Sack Racing, Festivals, Dance Parties, and LSD.

Festivals, Dance Parties, and LSD, oh how I love thee. The past two weeks have rocked. The Pisgah Summer Games, LAAFF festival, house parties, bigwheels and mountain bike rides.

The Pisgah Summer Games were awesome. I learned that "fast" on Kitsuma is about 23 minutes from parking lot to park, wiffle ball rules, and watching adults compete in sack races after 8 beers is one of the funniest things you will ever see. Twenty racers and far more competitors later in the day made for yet another quality brew crew event. Kickball, sack races, wiffle ball, a little frisbee, and a lot of great beer made for some fun times. As for the bake sale and funraiser side of things, we raised a whopping 40 bucks after expenses. Well, at least we didn't loose money on our own fundraiser and thanks to Pisgah Brewing for letting us celebrate at the brewery on a Sunday and everybody who came out to play, made food, bought lunch and some baked goods.

LAAFF was amazing, 12,000+ freaky party people and no real issues. I worked on this one for the past few months with a wonderful group of people. I was in charge of organizing about 50 volunteers, which I thought would be a lot like herding cats but instead ran smoother than trying to organize an impromptu game of wiffle ball with fifteen of my friends at the Pisgah Summer Games. Art, bands, costumes galore, bigwheel races, and bike jousting. What more do you want?

photo of joust and chicks on big wheels by jody flemming -

The house parties just keep coming and they seem to turn into a dance party every time. Sleep has become a valuable commodity and I don't even have to be at work at a set time these days. While the parties have picked up I managed to get in a few good mountain bike rides at Bent Creek before re-injuring my ankle while test piloting one of Mooney's big wheels on Friday night. Having a pedal come off while cranking down the sidewalk on a makeshift bigwheel will hurt a weak ankle, but proceeding to get drunk and dance on it till 4 am will ensure the swelling and pain comes back.

I figure that with my ankle (re)injury, a whopping 40 bucks raised at the summer games and no idea of when my next paycheck will arrive that I have more than enough reasons to stay in town. As bummed as I am about missing the SSWC09 Party I am looking forward to hanging out in the mountains I call home and doing LSD. LSD is awesome, it's cheap, it clears the head and makes you stronger. Yes, Long, Slow, Distance or L.S.D. as it is called in some circles will do wonders for the soul.

The time of the year is right for a loooong ride, the price tag for adventure is right and I can obviously do enough partying in my own town to warrant cashing a reality check that says "Stay Put Sucka". So I leave on Thursday to ride a bicycle to Boone on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway with few of the Asheville crew. If all goes well we will then head west with hopes of making it to Hot Springs NC on Saturday for a nice soak before heading home on Sunday. To my crew that is heading west for the big dance, I wish you well and offer this race advice..

"When you find yourself in the tree house having a dance party at 1:00 am after driving a few thousand miles, riding a few hundred miles, hitting all the sswc preparties, drinking a thousand beers and competing in this years sswc race, you know you've won.."

word up. i'm out.. Jut 2da Rizut