Trumpery...Look It Up

Apparently this is what we deserve... America and the World. And where it will stop, nobody knows. Hitler made the same kind of comeback in the 1930's...even after being jailed by his countrymen in the twenties. White Nationalism was the order of the day. The "impure bloods" were deported, incarcerated and disposed of. So ninety years later, here we go. We americans are better educated than any society had ever imagined. It didn't matter, we are sliding down the same dirty laundry chute that we were sufficiently warned about over and over again. So, do we hunker-down and say that "we told you so" following every bonehead proclamation and legislation that clobbers our liberal democratic system of government or, do we resist and insist on our humanitarian values and sympathetic responses to the less fortunate among us? As I have said for eight years or longer...Trumpery...Look it up.

It Doesn't Take Much For Me To Have A Successful Day

It starts with getting out of bed and going vertical. I make my way down the stairs avoiding piles of folded laundry. I feel with my toes for dog toys and balls, to the first light switch and furnace thermostat. I find a sweatshirt and pajama bottoms and move over to the coffee pot. So far, a successful morning. After grinding and brewing some dark roast, I choose a cup for the day...after coffee I'll use the same cup for a mouth cleansing serving of chai tea. The dog needs to be let out and I need to ingest six tablespoons of yogurt, for microbiome gut health. I'm on my way to a very successful day.

Brewery Worker Dream

I was one of the first of six Sierra Nevada Brewing working stiffs in 1980. I labored there on Gilman Way until October of 1985. Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi were generous with me by letting me take Autumn sabbaticals of four to six weeks for cycling and backpacking adventures with my beautiful wife Lisa Jo. I would return to the bottling line every November and bust my butt for $5/hr through Winter, Spring and Summer until the middle of September when we would launch another outdoor escapade. Colorado River floats, British Columbia and Rocky Mountain bicycle tours, John Muir Trail backpacks. They always welcomed me back and listened to my stories. So, here we are forty years later and I have a four hour dream that puts me right back to working at the Sierra Nevada Brewery. Kenny asks me to name the next ale. I am excited to show him the label Lisa Jo and I came up with...It's called 3.2 Ale with a beautiful Sierra green background. He and Steve H. look at each other and say, "Yes, a light ale. We are ready for a light ale."

The Last Family Bicycle Shop in Northeastern California

Twelve years ago there were two bicycle shops in Susanville, one in Burney, one in Quincy, one in Graeagle and one in Chester, Ca. Of those, the only family bicycle store that remains is Bodfish Bicycles and Quiet Mountain Sports in Chester. A bicycle shop wrenches on everyone's bicycle, brings old bicycles back to life, putting them back into circulation and attempts to stock new bicycles for the whole family. Public service is high on a bicycle shop owner's list of responsibilities.....'where to ride' and 'how to ride' safely is incredibly important. You don't get that from the Big Box sellers. So, what has led to the disappearence of bicycle shops? Online shopping is number one, however, large fires have made the territory seriously less attractive to vacationing cycliists and local self-propelled wanderers. Tariffs have had an effect as well. In 2018 the Trump administration decided that tariffs on Asian goods were a good idea. Prices on new bicycles and bicycle gear increased by 20%, scaring off many who were considering a new bike purchase. The Covid epidemic should have been good for bicycle shops but the epidemic and tariffs combined to result in a serious supply-chain problem and hardware was difficult to obtain, limiting store owner options. Finally, suppliers decided to bypass small independent dealers and sell everything on-line.....at bargain prices. This eliminated already slim margins and has resulted in the disappearance of many rural bicycle shops. Bodfish Bicycles is actually operating on life-support, luckily our bills and mortgages are paid and our one employee is willing to work for minimum wage.

Insanity....continued

Same thing over again.....expecting different results. Obviously, I don't know what I thought I knew. As an amateur Psychologist and Counselor, I SUCK. Wrenching on old bicycles today has been incredibly therapeutic.....predictable turns of the wrist resulting in beautiful rehabs of old friends, now destined to be satisfying "town bikes". People, on the other hand, I certainly don't understand. How anyone can vote for such a train-wreck of a human to represent our hopes and dreams for our nation.....spoiling the future of millions of young Americans who will miss out on lessons of honor, truth and compassion for their fellow citizens. The return of Trumpery will set numerous bad examples that are bound to be adopted by 50% of Americans. How long after will it take to re-establish our national integrity.....and regain the respect that world citizens have had for our stable form of Democracy? What I really don't get.....how is that 50% of our fellow voters don't see the insanity in supporting this degradation of our national ideals. Do you want your kids to adopt any of these behaviors displayed by the man called The Donald.

Losers and Winners

The Yankees have lost the World Series...they weren't quite good enough when it counted..."That's how the cookie crumbles." My mother used to say. No 'sore losers' here. No lawsuits, no whining, no threats of violence. Baseball is a civilized game with well over a hundred years of following the rules and accepting the results of these yearly campaigns. The judges deciding between right and wrong are called umpires. Get 'huffy' with an umpire and you are expelled from the contest. Baseball players know better than to get 'huffy' with an umpire. Managers are a little more likely to kick dirt on an umpires shoes. They are also immediately expelled from the contest. Sore losers never come out on top. Donald Trump is preparing his sore loser campaign in these weeks before the contest results are tabulated. He has an ugly history of being a sore loser. He insists he never loses, his cult of followers are prepared to kick dirt on the shoes of Uncle Sam one more time.

My First And Last Rotary Club Meeting

The Chester Lake Almanor Rotary Club caught wind of my intention to enter the small business realm back in 1993. They invited me to their November meeting, "See if you belong in this club." offered a business consultant, who I counted as a friend. Lots of friendly handshakes as I walked in the front door of The Golden Bear in West Chester. The meeting came to order and right away they asked me to speak of my intentions. "I have a ton of passion for cycling and outfitting cyclists", I began. The chairman interrupted, "Now, I think that's worth a $10 fine. One, we don't have those people in Chester more than one day a year." The Mile High Hundred was a twelve year old event that started and finished in Chester every August. I was a little shocked, a $10 fine? What was that all about? A man walked over to me with an empty coffee can and asked for $10. The local grocer put a $10 in there for me. Ok, this is strange...The butcher, a guy named Norm said, "If I may speak...we don't have any of those granola-eating bicycle people in Chester. I don't think this is a good idea." I picked up my sweater and said, I'm done. My bicycle business has thrived for thirty-one years. Nearly all of those Rotarians have left town, died or retired.

Wake Me, When It's Over

We are three weeks out from the weirdest Election Day Circus ever concocted or imagined, in this country. A person of good character...a tough experienced prosecutor, senator and current vice president, who happens to be a multi-racial woman, is pitted againest an old white Joker-faced wanna-be entertainer who represents the worst behaviors... (a daily embarrassment to any of us who have ever tried to present to children what a good human being should stand for and act like to our fellow human beings). The most despicable behaviors that prove that this man has zero scruples, no hint of descency and an incredible disregard for how his actions affect the people around him. His bad behaviors are frequent and he wears them on his sleeves...in our faces. His lies are so frequent and repeated so many times that he puts his audiences in a trance...those watching him don't know up from down, he spins them and then suggests that they drink the Kool-Aid.

Freaky Times

The news always goes sideways a couple of weeks before a national election. The question is, who presents and stands behind truthful statements and who continues to lie and exaggerate. Well, it can go both ways because this is a competition here and absolute fact goes right out the window. Don't hold your breath until after the election...keep breathing and try to keep a clear head. There'll be sour grapes and cries of foul play and there will be joy and celebrations. Thanksgiving neatly follows the election (victories and disappointments) three weeks after, giving us an opportunity to forgive, forget and accept that the next four years will not really be that different than the previous four years...even though the wheel-wobble seems a little more severe in recent times. Generally, we all need to find common ground between us and act in a civilized manner, lowering the stress levels we experience for the remainder of our days.

9/11 Gives Me Reason To Pause and Pray

We were on a City bus, in Paris. An American lady with two children in tow, grabs my arm, "Have you heard? New york City and The White House and The Pentagon have been attacked by terrorists." I pulled my arm away. This lady was obviously disturbed. The kids looked healthy, well fed and obediant. We departed at the Eiffel Tower...and stood in line for the tour...people were buzzing, "Bush...Pentagon." I started to wonder. I said to our son Colby, "let's go over here and sit in this little park." He threw a small tantrum..."No, I've always wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower!". "Ok, our turn is up, let's get on." We rose up to the observation deck. "I want to go higher." The man in the uniform said, "No, we are not going all the way to the top today." We returned to the concrete plaza at ground level and another man said, in English, "We need to clear the plaza here, we are closing for the day." It was getting to be late afternoon so I said, "Let's go get something to eat." We walked down the Left Bank to the bridge over to Notre Dame Cathedral. Lisa said, "Let's go look inside." A pastor met us at the door asking if we were there to pray. Non. "No tours today." Obviously many had showed up to pray, the church was busy with true believers. We strolled back to the train/subway platform and rode a crowded car back to the airport where we had rented a room. A crowd had gathered in the lobby and were intently staring at the huge wall-sized TV monitor. It appeared that a disaster movie was playing...a jet plane crashed into a large sktscraper in New York City.

Nearly 50 Years ...A Symbiotic Relationship.

My best times almost always include my amazing wife Lisa Jo. We are in our 49th year of play and companionship. She always looks out for my best interests and I for hers. We are a team, we have created so much together...a story, a home, a child, a business, dreams and follow-thru. Our travels include spectacular settings and cicumstances, and quite a bit of skinny-dipping. We look for outstanding natural settings and we revel in the breezes and the birdsongs. Not always on the exact same wave-length, we listen to each other and find the common ground. We work at understanding our differences. Best Times happen in our local National Park, in France or in Italy or in Utah or just when were riding our bicycles in the neighborhood. We have developed parallel interests.We are not museum gawkers, we don't trust restaurants, we don't choose locations where we are required to wait in lines. We love the 'outback', the wide open spaces. We are so fortunate to have each other and an almost perfect symbiosis. The realization that we have had a great run and that it cannot go on forever has hit us hard here in the 2020's. Cancer diagnosis' and surgeries for each of us in the last four years have reminded us that this life is finite. We seem to be losing friends every month now to unexpected tragedies and surprising health complications...reminding us once again that Each Day is a Gift...a precious Gift.

Last Visit

Mid-July..."Let's stop in at Kerry and Judd's, I have a present for Kerry." We'd just pedaled California Hwy 172, out and back, which starts and ends at the Circle S Ranch. A family inheritance lorded over by my friend of four decades, R.Judd Hanna. My best friend and cycling companion, Lisa went in search of Judd's wife Kerry Burke while Judd and I sat on his spacious horseshoe-shaped deck while surveying the Dixie Fire/Morgan Fire damaged ridge to the East for the umpteenth time. "It really devastated every tree up there." I observed. "The ash is so deep that nothing green is coming back." he added. "Whoa, see that puff of cloud. I wonder what's causing that." A doughboy pool-sized cloud lingered a couple of hundred feet above the Mill Creek meadow to the East between us and the burnt ridge. "It'll break in two and then be gone before you look back." I waited and sure enough the puff broke and then disappeared. We talked about something else while looking the other way. "Wow! There it is again. I wonder what causes that?", he hadn't noticed anything like it before. "Maybe it develops from the Growler Hot Spring up the way.", I guessed. "No, that's quite a ways up the valley. I think it's some kind of spirit." he offered. Wow, you're getting metaphysical on me here Judd. "Yeah, right." was his retort. Post script: R.Judd Hanna died on August 10 while driving his homemade fire truck from the Circle S Ranch on Mill Creek toward Wilson Lake road (the backroad to Chester). We had been coaxing him to get out of the ridiculously bad air of Mill Creek and take refuge at our house, where the air was much improved.

It Happened Here...Again

We climbed in the 'Go Van' and embarked on a ten day 'Smoke-cation' to breath-friendly campsites within a two hundred mile radius of The Park Fire. This most often includes a long and wnding hwy to the coast. We camped and played North of Arcata...Trinidad, Patrick's Point, Crescent City, Gold Beach and Bandon, Oregon...where the breathing was excellent, even if a little salty. Oregon, it turns out, was having it's own problem with fires (over sixty lightning caused fires up and down the Cascade Mountain Range). We crossed over to the backside of the Cascades near Crater Lake...not good, AQI well over 200. The air improved as we drove South into California and Susanville was looking great. We could see the Fire Dragon standing up tall as we drove West toward our home of Chester. It was time to check on our garden and home and to launder a bag of dirty camping clothes. We thought we'd just make a day visit and then motor on to better air. Surprisingly the plume of smoke moved to a column twenty miles North of Chester. So, I decided to open the Bicycle store for three days...and much to my surprise, customers showed and I had three good Summer days of business in-a-row. Not all is lost but our summers have definitely been lackluster these last three years due to fires and the resultant smokey days that come with them.

Fire Season Dread, Chapter 6

Six years ago a firestorm raged downstream from us in the little town of Paradise. A really ugly evacuation scene where nearly ninety people lost their lives. Thirty thousand people ended up relocating their lives after losing almost everything they were familiar with, including their homes. Every year since has featured these "blowtorch fires" from which Californians and Oregonians have had to run for their lives. 2024, July is proving to be no different. Fire is everywhere, ash is falling sixty miles West of the big one. The Park Fire which started yesterday afternoon in Chico, California has burnt over 75,000 acres in 24 hours. It is marching North aided by 25 mile an hour winds that, inside the fire these winds triple in strength. We are seventy miles from the origination of this latest fire, however ash is falling on my keyboard as I write this. I am more than a little anxious, as i cough my way through this workday. We have our 'go vehicle' ready to launch. Even though I can't really imagine our little wagon circle of green going up in flames.

July and August...Fire Season Dread.

Our community is enveloped by an oasis of green. A million acres, to the north and to the south was blackened by the Dixie Fire. We don't feel safe. The Air Quality Index is bound to to rise from the springtime 30's to something well over 100, soon. This will happen due to the increased traffic from second-homers and high lake tourists. Lightning or man-made fires will double and triple those numbers. We remember the Summer AQI numbers jumping to 400 and 500. It is hard to breathe when the numbers jump that high. Walking and riding your bicycle offers a daily reminder, we thrive on good air...we struggle with bad air. There are many trees and homes left to burn in California. You will see it in the headlines, by mid-July people will be evacuating their communities and praying for mercy from the Fire Gods. We have our "Go bags and Go vehicles" in the ready position. Yes, this is a "climate weirding" issue and it will not be something we tell our grandchildren about...they will know the story well...Their lives will be fraught with even more extremes. I wish them well...the future looks frightening from here.

Black Dog Mystery

Our Labrador gets a hike nearly every day. We have a trail network out in the back forty and she loves those hikes...she's been doing them since she was a pup. Twice now, since her sixth birthday, she's been embarking on her own hikes out back. She's been staying out there for two hours at a time. When she returns she acts like she doesn't know us and she is shaking. Our guess is that she has encountered the very large Black Bear that patrols our neighborhood at night. She's not a barker and she is not aggressive so we are never alerted to her situation. We keep hiking up the same trail in the morning and she is very busy sniffing out the trespasser and she stays right by my side. Two days later she is back to leading me out on the hike as if she didn't expect any sort of encounter. So we have gone back to using the Orange Collar. When we call her we beep her, no electric shock just a signal that we want her back here. She certainly keeps us busy...daily walks, daily lake or river swims and constantly asking us to fling a ball or toss a stick. No peace for the weary. Twenty years with Labs, we are well trained.

Business Report...The Challenging Twenties

Beginning with 2020 we were presented with some high hurdles. Covid started cranking in March and April, which is usually the Spring Rush period for the bike shop, even May was eerily quiet. Good thing I only ordered 24 new bicycles and 20 new kayaks that February. On June 3, 2020 our local doctor called us into her office to inform us that Lisa's recent Xray and CatScan revealed that she had lung cancer. Several visits to the UC Davis Medical Center later she had her tumor and half of her left lung removed. This began a three and a half year dance with various forms of chemotherapy. At the bicycle shop, supply chain problems began in 2021...we couldn't get product, we scambled to find new bikes. Kayaks, even though made in the USA, were not easily available because the raw polyethylene pellets that Hobie used were sourced out of Asia. Supplied from China and Korea this raw material was subject to new tariffs laid down by the Trump administration which turned off the Asian faucets of material goods. The Summer of '21 saw a blowtorch of forest fires rip through our county, mainly the Dixie Fire... resulting in a seven week mandatory evacuation cutting our season of outdoor recreation sales in exactly half. Nearly a million acres of scorched wasteland replaced our beautiful forest therefore eliminating our incredible playground of bicycling/hiking turf, turning most of the green to ashes. My free-to-the-public maps and trail ideas were made obsolete during this seven week disaster. Visitation numbers have remained at only a fraction of what they were during our first twenty five years of business. We are climbing out of this charcoal-colored hole with a whole new appreciation for the vast new views of the Cascade high country and much quieter cycling roads. 2022 featured a discovery that I had a large tumor in my colon that had to be surgically removed along with a foot of large intestine at the end of that Summer. As of March 13, 2024 we are done with chemotherapies and are feeling like returning to our adventure-filled lives afoot and in the saddle. Locals and "second-homers" seem to be making a special effort to support local small merchants instead of buying everything from Amazon and regional big citys. There is hope and we are learning to survive on less income and insisting on working less hours. Each day is a gift so, go out and play more and worry less.

Not That Much Playtime Left

This realization occurred while watching the solar eclipse (only partial in Northern California). Everyone in North America seemed to be focused on this event. No arguments, no conspiracy theories about it being the Real Thing...the Sun tucked behind the Moon and we were in awe...the networks were all focuused on this indisputable event. As the curtain closed and then, thankfully reopened, people began planning for the next eclipse...August, 22, 2044...best seen in the Northern Tier states. Hey, we have to call our son and arrange a rendezvous. His birthday is August 22...How about Montana? Possibly Chester, Montana. And then, it hit me....twenty years from now I'll be 94 years old! Will I still be able to drive to Chester, Montana? I'm getting older. We need to rendezvous more often. We need to pack in dozens of adventures and do it soon. We pedaled our fully loaded bicycles through Chester, Montana in 1978... the halfway point between Anacortes, Washington and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The people of Chester were incredibly gracious. They gave us the key to the fire dept. showers and the mayor (so he said) bought the groceries that we gathered on the grocery store counter before settling down next to our tent in the city park. "We'll make sure the Friday night teenagers don't bother you when you decide where you want to pitch your tent."

Honesty, Is That So Hard?

I learned all that I need to know in Kindergarten...it's the title of a book I read decades ago. It seemed incredibly simplistic but, I dove into it anyhow. Sharing, being honest and playing by the rules, being kind to one another and cleaning up after yourself...(we call this 'cover your trail'). Robert Fulghum wrote down these simple precepts in the early eighties. These are the first words out of your teacher's mouth when you begin your journey through the education process. If you have been paying attention during these last forty years you'll agree, all is lost. Politicians, lawyers and business executives have led the way down into this behavioral pergatory. We have become a delusional collection of selfish adults. America leads the way here, as I see it...advanced degradation of societal norms. I wish it were a different story...that we took to heart what our kindergarten teacher first laid down as 'rules to live by'. Of course parents were responsible for the first lessons in honesty and caring. I am not really sure where we went wrong. When I was developing in those early years, Presidents Truman and Eisenhauer were universally trusted and looked up to by everyone I knew. I didn't know that many people outside my immediate family but, I'd never heard of disingenuous, deceptive strategies for 'getting ahead'. I was quite naive, as you can see, but I think our entire civilization has gone over the edge. Public name-calling and flat-out lying is everywhere, on every channel of communication...the Internet is the ultimate 'deal with the devil'. I don't think there's any possibilty of climbing out of this hole. All we are left with is being able to trust a few close friends and maintenence of our own personal integrity.

The Awareness Of Carbon Footprint

Somehow forgotten, the concept of lessening my carbon footprint and the behavior adjustments that went with that concept. I have since veered radically off track. I gave up red meat in 1970. I gave up automobile ownership in 1973. These were my large moves toward being kinder to my neighbors and the planet. Twelve years later I returned to automotive addiction when I took on a used car and a used truck. I used them sparingly, we commuted to work and school by bicycle and cross country skis. Somewhere along the way we returned to eating turkey and chicken, but never the red meat. I don't think I ever abstained from dairy however, I knew I was lactose intolerant very early in the game. Cheese and yogurt agree with me and by consuming more than my fair share of these two foods I am encouraging large clouds of bovine methane. The new century witnessed us partaking in next level environmental degradation...jetting across the Atlantic. We were also deep into the internal combustion behaviors...occasional commutes by foot and by bicycle help allay feelings of guilt that might haunt us from the last century...but now, we find it so satifying to gather the camping gear and for remote warmer locations via motorcar, escaping uncomfortable temperatures. It's not like you get credits for previous conscientious behaviors...the warming earth is still in trouble and our neighbors are struggling and dying from the impacts, 'we the privileged' foist upon them.

One Less Worry

As I walk out the door this morning my biggest worry is....Space Junk. It comes back to earth at speeds ten times faster than a bullet. My sister assures me that it mostly burns up on reentry and if a large piece did not burn up and happened to hit me, I would never be inconvenienced with injury anyhow, i would expire suddenly so, why worry? Actually what I am celebrating by expressing that my biggest worry upon starting my day with Space Junk, as my top worry, has resulted from the fact that my sweetest of sweethearts was found to be permanently cancer free and will no longer need her morning chemotherapy pill. CANCER... The enemy of us all has been dealt a lethal blow by careful and conscientious attention to strategies, including surgeries and follow-up treatments...and we have won the battle to keep breathing, laughing, playing hard outside, loving and imbibing in this experience we call LIFE. It was four years ago that a genetic glitch (egfr) was found to have embedded a carcinogenic tumor into the lung of my favorite human on the planet. We have worked hard to follow all the instructions and submitted to all procedures necessary to rid ourselves of this monster. Worrying less is a good thing and I'm thinking if my biggest worry is that the sun may not rise the next day or that I'll be incinerated by space junk then I'm in a pretty good place.

The Number One Thing I Can Do To Save Planet Earth.

I have been looking for the best way to save the big blue ball we call Earth...well, for six decades anyhow. I don't seem to be able to convince others that this is the single 'most important' issue that humanity faces. I haven't really motivated a single person to change any of their behaviors while they live out their appointed session on this planet. My opinion and counsel about Earth rescue does not register with a single soul within shouting distance of me. I am not an "influencer". Doesn't matter how I vote or what I promote. The world continues to roll down this slippery slope toward catastrophic fever and eventual unlivability. So, what am I left with? What can be my greatest contribution to solving this Earths dilemma? Where can I make a difference that will pull humanity and it's ultimate Mother out of this daily tailspin? When I walk down the path from my house (which I built with my own two hands and a couple of good friends) two hundred feet to my garage, which harbours my two gas-powered motor vehicles. I check the temperature and road conditions, deciding to not fire-up either of these dragons, making the all important decision to pedal my acoustic/non-electric bicycle to work...it's all I've got. Seriously, it's the only important decision that I have to make which possibly leads to the world evolving into a more livable environment and to bring down Earth's fever.

Liquid Gold....Welcome to March!

Sierra /Cascade lakes and springs are getting a serious infusion of nourishment here on Leap-Day 2024. Snow, rain and wind are replenishing the hills with a healthy dose of hope. Determined to be true to my late life maxim...Play more/ Work less. My thirty years of orchestrating a successful bicycle store has evolved into a satisfying hobby, featuring less work hours and more joy. My offspring, whose life is full of work and play, is tying the knot with his adventure buddy this summer and both have encouraged us to head for the hills in mid-June and play with them in fields of Utah wildflowers. I am predicting matrimonial bliss and a fully satisfying partnership for Colby and Emily. Attitude is nearly everything in the recipe for living a great life and these two have an abundance of excellent attitude. 'Attitude at Altitude' is a good description of the life they are living. Mountain biking, backcountry skiing and immersing in wild rivers has produced some of the glue that is holding these two together. They are both genuinely caring and sincere humans whom we are exceedingly proud of. It'll be exciting and satisfying to watch their unfolding story for the rest our our lives. We couldn't ask for anything better.

You've Got to Show Up

If you don't show, you'll never know what could've been. This is my rationale for maintaining a "work week"...only three days in a row this time of year, but it's something. Yes, for twenty-nine years I've opened my bicycle store all Winter inspite of the fact that Winter months have never been profitable. I always thought that consistancy and reliability were worth a lot...right up there with honesty and integrity. I suppose this is why we survived as a bicycle shop for nearly thirty years. I am not sure what it all means...it has given me a "sense of purpose" and has kept me from getting into other types of trouble. I see that it won't be a business that I'll be passing on to my offspring. He has carved a much better niche for himself in the working world...a very independant soul with his own misssion in life. So, I have this property that I must sell. I had hopes of a continuation of my mission (to promote and encourage self-propulsion on two wheels) however, selling real estate tied to a mission is not as easy as I thought. "If someone wants to buy your property and turn it into a beauty salon you've got to accept that." That's where we're at here in the middle of January at 4,600ft. Snow on the ground, temperatures in the teens each morning and no one needing an innertube, or a helmet, or a new bicycle. Yes, it will get better in March and we'll barely be able to keep up with their needs in May. I guess I just needed a mid- Winter pep-talk.

Far-Infrared Sauna To The Rescue

I post my appreciation for the TheraSauna, that we purchased over fifteen years ago, quite often. It helps me launch into the day with warm bones and a toasty spine throughout these winter days that we signed-up for when we moved to Chester, Ca. some 38 years ago. I've been toasted and enriched by having numerous naked conversations with various friends and relatives over these last dozen+ years that I'm sure would have never happened had we not installed the three person corner cabinet hot box. Ten years before we installed the TheraSauna we purchased a Snorkel wood-fired hot tub. It was also a place to heat-up and consult with friends and family but it wasn't the same. Sitting there in a stocking cap and knowing that you'd soon be launching onto an icy deck was not condusive to revealing discussions about how we might improve our attitudes and inner-personal relationships. In the far-infrared sauna however, watching each other evacuate toxins from every pore is definitely more therapeutic and personal than bathing in a tub of hot water together. Trust is a huge part of the experience. The subjects discussed are many and deeply detailed while sharing a thirty minute sweat-session in the TheraSauna. We get out and take a shower... sending all of the poisons down the drain. No need to go through any further therapy, at least for that day. The daily sauna can also offer quiet time, even when shared. I often hear my body sweat, breaths are deeper and slower and the main pump sends blood down to usually cool toes.