Ride Another Day
There's something about the northern sun that penetrates your brain and causes extreme irrationality. Only 1 week after our Kluane-Chilkat adventure, we were at it again with the 24 Hours of Light bike relay. Thankfully, this event is a little less strenuous and serious then the road relay (at least for us). Our eight person team went with the name Octopussy and dressed accordingly as Bond boys...
and Bond girls...
In 24 hours we:
- Ate 2 pizzas, 12 beers, 1 bottle of Baileys, 3 coolers, 2 bags of chips, 1 bag of grapes, 1 bag of Skor bites, a 2 foot long submarine, 4 red bulls and 2 liters of coffee.
- Rode 21 times around a 13 km mountain bike loop
- Destroyed 3 pairs of fishnet stockings
- Battled through dusky heat and freezing rain
- And forgot to sleep for any significant period of time
Even though the Yukon doesn't get a dark night sky this time of year, the sun still sets between 1 am and 4 am. During this time, the whole world is a dusky grey that makes you feel like you are walking around with a cheesecloth over your head. These are not the type of conditions that are ideal for a sport that involves speeding down rocky hills and swerving between trees. This weekend I learned an important life lesson: there are certain sports that require good visibility and mountain biking is one of them. My 2:30 am bike lap may have been the most frightening experience of my life.
We weren't the only busy beavers this weekend. Starbuck and Juneau got to spend the day at the 12 Hours of Nuisance Relay in our backyard. In 12 hours Juneau and Starbuck:
- Ate a bottle of compost accelerator and a bag of bonemeal. Unfortunately, we all suffered from this little error in judgement. Enzymes and fertilizer do not make a nice smelling pet.
- Dug one cubic feet of soil out of my currant bed
- Picked apart an entire bag of garbage and spread it all over the backyard.
- And unravelled a ball of string around every square inch of the deck
Apparently, humans aren't the only ones who find ways to amuse themselves under the midnight sun. Here are the little darlings sharing the front seat on the way home from their adventure.
Sierra posted this on Jun 26, 2006 from the outside | | permanent link
