"Define Normal"

"Define Normal" is written on a popular Skydiving t-shirt.
According to Ellen Goodman, "Normal is getting dressed in clothes you buy
for work and driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in
order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes, the car, and the
house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."

So, I guess I'm back to normal.

Epilogue
It's Tuesday, and I just spent my first day at work in just over 4 weeks.
One of the kids who used to work for me coined the phrase "Yippee it's
Tuesday!" It makes reference to the fact that every Tuesday we get our
shipment from Home Hardware. First we unload it all, then we sort, price,
and put it all away. My job is sorting and pricing. Every Tuesday for the
last 20 years I've stood in the same spot in front of a large table, slicing
open box after box after box, sorting and tagging whatever I find within.
The only time I move more than a couple of feet from my spot it's to fetch
another box. My version of "Normal".

The party is over, the travelling is done, it's time for reality to intrude
once again into the continuous party known as "Crazy Larry's Excellent
Adventure". I've accomplished much in the last few weeks. I travelled from
Ottawa Ontario to Ottawa Illinois, to Burnaby, to Montreal, to Newfoundland,
and back to Montreal again. I started with a fast ride through The Park,
then Dan's Stag, Nathalie's deck is finally painted, I've been to Summerfest
(all too briefly but I was there) helped set a new Canadian POPS Record, was
part of a Team that earned that long-sought Nationals medal in 4-way that
for so many years seemed out of reach, Camped with Doug Forth and 34 of my
friends, made it to The Rock for Dan and Cheryl's wedding, and Nathalie and
I finished it off with a 2 day tour on 2 wheels.

I did some smuggling, some snuggling, some partying, some packing, danced
like nobody was watching (okay, I danced and hoped nobody was watching),
drove fast and took chances, flew, frapped, flopped, and even flopped around
a few times, although the new medication seems to have that under control.
Got scraped, scratched, bruised and beaten, and more than a few people tried
to kill me, but that was mostly unintentional.

To all those who have joined me for parts of this summers adventure,
thank-you. To those who have lived vicariously through these emails, you're
welcome. Having somebody else along for the ride just increases the fun.
(According to Garth people look forward to receiving these updates out of a
sense of morbid curiosity.)

To all the people who have supported Nathalie and Debbie in their pursuit of
Jump For The Cause by buying a calendar or making a donation, thank you.
When I walked into Mile High last Wednesday with an arm load of calendars,
not a single person said no, and I sold every one I brought. Nathalie was
blown away by the generosity of people who are in many cases strangers. If
there is anybody I missed who would like one, I'll have some at work, just
drop by and I'll fix you up.

People keep telling me I should be a writer, and it is something I've always
wanted to do. Here's the way I see it. I wrote this, you read it. As far as
I'm concerned, I am a writer. Thanks for reading.

There's another popular skydiving t-shirt that asks the question "Why Be
Normal?"
Good question.
Crazy Larry

"We'll rant and we'll roar like true Newfoundlanders...."

"We'll rant and we'll roar on deck and below......
Until we strikes bottom beside the two sunkers........
And straight through the channel to Taslow we'll go....."

I don't know what the last two lines mean, but the first two are claiming
that nobody can party like a Newfie. After what I've been through since my
arrival I wouldn't argue.

It's now my third day here, and I've spent most of my time in one bar or
another, and every one of them has had a view of the harbor. They even
served wine at the church 'though you had to line up to get some, and it
also had a view of the harbor.

Dan, Casey and I took Harley for a walk up Signal Hill yesterday morning
before the ceremony, and while Dan was putting the dog back into the truck
he said "Larry, I need a favor." Out of reflex I replied " No problem buddy.
I've got my Gold card, we can be in Vegas in 7 hours, and she'll never find
you". And realized Dan was holding out a tie and gazing at me with a strange
look on his face. All he wanted was some help dressing the dog. Shirt, tie,
and bowler hat. Normally at a wedding the most photographed person is the
bride, but this time it was the dog. At the church tourists were even coming
in off the road to take pictures.

The ceremony went pretty much as planned, we didn't wear the bright yellow
Sou' westers after all when somebody pointed out you're supposed to take your
hat off in church.

The person who cried the most wasn't the bride, or her mother, or one of the
bridesmaids. As Cheryl made her way towards the altar J.C. whispered "He's
crying!" I turned to see Dan, who I've come to think of as one of the
mentally and physically toughest people I know, with tears running down his
cheeks. Dan, I told you, 7 hours and we're in Vegas man!

One of the bridesmaids gave Dan some Kleenex, and when he used it up the
priest gave him more. So much for the tough guy. All it took to take him
down was a beautiful woman in a white dress.

The only glitch was when we started the procession back down the aisle. The
priest who had guided us through the rehearsal the day before was just
filling in for the guy who actually performed the ceremony. The fill-in was
much younger, and thought the electric guitar bit was a great idea. Nobody
thought to check with Father English, who performed the ceremony. When "Ode
To Joy" suddenly turned into something that sounded more like "Jimmy Page
Live" it looked like the quiet, soft-spoken man who had performed the
ceremony was getting ready to call for Hell-Fire and Damnation to descend
upon the guitarist. It would have been pretty funny if we were standing at a
safer distance.

The wedding is over, the paperwork signed, pictures taken, and it's
official: there is now a new Mrs. Whitman.

We had a lot of fun with the hats and the bottles of Screech, and they both
figured prominently in the wedding pictures. The bridesmaids were
complaining of thirst so J.C. ran across the street to a convenience store
for a couple of 8-packs of beer (it seems that in Newfoundland 6-packs
aren't quite big enough), which led to us standing around in tuxes and
formal wear drinking beer in the parking lot of Government house, which was
our first stop for pictures.

The reception was pretty standard. Until they brought out a dead fish and
performed a ceremony called "Getting Screeched In". You kiss the dead fish,
drink a shot of Screech, recite something that means something only to a
Newfoundlander but sounds pretty rude, and we were inducted into "The Royal
Order Of Screechers". The whole wedding party are now honorable Newfies.

And the peasants rejoiced. And partied, and drank, and danced, and drank
some more, and admired the view of the harbor.

Saturday afternoon Alex took me and the bridesmaids out to Cape Spear for
some much needed fresh air, and as a bonus we got to do some whale watching
before Casey and Cheryl ran me out to the airport so I could return home. It
was the longest stretch since I arrived here where I've been conscious and
didn't have any alcohol. I intend to return to The Rock someday, but I'm
going to spend a little more time doing the tourist thing, and a little less
time in bars.

End of Chapter 5

"Lightning is God's Beer Light"

"Lightning is God's Beer Light"

That's what Beer Girl said to me as we passed each other outside manifest
after the storm that shut us down Sunday had passed. The Beer Light is what
is turned on at a Drop Zone to signify that jumping is officially over for
the day and that we can now move on to the next stage: drinking. Open
containers of alcohol are strictly forbidden at most operations until
jumping has finished for the day. The Beer Light itself takes many forms. At
some DZ's it's a simple light bulb in a designated spot. If they get fancy
they might put it on top of a building so it can be seen from anywhere in
the DZ. At my home DZ it's a child's toy hard hat equipped with batteries
and a strobe. When we're done jumping, the kid puts it on and runs around
the Drop Zone letting everybody know it's time for the partying to commence.
Yeah you're right, not exactly normal, but as a relative thing how much fun
do normal people have?

We got 2 jumps in on Sunday. The first one went well, I was a second row
diver coming out of the trail plane and got to chase the base across the sky
to get to my slot. As usual Rhonda flashed past me every time to get there
in half the time it took me. At the start of the camp she said she needed to
practice being a late diver, but from what I could see she has that job
pretty much nailed.

At least I Didn't have to worry about John Smith. On the jumps the day
before he was where he was supposed to be, above and offset from the base
looking back up the line of flight. I never give a thought to the cameraman
because he's the guy who is always safely out of the way, hovering above the
burble. But he might not as safe as he thinks he is if I'm a floater coming
out of the trail plane and he's looking down at what he's videoing like he's
supposed to, not up and behind him where nobody should be. But a couple of
times when I launched from the trail plane I tracked up, not over, and found
myself having to dive back down to get to my slot, straight towards an
unsuspecting John Smith. The first time I saw him I thought he was just
another skydiver and moving in the same general direction I was. It wasn't
until I was about 20 feet away and closing fast that I realized he was
stationary and I had to shear off to the side to keep from hitting him. You
can get away with a lot of stupid mistakes at a camp, it's looked upon as
the place to make mistakes and learn, but I'm pretty sure that taking out
the cameraman would qualify as a cardinal sin. Doug wouldn't settle for just
fining me a few cases of Beer, and there wouldn't be enough Single Malt
Scotch in Ontario to be able to apologize to John. Besides, he's from out
west and probably has guns. It didn't go unnoticed though. After landing,
while I was talking to Rhonda, John came up and asked her if he was in the
way of traffic coming over from the chase plane to join the formation. "Not
at all" said Rhonda, "nobody should be anywhere near you." The next time I
found myself above and behind John I gave him a wide berth as I passed.

There is a sequence of "calls" before made before a load so that everybody
knows when they need to be ready. A 20 minute call, a 15 minute call, a 5
minute gear up call, and finally a gear up and go call 'cause the plane is
waiting. For our second jump on Sunday a layer of high cloud started to move
in, but Doug didn't want to lose our momentum so he put us on a "Gear up and
Wait" call. That's a new one. Apparently it means pull on your jumpsuit,
strap on your rig, gloves, and altimeter, then stand around in oppressive
heat and humidity soaking in sweat and wait to see what happens. I'm hoping
it's not a new big-way skydiving technique that I'll be encountering
regularly in the future.

Our second jump on Sunday also went well, on our side that is. Except for a
hard dock on our side that sent a wave through the formation that produced
an effect similar to "cracking the whip" on skates when we were kids. The
people in the middle don't have to worry, they just ride it out. But there
were a couple poor sods on the other side who didn't have someone holding
onto them for them to pass the kinetic energy on to, and consequently when
the wave got to them they got cracked off and sent across the sky. But our
side was fine and that's all that really matters. To me anyway.

That is, we were fine until break off. We all got safely away from the
formation at our assigned altitude with me once again winning the tracking
lottery and heading towards the airport, but as I tracked I noticed a huge,
very low, almost fog-like bank of cloud that seemed to be rolling in from
the lake and was quickly covering the airport. The airport was directly
below me and that seemed to be where the cloud was thinnest so I was able to
quickly spiral down and land, but not everyone was as lucky. By the time the
people who had tracked away from the airport flew back the cloud had
thickened and they had to descend where they thought the airport was. It was
scary enough standing on the ground watching canopies suddenly materialize a
couple hundred feet above, I'm awfully glad I wasn't one of the ones who
sank into that cloud only to see the canopies around me vanish, not being
able to see if anybody decided to turn, or exactly where the many obstacles
in the area were. Everybody landed safely, but unless and until the weather
stabilized we were grounded.

Despite the problems landing, Josee was wearing a grin every bit as big as
the one she had when we took the Bronze. She had wanted to try diving and
wound up seated at the very front of the plane across from Philippe. That's
a tough slot, and only the best can pull it off. No matter how tight things
are jammed up at the door of the plane, in the time it takes to sprint to
the door and throw themselves out the last divers can find the base has
traveled a couple hundred yards and is still accelerating, pulling away
from them. They have the longest distance to go, and have to be extremely
careful they don't overshoot and wind up low. On the video I could see Josee
and Philippe make their slots in excellent time, arriving before some of the
people who had been out the door ahead of them. "That was the Best Skydive I
ever had!" She declared, and the grin confirmed it.

We were debriefing when Manifest called over the PA that "There is a furious
rainstorm expected in the next few minutes, everybody roll up their car
windows" Not 'It's gonna rain", not even "It's gonna rain hard', it was
gonna rain furiously. There was a sudden surge towards the exits with
panicked shouts along the lines of "Screw the windows - my GEAR is outside!"
The picnic tables outside were covered in rigs, cameras, laptops and other
expensive toys all just piled up like rubble.

We had everything under cover in no time flat, and when the rain started it
was indeed, furious. And loud. Most of us were in the hangar and it made so
much noise hitting the steel roof that we had to shout at each other to be
heard.

That was it, we were done for the day, the camp, and the boogie.

The POPS record the Nationals and the Big-Way camp were all (major) injury
free, me and most of my friends got at least one shiny thing on a ribbon
hung around our necks, we all learned some stuff at the camp and while
competing - in some cases about about skydiving, and in some cases about
ourselves. It was a lot of fun, but after 17 days of living out of my truck
I was glad to be on my way home.

On a sad note Tana Nash, formerly of Stratosphere, announced she has sold
her gear and will be leaving the sport. She has met all her challenges and
achieved all her goals. Stratosphere adopted the team I was on in Farnham in
2005, to guide and encourage us through a difficult competition, spending
more time prepping our dives than their own, even as they were defending
their National title. She'll still show up at Burnaby from time to time, but
Nationals will never be the same without her and Rocky coming over, shaking
their heads, saying "Okay, let us show you the way you're supposed to do
that."

Nathalie has expressed concern that perhaps what made the team so ill was
Swine Flu, so I looked up the symptoms on the internet.
"Symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, fatigue, body
aches, loss of appetite, and an uncontrollable urge to fuck in the mud."

Nope. I never once lost my appetite.

There's another Nationals in 2011 and I expect we'll probably be there,

"Once more into the breach my friends". And there's been a challenge made.
Of sorts. Aidan Waters of Tropical Fish and I were talking before 4-way
started and he said "I hope you kick Evolutions Ass! And then we'll kick
yours!" We shared a laugh at the time, but that was before the Cinderella
story came true and we took third place. Aidan, we made a 9 average while
most of the team was sick as dogs and with a total of only 28 training
jumps. At the next Nationals if you feel someone breathing down your neck,
or nipping at your heels, don't be surprised if you look over your shoulder
and find us there. We'll be back. And we've got two years to practice.

I was about to send this email when I received a text message from Diane
Beer Girl Blonde Blue Crazy. She and Johnny Larue were supposed to fly out
Monday afternoon, but instead they have eloped, and are at Niagara Falls
with John Smith who is the official Wedding Photographer. I wonder if they
told Johnny's wife yet?

End of Chapter 4
Next: Wedding Bells on The Rock

Don't Look Away........

"Don't look away from the center of the formation.
When you look away from the center, bad shit happens"
Doug Forth

Chapter 4
40-Way Skills Camp with Doug Forth
There's a phenomenon in weather forecasting called "The Lake Effect". It
refers to the effect a large body of water such as one of the Great Lakes
has on weather systems, influencing the way the system moves. At Mile High,
my home drop zone, there is a reservoir that wraps around 2 sides of the
airport and we are often getting out of the plane over top of it. It's not a
problem, we're wearing Aqua Buoy flotation gear, and while the reservoir
isn't small, if necessary you can turn and run with the wind and make the
far side easily. But unless you start at around 100,000 feet you don't have
a hope in hell of making the far side of Lake Erie. Lake Erie is only a mile
or so from the Burnaby airport and because of prevailing winds we usually
take jump run towards the water. For the purposes of skydiving The Lake
Effect is what happens at break off when somebody loses the tracking lottery
and realizes they're tracking away from the formation and out over the
lake. In any large formation, say 20 or more, you're going to have at least
4 or 5 people who are over or headed towards the water. The immediate
reaction when you realize this generally to panic. People either change
direction across someone else path, ignoring most of the rules of safe
separation and good manners, or to immediately dump in place, thereby
breaking the rest of the rules of safe separation and ignoring the fact that
there are probably people tracking behind them.

My first experience with The Lake Effect was at the warm-ups for the
Canadian Record in 2006. At break off I looked back between my feet to see
canopies suddenly coming out all over the place, a good two thousand feet
higher than they should, and realized that all I could see below, behind,
and to both sides was water. I snapped my head forward and there was LAND! I
was the only one to make the airport, and we spent the next hour picking
people up from where they'd landed in various back yards, on roads, and a
few from the beach.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this camp. There are a lot
of low experience people here, climb outs will be long, extending the spot
further towards the water, and "The Lake Effect"

I wrote the above the day before yesterday. I know what's coming..
Weeeeee!

Friday morning started dull and early. The day was early, I was dull.

Doug appointed Beth as Beer Cop and started handing out fines as soon as the
briefing started to people who showed up late. The Beer Cop records the
fines and ensures that the Beer is paid. Drop Zones run on Beer. Beer is the
Nectar of Knowledge: at the end of the day when you stand around drinking
and telling stories is when a lot of learning takes place. I stepped forward
when Doug asked for a 6-way base so I could put on my new weight belt and
see just how fast I can go. As soon as he asked for someone to take his leg
grip Beer Girl dove in with a big grin on her face, cutting several other
girls off to be the one holding Doug's butt.

I was sitting by the door and I knew for sure it was going to be a good day
when the other Otter pulled up beside us as we climbed and the female
copilot flashed us. Beth was leaving with Nick, who usually does freefly,
and when he left he wound up in front of her on his head, not flat like he
should have been. Beth started yelling (which is pointless because contrary
to what Keannu Reeves and Patrick Swayze claim you can't talk in freefall)
"Nick! This is Formation Skydiving,
not head down!" He quickly corrected himself so maybe he heard her after
all.

I spent all my free time between jumps harassing people into buying
calendars. There were only two acceptable replies. "I've already bought
one", or "Here's $20 now Leave Me Alone!". I have no shame. It was at the
point where people would see me coming and turn around and head the other
way.

We did six mostly successful skydives and learned lots - things to do and
things NOT to do.

On Saturday we started early and I was leaving as a floater from outside the
trail plane. On the first exit Shelly didn't launch far enough, and I went
out too far and wound up rodeoing her as we fell perfectly stable for a
couple of seconds before I gently pushed her down and forward, sliding out
from between her legs and into clean air. The dive went well, for our side
at least, the other side had somebody land on it resulting in about half a
dozen people getting funneled. At break off I drifted over too far and wound
up rodeoing Josee, so I got to start and finish the Skydive riding a girl.

There have been a few fines handed out but for the most part people have
been well behaved and the skydives haven't been scary.

We're done for the day and will be going to the Banquet tonight to collect
the rest of our awards.

Our Mama's will be Proud

It's said a picture is worth a thousand words. But in this case you get the
picture and a thousand words. The story is just the story, but the picture
is the punch line that drives it all home.

8 Months, 3 1/2 hours of tunnel, 28 training jumps, hour after hour after
hour after hour on creepers, pinched fingers, frayed nerves, body slams,
funneled exits, stress, late nights, sleepless nights, early mornings,
pushing, shoving, nagging, arguing, whining, heads pounded against walls
(literally), missed days at work, and it all comes down to "35 seconds of
working time after the first team member achieves total separation from the
aircraft". Times 10. Some teams fold under the pressure, some rise to the
occasion, and some, like us, do neither. We planned the dives, and dove the
plans. Nothing fancy, just a simple strategy of staying calm and cool, and
doing what we knew we could do. And steadily racking up points on every
round. Even in the first round on Tuesday when we got onto the plane
coughing hacking and sneezing like a bunch of patients from an influenza
ward our energy level was high. We thought we'd blown that whole very
difficult round and would have been happy scoring 3 points. We earned 6. We
dropped a grip on a couple of exits but kept flying and pulled it back
together with hardly any time lost.

We even lucked out in the draw for our loading order. We were the only
people on the plane with Evolution and Tropical Fish. There was never any
rushing to board, no running to the plane, quiet rides to altitude as we all
focused on mental rehearsal, all of us sitting there with eyes closed and
our arms and heads moving back and forth as we pictured the perfect skydive
flowing smoothly past.

After our long stand down for weather we were concerned about being able to
get "up" for round 9, but when I started paying attention to peoples
expressions halfway through the skydive I realized we were all grinning at
each other like a bunch of kids on Christmas morning. Turn - stop - grip -
flash - turn - stop - grip - flash - me and my piece partner Josee linked
together hopping over the other piece and dropping right into their grips -
stop - flash - turn........... Formation Skydiving is one of the ultimate
team sports, no matter how good the star of your team is, the team is only
as good as it's weakest member.

We were literally dancing as we walked back from the landing area.
To sum it up: WE KICKED ASS!

Final Results
Gold: Evolution
Silver: Tropical Fish
Bronze: 4D
90 Points in time over 10 rounds for a 9 average.

And we beat a team with matching suits.

And the peasants rejoiced.

Last night we stood together in the hangar, a Team, as they draped our
medals around our necks.

As soon as the medals were all awarded Neil McGrath called Nathalie up to
present a couple of awards and I found out the real reason Dan and Casey had
come all the way to Burnaby. It was to deliver my Gold Wings for my Two
Thousandth jump and accompanying framed certificate, and my pin for 10 hours
of accumulated freefall time. And a bottle of Scotch. Thanks Dan, maybe I
won't show your future in-laws the pictures from your stag after all.

We managed to get through all our training and the competition with only
some minor bruises. Until we were creeping for round 10. As we went through
one block I put my forearm flat on the ground beside me as I started a turn
and sandwiched my arm between the concrete and the creeper wheel with all my
strength and body weight behind it. I felt a momentary flash of pain and
then the whole arm went numb, but I kept on going. Sort of. It's difficult
to creep using only one arm and with the other feeling like it's had a
tourniquet put on it. We got through a couple more moves with the rest of
the team asking me what was wrong and me insisting I was fine and that we
should keep going when the feeling started coming back into my arm and I
started wishing it had stayed numb. Phil saw the look on my face as we
passed each other, and while he says I had tears running down my face I'm
pretty sure it was just sweat. I'm actually kinda disappointed. There's a
raw spot a little more than an inch long, but for the amount of pain
involved I was really hoping for a big colorful bruise to show off.

Next: 8-Way and 10-Way Speed!

Power Rangers Never Give Up!

It's 2:30 and we're on a weather hold. The winds are stupid strong and we
all had a carnival ride as we came in to land on our last jump. There was a
load in the boarding area ready to go but when manifest saw us come down
they shut the plane down. There's a tornado warning out for Hamilton which
is practically around the corner, but it's a competition so if they say go,
we go. 8 Rounds done and in the bag and considering we're averaging a box of
Kleenex and a dozen Sudafed every few hours we're holding up pretty well. By
the time we've tracked away on the last few jumps my sinuses have been in
agony from the rapid pressurization, Nathalie is currently unconscious in a
lawn chair, and the 3 of us keep honking regularly like a herd of elephants.

But like Steve tells Nolan "Power Rangers Never Give Up!" 7 Rounds have been
posted and we are continuing to strengthen our hold on 3rd place. In fact,
we scored 15 points in round 7 which is almost the total our pick-up team
scored in 10 rounds in Farnham in 2005. While they aren't exactly looking
over their shoulders, Evolution and The Fish better watch out, we'll be
gunning for them in 2011. Or maybe 2013. Maybe.

It's always interesting to see the names some of the teams use.
The Divas - from Burnaby
Malformation - from Winnipeg
Pink Parts - also from Winnipeg
The Gan Sky Cows - from Gananoque
Thrown Together - as the name implies, thrown together by a bunch of people
who had nothing better to do.

At least if they'd release us for the day we could go soak in the hot tub
overlooking the beach at our cottage, but we're at the mercy of the meet
director, and so here we sit.

What In The Wide Wide World of Sports.....?

"What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is going on here?"
Mel Brooks - in Blazing Saddles

Competition started yesterday with 9 teams entered in 4-way FS. And we're
sick. 3/4 Of the team has a cold. Josee is the only one not sick, and the
cameraman is as always, hovering safely above the burble. Nathalie is by far
the worst, coughing and hacking most of the night, and we are so pumped full
of various cold, cough, and sinus remedies we're joking that we should have
T shirts saying "Sponsored by Sudafed, Bayer, Pfizer, and Robitussin". At
least we're still joking. Not only that, we're holding our own and then
some. After 4 rounds yesterday we have a solid hold on 3rd place behind
Evolution and Tropical Fish. All we have to do is stick with the plan. Slow
and steady, take the safe moves, use the exits we know, and protect our
standing. In other words, everything will be fine as long as we don't do
anything stupid. We're on a 20 minute call to do our first jump of the day
and will probably do our last 6 jumps today. If our sinuses hold out.

And we're ahead of a team with matching suits

To Beer or Not to Beer?

Weather moved in Saturday afternoon so Doug called it a day, the beer light
was lit, and drinking commenced. We retreated to the cottage to relax and
have a few drinks before the banquet. We've hardly spent any time at the
cottage, which is a shame as it is quite picturesque. It's on the lake, we
were lulled to sleep every night by the sound of the surf, but we only all
got in the hot tub once, I never even set foot on the beach, and the
bicycles that we'd dragged all the way here hardly got ridden. The cottage
itself is so cluttered with crud crap and bric-a-brac that it can be
difficult to move around in without tripping over something once you get a
couple of drinks in you, but that didn't detract from it's charm.

The Camp will continue on Sunday, weather permitting.

A few people have sent messages asking what the significance of the name of
our 4-way team is. The name of a team is actually very important. It can
define who you are, how serious you are, and what your goals are. Are you
going to be focused and aim for a National title, are you just out to have
fun, or are you just doing it to meet girls?

The team name is 4D. We had discussed (argued about) possible names for a
few months when Josee sent out an email one night:
Hi guys,
I think I found a good team name!
4D
The idea is that we're working with 3 dimensions + the 4th which is time (we
have to do everything not only using all 3 dimensions -doing verticals - but
also fast!).
It's also because we are 4 "designated" something (driver, fall rate setter,
keyer (?), dive engineer ).
And we're 4.
And it's a bilingual name. And it's short.
I'm not sure if you'll like it but I'm very excited about it!
Let me know what you think.
Josée

It stuck. And we stuck with it. And achieved our goals.

When we sat down with Eddy R a couple days before the nationals he asked us
our goals. We gave him the usual list: High average Score, Personal Best,
Make our Mama's proud, stuff like that. I also told him I wanted to beat a
team with matching suits but he didn't seem to believe me. A day and a half
later, after reviewing the day of training that we had done on Saturday, he
said "Congratulations. You've already achieved all your goals. You've
already won." At first we just sat there, but the more I thought about it,
the more I realized he was right. No matter how the competition ended, we
were already winners. We set a goal, hammered out a plan, and saw it
through. 4 Very different people with different skills and personalities
were able to pull together and become a Team. We sat one night and watched
all our 4-way jumps from the last week and it just blew me away. Holy Crap!

We're F*****G Good! Who the hell is that on the screen wearing my jumpsuit
because there's no way I can fly like that! And who are the rest of those
people? Damn they're fast! And clean and crisp and controlled! I want to be
them when I grow up. Not that I'll ever grow up.

But we didn't do it alone. We couldn't have done it alone. There were a lot
of people who went out of their way and worked to help us get here. People
like Mario Prevost and Michel Lemay who gave us priority over their Tandem
customers and made we sure we were able to get tunnnel time when we wanted
it, the staff at work who shifted their schedules around to let me have time
to train, and all the people who offered encouragement and cheered us on.

Thanks to Paul for sticking it out through the learning curve, and being a
good sport about all the ribbing he took while he was still learning how to
not take out our exits.

And a special thanks to the person who deserves a huge amount of the credit
for what we were able to achieve - Richard Bisson, our secret weapon. Riding
herd on 4 type-A personalities for 4 months, teaching and guiding us as we
learned to work together, acting as coach, den mother, father confessor,
leader, and cheering section, would try the patience of a saint. He handled
it all with patience and restraint, taking everything in stride, as he
showed us the way. You're also waaaay undercharging for your services.

And what was I designated in 4D you might ask? I was the designated drinker
of course.

Crazy Larry
Outside Center for 4D, Bronze Medalists in the Open category, Nationals
2009.

Cowdendum: My apologies to the team who took Gold in 8-way. It seems I have
mis-reported their name. And a name is everything as I explained earlier.
Their name was "Brown Chicken Brown Cow". One poultry, one cow, not two cows
as I had thought, but at least I got the color right.

Don't let me near John Smith's Scotch

That's what Paul told me before we left Ottawa. Last night be bumped
throught the door with a silly grin on his face and a plastic cup full of
Glenfiddich. Appearently he doesn't take his own advice.

Canopy Piloting started early Wednesday morning. By the time we got there
they were doing Speed Carving. That involves hook-turning a canopy to put it
into a dive accelerating towards the ground, leveling it off just before the
pilot impacts, passing through an electronic gate 5 feet off the surface of
the pond, and then carving the canopy, changing the direction to stay
between the gates as they curve away from the original direction of flight,
and passing out through the end of the course without touching the pond, the
ground, or passing outside of a gate. This all happens a few feet off the
ground at speeds exceeding 80 MPH. I was crouched down next to the course
with Dr. Mike trying to get some photo's as the competitors flashed past
when Jay Moledski, Canadian and World Champion of Canopy Piloting entered
the course. He was swung out as he carved, with the canopy perpendicular to
the ground as he went by, and he clipped a gate with his foot. At a few feet
off the ground, going like a bat out of hell, at an angle that was scary
just to watch go by, he turned his head to look over his shoulder, checking
to be sure he didn't bust the gate and get a zero score as he continued
through the course and landed at the end as effortlessly as if he was one of
us mere mortals doing a straight in landing. There's a reason he's World
Champ.

Every time somebody started a run the St. John's Ambulance guys would pick
up their stretcher and bags and tense up, only to put them back down again
when the run was complete.

8-Way ran on Wednesday. Normally you put at team together, and then enter.
This year, Monique from Tropical fish suggested running it like a scrambles
competition. So Josee chased down everybody who was interested, harassed a
couple more into joining in to get an even number, and then drew names out
of a hat to determine the teams. This is not exactly standard practice at a
National level competition, but it sure turned out to be a lot of fun.

The team I was picked for was named by Team Captain Rhonda Joyce: Scrambled
Eights and Bacon. Perfect.

We funneled the 8-way competition exit that I had so carefully briefed and
insisted would work like a charm (proving once again that I only think I
know it all) and never built the first point, earning a zero score on the
first round. When we landed Rhonda pulled me aside and said she thought we
needed a different strategy. She suggested taking four solid flyers to be
the base with the rest diving or floating and then building it from there.
We also decided to not bother briefing the whole skydive because the odds of
our getting through he whole thing were pretty damn low. The team was a mix
of low to extremely high experience with different fall rates who had never
flown together, so we really had to work to the lowest common denominator.
Rhonda, Scott Simpson, Mike Pitt and I formed the base giving all the rest a
well defined target to head for. The second dive went much better with us
launching a Meeker, quickly flipping it to a donut, and the rest of docked
pretty quickly for our first point. That set the pace for the rest of that
round and the next.

On round 3 we launched a Stairstep Diamond as the base, and Diane Beer Girl
was taking a compressed grip on my left side. It built fast with one person
low, so Scott and I folded ourselves in two to pick up the pace to get down
to them, but I inadvertently pushed down on Diane's leg causing her to fold
up and start to flip over on top of us so I tossed her away. She promptly
came back for revenge. As soon as the first point was built, I keyed it to
the next one, and Diane turned me into Her Bitch and took me for a ride. We
were supposed to do a 360 degree turn as a piece and then redock with the
center. I stuck out my right leg to start the turn and suddenly I could feel
her hauling on my grip as she accelerated into the spin. I went neutral at
the halfway point and we were still accelerating as I started to think
"NOOOOOOOO!" There wasn't the slightest shred of doubt in my mind that we
were going to go blasting right past our slot spinning like a Frisbee and
that it would take at least another full revolution to stop. I have no idea
how she did it but she dragged me to a screeching halt perfectly on level
and in our slot, with my hand inches from the grip I was supposed to take on
a wide-eyed Mike Pitt. Holy Crap! She bought her suit used from Eliana
Rodriguez of Arizona Airspeed and has often joked that she hoped it would
just be able to fly itself and make her look good. I don't think she need
any help from any suit, she seems to have it all figured out on her own.

It was also Rhonda's birthday and the whole load sang her Happy Birthday as
we went to altitude.

Heather told me on one of rides up that in the Intermediate 4-way
competition - in which they took silver - they had been doing the standard
warm-and-fuzzy handshake before getting ready to launch. Things hadn't been
going so well so they changed it to "F*** the Lord, He's not with us!" And
went out and scored 7 points. They changed their strategy making profanity
and blasphemy the order of the day.

In the end we were able to make up the ground we lost in round 1.

Final results: Scrambled Eights and Bacon - Silver
Thursday: Ten-Way Speed

We Must Be All Here.....

Because we're not all there.

That can only mean one thing:Ten-Way Speed! Get there as fast as you can,
build it, hold it for 5 seconds, hang out until you get to 4,500 feet, then
turn track and get the hell out of town before God stuffs a planet up your
ass. Normally Formation Skydiving competition involves building the same
formations as many times as possible within a given time, requiring timing,
teamwork, self-control, and discipline. Not this event. It's a sprint that
starts at 11,000 feet with the goal of building a single point as fast as
you can. Screw discipline! Just get there any way you can and for God's
sake, don't take it out! Lowest total score after 4 rounds wins. It's also
one of the most popular events at Nationals.

The fun starts with naming the team.

From Burnaby there was "Five boxes of Crackers". The definition is too
filthy for even I to put into print, suffice it to say that there were 5
girls on the Team.

The Winnipeg crew and the people they were able to put together were called
"Brown Cow Chicken Brown Cow". I can hear Donna laughing already. If you
slur the words to say "Bow Wow Chicka Bow Wow" at the same time as you
swivel your hips and move your hands around in front of you it has a vaguely
sexual theme relating to strippers. I think. I do know that every time
manifest tried to say the name over the PA it resulted in several team
members storming into manifest to correct the pronunciation.

We were the "Chuting Stars".

Our first jump went pretty smoothly everything considered, and we built in
reasonable time.

For our second jump the Drop Zone owner Mike Pitt asked if our videographer
could try and get a picture of the DZ from the air through the center of the
Speed Star. When Philippe heard this he taunted Mike saying "Not only will
we get the picture of your DZ that you want, we're going to get the Gold as
well!" At the time Mike's team had a solid lead.

We did the jump, a jungle-rules-dock-wherever-you-can Speed Star. The 10-way
built fast as we slid down past a solid white cloud. John had a pretty good
idea where the DZ was and positioned himself so that as we dropped clear of
the cloud the Airport popped into view centered dead in the middle of our
formation. It couldn't have worked out better with a dozen rehearsals.

And we earned the Gold.

Take THAT Mike Pitt!

I was in Manifest a few minutes later when I overheard Tara Pitt say
"Nothing ever surprises me anymore." Without a moments hesitation I had my
shirt off, dropped my shorts, climbed across the counter and was getting
ready to peel off my underwear when Tara covered her eyes and started to
scream. Hah! I showed her!

Johnny Larue went to fetch Beth from the airport but when he got back I
couldn't see anybody with him in the car. That was because she had slammed
her finger in the car door and almost fainted from the pain, so her seat was
reclined. I called over to the St. John's Ambulance guys "Help! I've got an
injured girl over here!. They laughed. ???? "She got hurt and fainted! Can
ya give us a hand?" More laughter. "She's HOT!" That seemed to get their
attention.

End of Chapter 3

Put the "if" back in life

Chapter 2
Nationals 2009

The drive from Chicago to Burnaby took 10 hours, and all my willpower. I
really didn't want to leave. When I left Chicago Friday morning the weather
was "Severe Clear". That's pilotspeak for light winds, warm temperatures,
low humidity, and not a cloud in the sky. Everybody was sitting on the deck
outside the Swamp, finishing their coffee, arguing about who funneled which
skydive the day before, and how many points we would have gotten if we
hadn't started doing full-body-contact, Combat RW. It's all great fun until
somebody loses an eye, and then it's absolutely friggin' hilarious.

When I'd arrived at Skydive Chicago I hadn't even come to a stop before
Kelly put a beer in my hand, and in Burnaby I hadn't even come to a stop
before Nathalie intercepted me to invite me on a skydive to attempt to set a
new Ontario Provincial POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty) record. They had to
hold the load while I did my paperwork. It didn't build, but it sure was a
fun way to get welcomed back to Burnaby. Nathalie forgot to put on her
weight belt, and I remembered to put on mine but should have left it off
because I was a late diver, consequently there was a four foot difference in
height between the grip in my left hand and the one in my right. You try
flying like you're pretending to be the Karate Kid and see just how
difficult that is. The whole time I was praying that someone else would take
out the formation before I couldn't hold that pose any longer and send 20
plus people scattering across the sky. At least I finally got to meet TOP
POP Carey Peck (son of Gregory), he was organizing the load.

The Team - 4D
Point - Josee Leblanc, 600 jumps, no tunnel time before we started training
for this, one trip to Nationals, member of Team Pink 2007, which set a new
Canadian women's formation skydiving record, Coach 2, and her parents own
the DZ in St. Frederick, so she certainly has the pedigree.

Tail - Philippe Morin, 500 jumps, about 10 hours of tunnel time, no ratings
or endorsements beyond a basic B license, and in 2005 when he had 110 jumps
his team earned Bronze in OPEN 4-way at Nationals, member of Team Canada in
2006 which set a Canadian Formation Skydiving record that still stands,
member of Team Elite 2008 which set a multi-point formation skydiving world
record, and the kid continually demonstrates an ability to visualize and
plan mirror-image slot-switcher dives and explain it in terms even I can
understand.

Inside Center - Nathalie Gaudreault. I don't have time or space to list all
the stuff this girl has accomplished so I'll just give the highlights. 2,200
Jumps, PFF Instructor, freefall videographer, member of Team Elite, Z-Team,
every World Team as far back as I can remember except for the 400 way in
2006, member of Angels Fall - former Canadian Women's 4-way champions, plane
captain and organizer of Team Pink, Member of Jump For The Cause, and the
list goes on. She also happens to be my girlfriend. In a side note, as her
fund raiser for Jump For The Cause 2009 to raise over $1,000,000 for breast
cancer research and simultaneously set a women's world skydiving record she
and Debbie Lovegrove have put together a calendar featuring women skydivers
that they are selling for $20 each. Apart from the fact that it's for a good
cause, if anybody would like a calendar of tastefully done semi-naked
skydiver girls, just contact me and I'll fix you up.

Video - Paul Wing, can you think of a better last name for a video flyer?
950 Jumps, no ratings, but 4 gold and 1 silver medal at Nationals in CRW,
member of the Canadian CRW record 2008, and an all-round nice guy. He
started flying Tandem Video 2 years ago, and we were very happy to have him
for the video slot. That is, until he actually started flying the video
slot. I forgot to ask him one very important question: "Have you ever done
4-way video?" He seemed to feel it was important to continuously perform
structural integrity tests on the formation shortly after launch, but he
eventually got that sorted out so we decided to keep him.

Coach - Richard Bisson, our secret weapon. Former member of Evolution (he
was tossed off to make room for one of Michel Lemay's kids), medals medals
and more medals, the calming hand that has patiently guided us along the
path to where we are now. A serious team in serious contention to not make
complete fools out of ourselves.

Me - Crazy Larry - Outside Center. I won't start talking about myself here,
I'd never shut myself up.

Team Goal for this competition: Beat any team with matching suits. We could
actually pull it off.

Our plan was to train on Saturday, just 4 jumps done at a leisurely pace to
get our brains up to speed, party on Saturday night, and then take Sunday
off. We rented a cottage in Lowbanks on lake Erie complete with beach and
hot tub, so that would be a rest day.

Saturday night Tara Pitt brought in a Celtic Rock band that sounded like a
cross between Aerosmith and Great Big Sea. The party went on into the wee
small hours of the night. Dan and Casey showed up on their way from Ottawa
to the wedding in St John's and their theme for the evening seemed to be
"Dan's Last Days Of Freedom Tour". They were travelling with a whole circus.
The trailer, the bikes, the ferrets, Harley the Dog, and lord knows what
else.

It was good we hadn't planned to jump Sunday morning as we woke up to
pouring rain. We left the DZ around midafternoon to take possession of the
cottage and and Nat's phone rang soon as the weather started to break. The
POPS group had done 3 days of jumps trying to set a Canadian Record and were
still coming up a couple of bodies short. We grabbed our rigs and ran back
to the drop zone as fast as we could. They stuck us on as late divers and up
we went, out we went, and a new Canadian Pops record was set. 32 Young at
heart Boys and Girls built and held it for 8 seconds. We should have briefed
a second point. Something else to add to my Skydiving resume. I felt sorry
for the people that had put 3 days of effort into the record just to watch
Nathalie and I waltz on, do one dive, and it was done. Maybe I should let
Home Hardware know. That's gotta be good for some free publicity. After all,
I had the HH logo that was covering up the RCMP crest at my Dad's funeral
stitched onto my jumpsuit.

Friday night some Guy called Rob Laidlaw from some place called Skydive
University and his sidekick Eddy R pulled us aside and volunteered to coach
us since our own coach was unable to make the trip. We thought about it for
all of about a half-a-nanosecond before saying YES! Rob is a skydiving
pioneer of some minor note (though not as minor as a certain videographer of
a team named after sushi) who moved to the states years ago, but still calls
Canada home. Eddy R is ......well, Eddy R.

The opening ceremonies are scheduled for Monday morning at 10:00, and then
it's Game On! The results of 9 months of planning preparation and training,
frustration anger and joy, bruises contusions and tunnel rash, all decided
in 10 -35 second skydives.

Internet is pretty spotty here so I don't know when you will get this, but I
will post the results of 4-way as soon as the judges are done.

And I heard that Al Nadeau helped to set a new Head-Down record in Chicago
after I left. 108!

"You're only young once................."

"But you can be immature forever." Motto of the Lawn Ranger Precision
Lawnmower Drill Team

Chapter 1
I made it through Customs with a minimal amount of fuss, aside from pissing
the guy off when I kept insisting I was coming from Ottawa, and going to
Ottawa. I finally told him to check the plastic thing around the license
plate which said "Skydive Chicago - Ottawa Illinois". He let me in.

I left Montreal at 6:20, and after a 14 hour drive, I made it to the parking
lot at Skydive Chicago in time to make the last load. That is, I could have
made the last load if I hadn't been sidetracked by "Larry and Joanne's World
Famous Drive Through Beer Window". Kelly spotted me when I was pulling up
and handed me an already opened ice-cold beer through the truck window by
the time I had come to a complete stop. Timing is everything

And the peasants rejoiced.

I've received a couple of emails from people asking if I was OK because I
haven't sent out any emails since my departure, including one from John
Mehary offering bail money if necessary - he feels a certain responsibility
as he is the one who got me into skydiving. But the simple explanation is
that it has just been a typical boogie, with typical boogie nonsense and
stupidity. Don't get me wrong, I'm having a lot of fun, but nothing that I
haven't told you all about before. The Annual Flying Hellfish Toga Party
lived up to it's usual reputation for drunken excess rivaling the most
debauched days of the Roman Empire, at least that's what the pictures I took
seemed to show, I don't actually remember much of it myself. Bob and Sky
aren't here and Phil is staying with Kelly, so I was able to swoop a bunk in
The Swamp and save myself having to pitch a tent. We've been on the first
load 3 mornings in a row, there are 5 Twin Otters flying non-stop, the
weather has been perfect, the people friendly, and the booze cheap.

The fireworks display was last night. This year they started it off with
skydivers in wing suits tracking across the sky dragging fireworks behind
them, and then they set off a series of explosions and fireballs as an Otter
strafed the field. Last year they actually attached the fireworks to the
Otter but a whole bunch of people called the fire department and the FAA to
report a plane on fire, so they decided to do something else this year.

The jumping has been at a leisurely pace, a total of 19 over 3 days. I
promised the team I wouldn't tire myself out, and would arrive in Burnaby
"hungry to jump", and I also promised Nathalie I wouldn't get all beat to
heck, which usually happens to me at this type of event. The skydiving has
been of the mindless "we've got 10 minutes to plan and dirt dive a 7-way, so
there's no rush" type of jump, no pressure, just laughs when it funnels,
exactly what I needed after an entire spring and summer of hard-core
training and tunnel.

I'll be leaving bright and early tomorrow for Burnaby, Nationals, and some
very very serious skydiving.
End of Chapter 1

Off and crawlin' like a Herd of Turtles..............

Warning

The following emails will contain graphic stories of an adult nature,
including but not limited to: violence, coarse language, consumption of
large amounts of alcohol, sex, gratuitous nudity, and of course, skydiving,
that some readers may find offensive. If past experience is any guide, the
participants will display a complete disregard for the rules of man, the
laws of nature, basic physics, and every standard of common decency that
civilized people live by. The participants are all of legal age and have
entered into these activities of their own free will, and have assumed all
risk of any injury howsoever caused that they may suffer as a result of
these activities. In turn, the reader assumes all risk for any trauma,
emotional, mental, or physical, that they may suffer as a result of reading
these emails. It is worth noting that the former grade 7 teacher of the
writer receives these emails, and while she finds the stories to be a
fascinating glimpse into the depravity the human soul is capable of, she has
never been offended by any of the activities depicted therein. Not even when
Paul Cincinatto tried to pick up the scary-big woman at the Golden Corral
all-you-can-eat Buffet during the Canadian Invasion to collect on a bet
worth pocket change, and that was quite possibly the most tasteless thing
ever done by anyone. Ever.

Strangely, while many people have questioned my judgment for including some
of the incidents that have occurred on these trips, they unfailingly express
concern about someone else being offended, rather than themselves, and they
have all insisted that they wish to continue to recieve these emails.

The emails themselves will be a more or less accurate description of the
recollections of the writer concerning the events as they actually occurred.

Mostly. The writer reserves the right to include a degree of satire,
ridicule, social commentary, and poetic license, that should in no way
compromise the underlying facts of the events as they have occurred. Unless
of course someone is so offended at what they have read that they are
considering legal action, in which case, I was just kidding! And if you read
carefully, you'll realize that the person I make the most fun of is.........
myself

Prologue
For nine months the plan was for Gerry Cluett and I to go on what was
shaping up to be the Ultimate Road Trip. He booked the passenger seat for
this summer's odyssey just after I left on last summer's Ultimate Road Trip.
He hasn't been let off the leash since the Great Mile High Parachuting
Florida Road Trip of 05. First, I was going to take a buddy for a surprise
tandem on his fortieth birthday, then Gerry and I would take off for a week
at Summerfest in Chicago, followed by storming into Burnaby for the POPS
Record attempt, the Canadian Nationals, and a 40-way camp with Doug Forth,
and finally, Dan and Cheryl's Newfie wedding. The only part that worried me
was the Newfie wedding. The skydiving road trip fueled by cheap booze
adrenaline and testosterone I knew could handle, but a wedding in
Newfoundland takes the partying to a whole new level of excess. The girl who
does the scheduling at work insisted on giving me several extra days off to
recover before I returned to work. She's from Newfoundland, so I guess she'd
know.

Every detail was meticulously planned, every contingency covered, alternate
plans made for every possible roadblock. It was therefore inevitable that
the whole plan would blow up in my face. So it is that I departed 2 days
late, minus Gerry, (I'm not sure if that makes me more dangerous, or less
dangerous) and heading in the exact opposite direction to the one originally
planned. The only part of this whole thing that has come even close to
following the plan was John Regan's tandem, and it was a week late. I have
given up most of my trip to Summerfest to make time for some last-minute
training with the team to prepare for Nationals, and to spend a couple more
days with Nathalie before the nonsense really gets started. I don't really
mind, it's all fun, Tunnel on Friday and Saturday, fourth row tickets to see
John Cleese at the comedy festival on Sunday, departing Montreal Monday
morning at a dangerous and unsafe speed, stereo blasting, hoping to get to
"Larry and Joanne's World Famous Drive Through Beer Window" in the parking
lot at Skydive Chicago before they close for the night to return to their
hotel room for some really serious drinking, which according to Larry is the
real reason he goes on vacation. Failing that, I will be sneaking into The
Swamp at a suitably (stupidly?) early hour on Tuesday to be first in line
for the coffee Phil will have loaded and set up with a timer the night
before.

The truck is loaded quite differently than it has been in past years. I've
applied for a NEXXUS card to be able to cross the border more easily, but
that means if I get caught smuggling the amount of Canadian Beer I usually
take with me they will impound the truck, throw me in jail, and slap me with
enough fines to pay off the National Debt of most Latin American countries.
Instead, I'm bringing a tent, air, mattress, sleeping bags, a bicycle, an
espresso maker, and a full set of creepers. If the guy at the border starts
asking questions, the thing that will get the most interest is sure to be
the creepers. I'm trying to figure out the simplest way to explain why 4
adults would lie on these things and roll around on them for hours at a
time, pretending they're skydiving.

I'm also bringing a high-pressure water pistol. This time when I run "The
Gauntlet", I'm planning on fighting back!

There will be an added bonus to the Burnaby portion of the trip: Dan and his
Best Man Casey will be there for the first weekend of the boogie, allowing
me the opportunity to turn a whole fresh crop of drunken skydivers loose on
the Groom-To-Be. It will be pretty difficult to out-do what happened to him
at his stag however. The last I saw of him he was dressed in purple tights
and a pink fishnet tank top, a white fright wig on his head, and a hollow
plastic penis permanently attached to his hand by a cast, to properly
prepare him to go and hit the bars. Yes, a plastic penis, and a cast. The
reason it was hollow was so that beer could be poured into it for him to
drink out of, through the strategically placed hole in the end, and the
reason it was a cast was because it was felt that if they just Krazy Glued
it on he could rip it loose. This is what happens when your friends are a
bunch of medics. There were plenty of pictures taken of course, I'm simply
waiting for the proper time to distribute them. I'm thinkin' maybe during
the banquet following Nationals.

Overall, I expect this adventure will be pretty tame compared to some of the
ones in the past, but then that was what I thought about the last Canadian
Invasion, and it certainly provided it's share of moments of farce, drama,
tragedy, high comedy, and of course, stupidity, that people have come to
expect from these journeys. Except for the newfie wedding of course. Between
the fact that the wedding will be held in St. John's, and that I'm the only
male member of the wedding party not in the Army, it promises to throw all
standards of decorum and good taste right out the window.

Next stop, Summerfest. If Larry and Joanne's World Famous Drive Through Beer
Window is closed when I get there, I should be arriving at the height of the
Flying Hellfish Toga Party. It would be a perfect time to make an entrance.
Crazy Larry

Deals Gap. Tail Of The Dragon.



US HWY 129. 11 Miles, 318 Corners. The Number One Motorcycle Road in North America

Could be. I'm the wrong guy to ask. While I've driven a lot of really fun bike roads, I haven't driven all the other roads on the list. But Damn! It sure was a fun piece of pavement.



The problem was finding it, tucked away in the Ozarks in a remote corner of Tennessee. It was one more in a series of some of the most entertaining roads I've ever been on. The straight roads twisted and turned back and forth as they tried to find an easy way across all those hills and through all those passes. That's what Deals Gap is, a pass through the mountains running from West Virginia into Tennessee. Tail Of The Dragon is the name given to it by some smart guy in marketing. If you look at it on a large scale map it resembles a child's scribble.



I was on my way back from a Bike/Skydiving trip to Florida. Nathalie had sent me ahead pulling a trailer with the bikes and then flown in to Tampa a few days after I arrived. The part about her sending me ahead isn't exactly true, but I've enjoyed telling everybody that anyway. I volunteered. A few weeks before I left Ottawa Kevin brought his laptop over to show me a video of a bike making a high speed run down a piece of two lane highway called Tail Of The Dragon. The video was one of hundreds on YOUTUBE of that same stretch of road, and I discovered after further research that it is quite a tourist attraction, drawing people from near and far to drive it. It sure looked like the guy was having a lot of fun, I was headed that general direction anyway, it would only be a few hours out of my way, and it might be a long time before I was in the neighbourhood with a motorcycle again, so I decided I'd make a detour on the way back and check it out.



I knew I was on the right track when I passed a church and saw a sign. Not a burning bush, or something in the sky, a real sign. It was advertising Sunday services and said "Dragon Slayers Welcome". Then came a gas station called "Dragon's Lair." It had 4 gas pumps with a large storage tank behind each one. The first one was painted white and marked "Regular Unleaded" in large letters. The next one was painted yellow and labelled "High Test". The next, bright red and labelled "Supreme". The last one was fenced off, painted in a red yellow and black checkerboard and labelled "Rocket Fuel". It was looking promising!



Then, as I rounded a corner, there it was, The Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort. Not quite the biker equivalent of Mecca, but it's close enough. I pulled in around 9 a.m. after driving 19 hours out of the previous 24. I'd gone from the palm trees and heat of Z-Hills, through the moss covered oaks of Georgia, survived Atlanta and all it's late night traffic, into the cool of the Blue Ridge mountains, arriving to an overcast sky threatening rain.



The parking lot alone lets you know that you've arrived in Motorcycle Territory. It's all marked up in slots that are just the right size for Bikes. Cars and trucks aren't welcome. But, seein's how the lot was empty, 'cept for a pair of Harleys and a BMW, I decided to intrude. The BMW in the lot was the same model as my girlfriends, but with a unique twist. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to paint scales all over it, and eyes on the front fender, turning it into........ a Dragon. The resort consisted of a motel, a cafeteria style restaurant, a gift shop, a gas station, and in the center of the parking lot, The Tree Of Pain, Tree Of Shame. It was decorated with wreckage from some of the bikes that had been here before, and hadn't fared very well.



I was disappointed that there was hardly anybody there, in any of the pics or videos online the place was overrun with every type, make, and model of bike on the road. The girl in the gift shop said that in another 3 weeks the place would be jammed, but that actually worked in my favour. No bikes, no Cops.
I only stayed long enough to take some pictures and grab breakfast before heading up through the pass. I drove to the far end to get a first look at the road before pulling my bike off the trailer to play.

I've driven Notch road and Mountain road in Gatineau park more times than I can count, done the Jones Falls road at a dangerous speed, and been to Calabogie early on a Sunday morning with the fast crowd. I've seen good bike roads, fast bike roads, technically demanding bike roads, ones that twist and turn like a snake and force you to a near crawl, ones with long sweeping curves that dare you go fast, and every other type you can imagine. But I've never driven anything like this. It had everything I've just described and more. Not to mention the fact that I was driving a pickup truck towing a trailer loaded with 2 motorcycles. It started out looking like fun, but within a few hundred yards I'd started to sweat. 



Tail of the Dragon is the right name. This thing was a continuous series of curves and switchbacks with nonstop level changes. it was impossible to say where one corner ended and another began. The posted speed limit was 30 miles an hour with signs on some corners warning you down to 20. Some of those corners have names, names like "The Wall", and "Gravity Cavity". I'd be surprised if I averaged half the posted speed limit pulling that trailer. On the hairpin turns I kept watching the rear view mirror expecting to see one or both of the bikes snap loose from the trailer and go bouncing across the road. The forest was all large towering old growth trees that reached out from each side to make a canopy high overhead. They were also pretty damn close to the road. The only places they weren't crowding the shoulder they were replaced with either a vertical rock face or a sheer drop into a ravine filled with more trees. At least the trees had no leaves so in the places where the road turned back on itself you could actually see far enough ahead that you could see what was coming for the next 60 or 70 yards.



Then I passed the first cross.



It was a small cross, painted white, with a wreath hanging from it, well off to the side of the road. "In Loving Memory" was written on the cross piece. It was the first, but it wasn't the last.


By the time I reached the parking lot at the lookout on the far side I had only been passed by a matched pair of Nissan sports cars I pulled partway onto the shoulder to let go by, and a half dozen bikes going the other way. Judging by the videos I'd seen on Youtube and all the photos I'd seen at killboy.com it was a very quiet day at the Gap.

I pulled My FZ6 off the trailer, geared myself up with all the protective ballistic motorcycle gear I had, and started to simultaneously psyche myself up while trying to call myself down. I wanted to be ready for this but I also didn't want to be over-amped and run right off the edge of my experience into one of those big trees.

 
My bike is a 2008 Yamaha FZ6S, and it's classified as a Sport Touring bike. The "S" in the model number is very important, it was the last year they made that model before they started detuning it and slowing it down to separate it a little more from their pure sport models. A review I read on it in Motorcycle Magazine called it "the Swiss army knife of motorcycles". It's not the best in it's size range at anything, but it's pretty damn good at everything. It's fast, scary fast. One night coming back from the drop zone I got it up to 239 KMH. Even at that speed it was rock solid, and still accelerating. But while it may have still had some balls left mine were shrinking fast and I decided I didn't actually need to know just how fast it could go. Even at that there are faster ones available. While there are bikes that corner even better it's still light on it's feet and very manueverable. There are bikes that are better suited for touring, but I wouldn't hesitate to load it up with luggage and take off for a couple of weeks of tearing up the twisties through New England. I've heard it called "The Old Man's Sport Bike" because of it's good manners and upright seating position. In fact, in Florida just 2 weeks previously a drop dead gorgeous young thing had walked by me and said "Nice Bike!" My ego leaped up several notches until she finished with "My dad drives one just like it." Pop! Psssss, went my ego as it deflated. It's comfortable, well behaved, and predictable. At idle, it's European style dual under seat mufflers are quiet, polite even. Until you wind it up to it's redline of 14,000 RPM and it screams like a caged animal finally demanding it's freedom so it can exact it's revenge on the world. In the right hands, with a capable rider in the saddle, it can hold it's own against most other bikes and riders out there. I realized soon after buying it that it's capabilities far exceeded mine so I spent a couple of days at Fast Riding School (go ahead, take a guess at what they teach there) to learn how to take advantage of what the machine was capable of. I've spent countless hours since running the 8 kilometer circuit of the on and off ramps at the highway 417-174 interchange, powering through the corners and working on my technique.


 
From what I'd seen of the Tail Of The Dragon when I came through the first time I knew that as long as I could keep it on the pavement I'd have an awful lot of fun. And if the cops showed up, as long as I was doing less than double the speed limit the worst they could do was give me a ticket, but I wouldn't get any demerit points because Tennessee doesn't have a reciprocal ticket sharing arrangement with Ontario. On the other hand, if I did get caught doing double the limit, that was classified as a felony which means my bike would seized and I would be immediately arrested and held for trial, in a foreign country, in a town that was probably a long way from the nearest Canadian consulate.


 
My first run through the Gap on the FZ was quick, but not excessively so. I mainly wanted to get a feel for it and try to figure out which corners were the most likely to catch me off guard. Starting from the Tennessee end the curves are mostly of the long sweeping kind, the road more sinuous than twisting. That gave me the chance to relax a little as I imagined all the bikes that had gone screaming down here before me. As I went further along and climbed higher into the pass the corners came more frequently and would often suddenly tighten up. Instead of being constant they would start decreasing in radius partway through, like they were some sort of trap lain for the unsuspecting motorcyclist. The curve would invite you in, as you tried to pick the best line you can for a road you can't see more than a second or two ahead, and suddenly you're grabbing for the brake lever while simultaneously leaning even further into the corner wondering just how sticky your tires really are. It was easy to see why the crosses were there.


 
When I reached the resort I circled the parking lot and headed right back. This being my third trip through I had started to get comfortable and felt confident enough to push it a little more, sliding further off the seat into the corners to change our center of gravity, doing light trail braking as I went into the corners, rolling the power on earlier and quicker as I came out of the corners and started setting up for the next curve. I had started to pick up on the landmarks and felt more confident about knowing what was lurking around the next corner, but was still very conscious of the crosses and what they represented.


 
My heart was pounding when I reached the lookout where I had left the truck, and I didn't even pause as I turned around to blast back up through the pass. This run was FAST. I pushed it further than I had on the previous runs, feeling more and more confident about my ability to handle the road, and just as importantly the tires ability to hold now that they were heated up. I tore up through the sweeping turns in the lower part of the pass, taking full advantage of the fact that on this part you could see a good distance ahead and using the whole road to set up for the corner and get as much speed as I could. I'd get set up, leaning in, weight shifted down and forward into the corner, head up, looking through the corner to see what's coming, outside arm relaxed, steering with the inside arm, keeping the RPM high so I've got lots of torque to roll on at the first opportunity, applying brake more and more heavily as I got further into the corner, trying to hold onto as much speed as I could for as long as possible. As I passed the apex of the turn I'd ease off the brake and wind in more throttle, accelerating through the exit point and start setting up for the next turn. I was totally focused on finding the best line I could: Entry Point, Apex, Exit Point, as I came out of each turn I was already setting up for the next, and the next, and the next. 318 Corners, 11 miles. The distance between the corners became less and less as I continued to climb up through the pass until it became a series of nonstop never ending turns with me continuously sliding off the seat from one side to the other, the engine screaming as I kept the RPM as high as I dared, more afraid of the thing exploding beneath me than I was of the cliff or the ravine as I switched back and forth between first and second gear.


 
I snuck an occasional glance at my speedometer and knew that if I did meet a cop my best bet would be to throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy. I have no doubt that he'd have simply clapped me in irons and dragged me off to rot in prison as I cried like a baby. I didn't care. Adrenaline had taken over.


 
When I suddenly rounded the last corner and the resort came into sight there were about a dozen people in the parking lot with their faces all turned up towards me. I found out later that they had heard the racket of me coming a couple of miles back and had been speculating about who it was, and what kind of bike it would turn out to be. Nobody was expecting a middle aged guy on an FZ6.


 
By then my knees were cramping from the workout they'd been getting and my hands and forearms were numb from the death grip I'd had on the handlebars for 33 miles of mixed terror and exhilaration so I pulled into the gas station next to the Inn. I climbed stiffly off the bike as I cautiously straightened out my legs and the feeling of pins and needles began to attack my hands. When I looked around I noticed that everybody was still staring at me, and one of them was even coming over. He looked friendly enough, but I found myself hoping I hadn't broken some unwritten rule about how to behave on The Dragon, after all, this wasn't my neighbourhood.


 
Turned out he was a local, he wasn't offended, and after some small talk he said that he and his friends were planning a fast run through the Gap and was extending an invitation to join them. At first I was flattered as it seemed my obvious skill at handling my bike at high speed had got his attention, but they were inviting everybody in the lot to join them. Pop! Pssssss.


 
After I filled my tank, I went over to join them. Just as I pulled up one of them left and turned up into the pass. The guy who invited me over explained that they were sending a scout ahead to make sure there weren't any Tennessee Highway Patrol lurking in wait. He would call and tell us if it was clear once he reached the lookout on the other side, and he would call us again once we'd started our run if any cops did show up. The guy leading the pack would have his cellphone in a pocket inside his suit with it set on vibrate. If he slowed down, we'd slow down. He leaned over to me and quietly said "You got lucky, you caught them on their coffee break."


 
Since we had some time to kill we all did what bikers do when you put at least two of them together and started to size up each other's bikes. I quickly started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Two of them were obviously tourists like me, but the 3 guys who were going to lead this parade were something else entirely. Their bikes were a Suzuki GSXR1000, a Honda CBR1000RR, and a Ducati Monster 1100. For anybody who doesn't know much about bikes, let's just say I felt like the kid who showed up at a drag race riding a tricycle. Every single piece of unimportant hardware had been stripped from the bikes. The center stands, rear foot pegs and mountings were gone, the turn signals removed and replaced with tiny little LED's to reduce weight and drag, all the fancy plastic covers missing, the stock seats had been removed and replaced with even narrower ones to make it easier to weight shift. The wheels looked to be very special castings of aluminum or maybe even titanium. The tires were worn and abraded all the way out to the sides indicating they spent a lot of time leaned over to the side at high speed. They all had fork and frame sliders, meant to protect the bikes and minimize damage in the event they went down. Every single one of those were damaged, indicating the bikes had gone down at speed. Even without taking a close look or hearing the bikes run I could tell there was no way the exhaust systems were road legal in any jurisdiction in North America. They were wearing well worn, one piece leather racing suits, that all showed plenty of damage from what had to have been some high speed slides along asphalt. One of them seemed to have chunks of gravel ground right into the kneepads on his suit. These guys were obviously dead serious, hard core speed freaks. I wasn't simply in over my head, these guys were in a whole different league.


 
This was going to be fun.


 
Before we left, one of them set the order we'd ride in, putting me in the 4^th slot directly behind them, and explained some simple rules. "If I slow down, that means the THP has just entered the pass from the far side. That means you need to slow down. Stay in order, don't pass another bike in the pack. Most importantly, if you can't keep up, don't try. Only go as fast as you feel you can safely handle." Obviously 'Safe" means different things to different people. He went on to say that they would take it easy for the first mile or so to get the tires warmed up, then pick up the pace as they went on. His phone rang, the pass was clear. We pulled on our helmets and gloves, closed all our snaps and zippers, started our engines, left the parking lot and started our run on US Highway 129, The Tail Of The Dragon.


 
The leader set a quick pace from the moment we left the parking lot, but it was easy to keep up, he was obviously holding back. Anytime the 3 guys in front of me weren't actually leaned over in a turn they would slalom their bikes back and forth to help speed up the process of heating up their tires. The hotter the tires get, the better they grab the road. We were going fairly fast, but my last ride through the pass had been faster. Until we finished the first mile.


 
Suddenly all the weaving stopped, the leaders fell tightly into line behind each other and began to accelerate. I slammed open the throttle and put myself as close to the third guy in line as I dared and the chase was on! With only a few corners behind us I could quickly see that they did indeed know what they were doing, and that this was their road. Their setups for the corners were perfect, the line they took was dead on every time, and we continued to accelerate. It was like being at Fast Riding School all over again. Follow the leader, and do what he does like overgrown kids playing Simon Says.


 
As I tried my best to imitate the live demonstration of the perfect high speed riding technique that was unfolding in front of me I couldn't help noticing how easy they made it look. They smoothly slid from one side of their seats to the other, reaching out and down with their knees until they almost touched the ground, the bikes leaning over so far it was hard to understand why they didn't fall over. Every movement was fluid, effortless, with no wasted energy. I could see that even at the speed we were going they weren't really trying, that they were relaxed and enjoying the ride. In contrast I felt like I was wrestling my bike through each corner, riding that ragged edge dividing positive traction and disaster.


 
I willed myself to relax, to breath slowly, and just keep following their line, doing what they did. Slide off the seat into the corner, getting my whole body off the bike with my knee out and leaning the bike over so far that at first I was almost cringing, half expecting the bike to surrender to the laws of physics and flop down pinning my leg beneath it as we shot straight off the cliff into space. But it never did. In fact, as we got further down the pass and the corners started to gradually open up, I started to forget about the cliff, the rock face, the huge trees, the little white crosses, and the only things I saw were the bikes, riders, and road in front of me. Just like riding at Fast, I didn't notice that the masters in front of me had been constantly picking up the pace until everything that wasn't directly in front of me had become a meaningless blur. Setup, Entry point, Apex, Exit point, Setup, Entry point, Apex…… Sliding from one side of the seat to the other, getting as much weight as low as I could to make the bike lean further, go faster. There were now 4 machines moving as one entity, as if they were all driven by the same person. Try as I might, I will never be able to truly describe what it was like to become part of that run through Deals Gap. To this day I am convinced it was the best riding I have ever done, period.


 
I foolishly snuck a look at my speedometer as we accelerated out of an extremely tight corner and saw I was moving at over 100 kilometers an hour. I read the number, I remember seeing it clear as day, but it didn't mean anything until much later because the number was so ridiculous. I couldn't possibly have taken that corner that fast.


 
As we reached the last few miles some of the corners became long sweeping ones, and in the middle of one the rider in front of me seemed to reach just a little farther down with his knee, and as the skid pad on his suit made contact with the asphalt a sudden sheet of sparks came shooting back! What I had taken to be small pieces of gravel impacted into his pads were flints! I so want to be these guys when I grow up!


 
When there was about a mile and a half left, in the middle of another sweeping corner, the rider in front of me turned almost completely around in his seat, driving his bike around that corner on memory and faith. Even through his full face helmet I could see the grin on his face, and he gave me a big thumbs up and a goodbye wave before he turned back around and the 3 of them pulled away. I didn't even try to keep up. I had nothing left to give.


 
A couple of minutes later I pulled into the lookout where they had stopped next to my truck. Their helmets and jackets were already off, and they welcomed me like a long lost brother. The consensus seemed to be that I "Did okay for a rookie." As far as I was concerned I hadn't just ridden the Dragon, I had Tamed It! Been there! Done that! Got the T shirt to prove it!


 
It was a full 5 minutes before the other 2 bikes caught up to us. I had forgotten all about them. We spent the next 10 minutes laughing and loudly dissecting our run, arms waving, hands moving back and forth mimicking the way the bikes had moved. As we stood there 3 Tennessee Highway Patrol cars came tearing around the lake and disappeared up the road. It was time to get out of there before they decided to come back and talk to us. My new friends helped me load my FZ in record time, and with mutual promises to all see each other on the Dragon another day, we left.


 
By the time I had found my way out of those hills and back onto the Interstate headed north my detour had added a day and a half to my journey home. And I couldn't have cared less. I will probably never go back, there wouldn't be much point, it would be almost impossible to equal let alone improve on that ride.


 
I had spent a month on the road. I had driven to Florida, spent a week on my bike tearing around Florida, Nathalie and I had spent another week on both bikes touring up and down the Atlantic coast and down to the Keys, we'd spent a week and a half doing high quality skydives, everything from 4-way all the way up to multi point 60-ways. The whole time we were there I had been expecting a speeding ticket every time I got on my bike. But even when I got pulled over by a local Sheriff for passing him at Warp 6 I had been set free. Until I was in upper New York State, an hour and a half from home, at 6 o'clock in the morning, the only vehicle on an arrow straight stretch of 4 lane highway, and received a speeding ticket for driving 11 miles an hour over the speed limit. That cop probably still wonders what I found so funny.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ride Hard, Take Chances...

Ride Hard, Take Chances, The Body Shops Need The Work.

In the end, the weather system stalled over top, it poured rain, and Guy
called it. With a bonus. He revealed there had been a lurker on the last
jump, we built to 61, not 60.

So we we hooked up with some friends who happened to be in town for a
Senators game and went to the Salvador Dali Museum in Tampa. I've never been
a big fan, paintings of melting watches done by somebody who was obviously
on LSD aren't really for me - it brings back too many memories of high
school - but after a couple of hours wandering around and reading the
analysis of the paintings I will be studying any of his works I happen to
see in the future much more closely. I don't understand it any better but
there is a lot more stuff hidden in them than I ever would have guessed.

Afterward to kill some time we walked the red carpet outside the Hockey
Arena as we drank beer before our friends had to go in. Wandering around
before a regular season game in shorts just seemed wrong.

The next morning we all went our separate ways, some catching flights out,
some driving, Z-Team finished for this year.

I stopped at Tony Suit on the way out to get a quick repair, paying for the
work with the last of the Smirnoff Ice before heading to Deland to drop off
my Sabre II for a reline. And I got an all access tour of Performance
Designs that became one of the highlights of the trip. Gilles Dutrisac took
me through every phase of construction of a canopy from start to finish. The
constant theme was quality control and accountability. I'll bet most people
don't know that every piece of material that their canopy is made of has a
serial number on it, or that PD can trace it's history back telling you the
name of every single person that touched it, when they touched it, how long
they touched it for, what they did with it when they touched it, and who
signed off on it at each one of 7 different stages of quality control after
they were inspected by the person who actually did the work. They go so far
as to visit the manufacturing facilities of their suppliers to inspect the
way the raw materials are handled. Gilles showed me an error on a canopy
being built for him that consisted of a single tiny stitch that looked just
fine to me, even when it's sin had been explained. I tried squinting,
looking at it from different angles, and was tempted to go out to the truck
and get my reading glasses to examine it even more closely, but I doubt that
even then I would've been able to see the mistake.

When the tour was over I climbed back in the truck and headed for Tennessee
and an 11 mile long stretch of road in a place called Deals Gap, quickly
leaving behind the palm trees for pine trees. But to get there, first I had
to survive Atlanta. I rolled into Atlanta at 9:30 on Monday night hitting
traffic as heavy as the Decarie Expressway during rush hour. At one point I
was in the middle of 9 lanes of traffic all going to beat hell and everybody
seemed to know exactly where they were going except me, the guy hauling a
trailer. I felt like the hick driving his turnip truck to visit the big
city. Cars were going every which way, exiting and joining the traffic flow
from both sides 3 and 4 lanes at a time, but much more politely than they do
on the Decarie, after all everybody in this country seems to be armed. That
encourages good manners.

I finally pulled over somewhere in Georgia and fell asleep in my seat in a
corner of a 24 hour Wal Mart parking lot, surrounded by RVs that had done
the same. I was awakened a few hours later by someone tapping on my window.
It was some pimply faced kid in a Wal Mart shirt. I rolled the window down
and he said, nervously "You can't sleep here. You have to leave."
I looked around at all the RVs and asked him if he was going to wake up
somebody in all of them and tell them to leave as well. "No, just you."

"Why me?"

"Because my boss can see you."

I thought about that for a minute, then looked over my shoulder and saw the
jumpsuit I'd had repaired earlier in the day on top of the pile of crap in
the back seat. Dragging it forward I draped it over my face and said "He
can't see me anymore." as I rolled up the window. I fully expected to hear
the local cops tapping on the window next, but I guess "out of sight, out of
mind' was the order of the day. And I made a mental note to wash my
jumpsuit - it had been hot in Florida.

Taming the Dragon
Deals Gap. Tail Of The Dragon. 318 Corners in 11 miles.
I knew I was on the right track to the Dragon when I passed a church and saw
a sign. Literally. Copy attached.

Then I passed a gas station called "Dragon's Lair." It had 4 gas pumps with
a large storage tank behind each one. The first one was painted white and
marked "Regular Unleaded" in large letters. The next one was painted yellow
and labeled "High Test". The next, bright red and labeled "Supreme". The
last one was painted in a red yellow and black checkerboard and labeled
"Rocket Fuel". It's looking promising!
Suddenly there it was: The Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort. Ahhh. Motorcycle
Mecca. (Plus a healthy dose of smart marketing) And it's large parking lot
was practically deserted. The girl in the gift shop said in another 3 weeks
that the place would be jammed but that worked in my favor. No bikes, no
Cops. I decided to drive to the far end to have a look at it before pulling
the bike off to play.

In a bizarre note, one of only 3 bikes in the lot was exactly the same same
as Nathalie's except for the custom paint job. It was painted to look like a
Dragon.

I've driven Notch road and Mountain road in Gatineau park more times than I
can count, done the Jones Falls road at a dangerous speed, and been to
Calabogie early on a Sunday morning with the fast crowd. I've seen good bike
roads, fast bike roads, technically demanding bike roads, ones that twist
and turn like a snake and force you to a near crawl, ones with long sweeping
curves that dare you go fast, and every other type you can imagine. But I've
never driven anything like this. It had everything I've just described and
more. It started out looking like fun, but within a few hundred yards I'd
started to sweat. Then I passed the first cross.
It was a small cross, painted white with a wreath hanging from it, well off
to the side of the road. "In Loving Memory" was written on the cross piece.

It wasn't the last.

Tail of the Dragon is the right name. This thing was just one continues
series of curves and switchbacks with nonstop level changes. it was
impossible to say where one ended and another began. The posted speed limit
was 30 miles an hour with lots of signs warning you down to 20. I'd be
surprised if I averaged half the speed limit pulling that trailer. On the
hairpin turns I kept watching the rear view mirror expecting to see one or
both of the bikes snap loose and go bouncing along behind us. I kept
thinking about my brother in the wagon behind my bicycle. It was a relief to
reach the far side.

I made one round trip on the FZ, caught my breath, and then a couple more,
stopping at the Resort long enough to pick up a couple of souvenir t-shirts and have breakfast.
One for me, and one for Kevin. Everybody else who wants one will have to
make the trip and get their own. I could go on for pages about how much fun
I had on that road, but there's no way I could do it justice. I went fast
and took chances and then loaded the bike up and got the hell out of there
when the cops showed up. If you call yourself any kind of biker, it's
worth the trip, like a pilgrimage to the bridge for a skydiver.

Somewhere in Virginia I came upon some trucker humor.
Written across the back of a tractor trailer it said
"If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you"
That was in letters about 2 inches high. The next line down was about half
an inch smaller.
"If I can't see you I don't know you're there"
The next line was smaller still.
"If I don't know you're there, I could squish you like a bug"
The last line was about half an inch tall and to read it I had to crawl so
far up that trucks ass with my truck that if that driver had farted he'd
have parted my hair.
It said: "And that would suck"

Smartass.

Home safe. Nowhere near the usual amount of nonsense, stupidity, and
craziness on this trip. Maybe I'm getting old, I do turn 50 this year. More
likely for the first time in a long time I actually took the time to slow
down and relax on a vacation. But there's always this summers road trip to
look forward to. Summerfest/Nationals/Dan and Cheryl's wedding. 3 1/2 weeks
of potential mayhem, especially the wedding in St John's.

Special thanks to Nathalie for joining me on this adventure, to Jeff for
helping me survive the 60-ways, and to Kevin for teaching me the finer
points of motorcycle trailering.

If there is anybody who would like this "Spam" as Mr. Gemmell puts it sent
to a different address, or have their name removed from future mailings,
just let me know.
Until next time...............