung through Santa Fe post-Interbike and noshed at the Guadalupe Cafe, which frankly was batshit crazy at 11 a.m. Sunday, with the sort of line one associates with banks giving away free money.

And small wonder, because the food is always stellar.

I had my usual, the sausage and cheese enchiladas with a side of papas smothered in brick-red chile, and two cups of coffee.

As I ate, I thought briefly about putting a condo on the credit card and never going home. But then I realized that the cats would miss me terribly (yeah, right) and Herself would be eating out of cans while her kin hunted me with baseball bats, and I ain’t talkin’ catch-and-release here. Plus I’d already had a week of waking up without her around and that’s about six days too many.

So I gassed up and beat it for Bibleburg, arriving right around dinnertime.

To atone for my sins, per Herself’s request, I grilled a flatiron steak from Ranch Foods Direct and mashed up some spuds with heavy cream, butter, chives and parsley; she assembled a massive salad and we enjoyed a couple drams while I regaled her with tales from the bike show.

This morning it was what we call “smooshy eggs,” which is basically eggs boiled medium-hard, peeled and mashed with butter, salt and pepper, with spelt toast, java and juice on the side. Lunch was leftover dinner.

And tomorrow? Man. I’ll be lucky to slap together some toast and cold cereal. Someone around here needs to hit the grocery. Guess who? Home again, home again, dancing a jig.

Return of the Interbiker: Bibleburg to Flagstaff

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Bibleburg in the rear-view mirror
The obligatory shot of Bibleburg receding at speed in the rear-view mirror.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Whenever I take one of these journalistic road trips I quickly come to wish I’d gone into another line of work. Like, say, the manufacture and distribution of orange traffic cones.

I don’t believe I’ve ever driven Interstate 40 when it wasn’t under construction, and today this record remains intact. If only I’d had the foresight to major in traffic cones instead of journalism! With double minors in orange barrels and orange signs, of course. I could buy the 2012 elections, and wouldn’t that be interesting. Maybe not.

Cerrillos in Santa Fe was a construction clusterfuck, too. It was something of a struggle to enjoy my evening ales at Second Street Brewery, my breakfast burrito at Tia Sophia and a leisurely soak at Ten Thousand Waves. But I got them all done, and in that precise order, because I know that you, Dear Readers, expect nothing less than perfection in recreation from Your Humble Narrator.

Now I’m at a Motel 6 in Flagstaff and wishing I’d fetched a piece along, as per my usual practice. The place has backslid along with the economy and I’m pretty sure there is at least one flatbacker working the joint alongside the usual collection of chain-smoking toothless weirdos, grinning ax murderers and illegals camping 12 to a room. But there is wifi, so we have that going for us. I can webcast a digital appeal for help as the serial killers dismember me in front of my own webcam.

Meanwhile, I ignored the national slobbering over the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I didn’t hear anyone mention their most chilling effect — turning us into a nation of cheapjack, chickenshit bullies who wiped our collective asses with our own Constitution and then set about roaming the globe, shoving that stained document into brown people’s faces.

Instead I listened to a nonstop collection of Tom Waits CDs: Real Gone, Blood Money, Mule Variations, Small Change and Alice. Now I have a party in my head and an idea for a fireworks display.

Tomorrow: Vegas. Pray for me.

Home again, home again

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Turkish shows his delight at my return ("Ho, hum, were you gone? I didn't notice.")
Turkish shows his delight at my return ("Ho, hum, were you gone? I didn't notice.")

Agh. Reality rears its ugly head once again. I am no longer a snowbird but a jailbird, locked in a cell of my own making, which is to say I’m back at work for VeloNews.com, posting stories about cycling instead of cycling my own bad self. Oh, the humanity.

Ten Thousand Waves was a treat as always, and I wished that I could have spent ten thousand years there, but without money there are no vacations and without work there is no money, so there you have it. But it’s a rude awakening nonetheless.

Turkish — a.k.a. The Turkinator, Turkenstein, Big Pussy, Mighty Whitey, et al. — was confused and displeased by my sudden reappearance at dinnertime and took a while to reacquaint himself with the luxury of the Large Irish Lap. Which, I might add, is a little less luxurious after 240 miles of roadwork — I’m down to 172.5 pounds, which for me is positively svelte. I bet it only takes me a trip and a half to haul ass now.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla, clearly smarter and braver than her big brother, instantly remembered who I was and marched right up to me for an ear rub while Turk’ pussyfooted around with a look of distrust on his whiskered mug. But eventually he came around and I was able to scratch his big shovel-shaped head without losing a finger.

Naturally, Herself recognized me straight away as the profligate swine who has been causing the Visa card to smoke like a poorly tuned diesel for the past couple of weeks. But she forgave me and even cracked a bottle of The Prisoner to celebrate my return. That rascal will rattle your cage at 15.2 percent alcohol by volume.

And so will clocking in at the old license-plate factory after 12 days on the road. Hey, screw, call my lawyer! I don’t belong in here … I’m innocent, I tell ya!