I'm Moving!

If everything goes according to plan, I should be moving to Carson City soon. Right now I live in Gardnerville, which is a 16 mile drive from work (32 mile round trip). Due to changing weather conditions, safety, and time with the family, this route is not practical for bicycle commuting...especially year round. A house in Carson City will allow me to ride to work year round no matter what the weather, as I'll be living within one mile of work. Shoot, I could X-Country ski to work if I needed to if the snow gets real deep!

As you can see from the picture, Carson City is very close to all sorts of recreational potential. And if the Sierras were to split apart, I'd be swimming in enough water to cover the entire state of California. Yeah, Lake Tahoe is that deep!

It will be a dream come true to use a bicycle for most of my transportation, and ridicule those who choose not to! True bicycle snobbery awaits me...



Thanks, Jerome for the video tip!

My Current Monthly Commute Statistics:
Miles Driven: 600
Hours in the car: 20 (almost one full day!)
Fuel Costs: $54
Probability of Death Commuting at 70 mph next to people with NASCAR numbers in their windows: High
My Sanity: Priceless

Note: I borrowed this picture from the Carson City Nevada Convention and Visitors Bureau website.

Welcome to Bear Country

The planning of today's ride began in the early morning when Jon alerted us to this Nevada Appeal article about three bears that were captured in Carson City. We figured that these must be the three bears we've been hearing about that have been spotted on the Ash Creek trail, a mother and her two cubs.

Here's a video of the bear capture in Carson City:



So we figured the coast was clear, and time to hit the Creek Trail today. Which we did...with no megafauna encounters. I didn't see any animal tracks along the way, and I whistled periodically to alert the canyon dwellers of our arrival. (Later, Scott and I would discuss the merits of bear whistling. Does this summon the bear or send them running?)

This is where the story gets interesting. I got a call from Brent on my cell phone. Since I work in a basement, I had to go outside to take the call. Our conversation was garbled, and I ended up calling him back. When we had a clear connection, Brent asked me how to get to the Ash Creek trail head. It's somewhat secret, and the location is only given to those who are worthy. Brent had a good idea of where I was telling him to go and hung up.

About 40 minutes later I received another garbled cell phone transmission from Brent, "static static static BEARS! static static static". I ran for the door to the outside again to take this call. It sounded somewhat urgent. I figured if Brent was being mauled by a bear, he probably wouldn't be calling me to tell me about it. Still I was a bit concerned.

When I had a clear connection, Brent told me that he and Chili Dog had just dropped into the canyon and scared a momma bear and her two cubs. The two cubs went running, and momma was looking for them. In the end, Brent decided to back track instead of agitating the bears further. So while he didn't get to ride the creek trail, at least he got to see some wild nature pretty close up.

It is said that the bears were released in the Carson Range, so it's possible these are same bears that were captured just the day before. Who knows?

I'm sure Brent will add some details to this account...