Calendar Boys

Remember that bike trip to Patagonia with El Mecánico and Tío Ramón in 2016? Well, I just learned that my two handsome bike partners are CALENDAR BOYS!

(Photo: Adventure Cycling Association.)

But, wait, it gets even better...it's not only the boys who are famous; Shirley is famous, too! Shirley, my Surly Long Haul Trucker, is a CALENDAR GIRL! That's Shirley there, leaning smugly up against the barbed wire fence, parked just behind Tío Ramón's steed. Maybe I'm biased, but I think she looks just as stunning as the two boys.

You may recognize this photo from my Crossing Tierra del Fuego post. I'm tickled pink that my photo was chosen for Adventure Cycling Association's 2018 calendar! Order your copy of the cycle touring-themed calendar here.

Part 1: Where the Magic Happens

The Venn diagram is one of the most beautiful diagrams, for it represents the magic that happens when we combine our interests.

As you may recall, a Venn diagram is a visual way of showing relationships among separate groups of things. Each group of things is represented by a congruent circle. The circles are overlapped to create regions, or "intersections," representing commonalities among the groups. These intersections are powerful; they are where the magic happens. The greater the number of intersections, the greater the magic.¹

Where the magic happens.

On February 1, 2012, I attended a talk given by John Scurlock. Called "Heart of the Distant Mountain," John presented aerial photographs he had taken while flying over the Cascade mountains. The photographs in John's presentation were amazing. But more amazing was the story of how John became an aerial photographer.

The Marriage of Cycle Touring & REI

What do you get when you marry a girl's passion for cycle touring with her love for everything REI?

Me -- a girl who loves cycle touring and REI.
(Photo: REI)

Need a hint? Do you recognize the girl on the right in the screenshot below?

More Patagonia Photos

We've been back from Chile for a few weeks now. I've been silent on the blog front because I've been crazy-busy tackling a seemingly endless list of to-dos. Not only have I been catching up on being away from "home" for the last four months, but I've also been busy preparing to be away from home again for the next five months. I only have a small window of time to do all of this catching up and preparation. One thing on my to-do list has been to get a copy of Brian's photos from his camera. I now have Brian's photos, and I've chosen my favorites to share with you.

All of the photos I've posted on my blog thus far from our Patagonia trip have been from my camera. Aside from a few exceptions when I handed my camera to someone else and requested that they take a photo of me, most all of my photos have been of El Mecánico or of scenery. As I am in many of Brian's photos, this post proves that I, too, was in Patagonia.

Take this one, for example:

Me, strumming some tunes.

As you may recall from my To the End of the World post, we had a 22-hour layover in Buenos Aires at the beginning of the trip. We spent many of these hours sitting outside the airport entrance, basking in the sun, reading books, and strumming the guitalele (a cross between a guitar and a ukulele). El Mecánico took a photo of me playing his guitalele. Based on the position of my fingers, I was playing Mumford & Son's "After the Storm." (In case you are interested, there is an awesome set of tabs for this song located here.)

Reflections on My Turkey Trip - Part 3: What I Learned About Myself

What did I think of Turkey? My answer is threefold. 

In my prior two posts, I addressed Part 1: What I Like About Turkey and Part 2: What I Like About the United States. In today's post I cover Part 3: What I Learned About Myself.

Let's start off with an analogy...

Imagine a mosaic. The more tiles that compose the mosaic, the clearer the image. ¿Comprende? Bueno.

As you've likely heard before, we are a sum of all our experiences. These experiences combine to create a mosaic of our unique selves. As is true for the tiles in a mosaic, the more experiences we add to our lives, the clearer the image of our true selves.

A mosaic of me, with all the Turkey photos as individual tiles.
Enlarge the image to fully appreciate the mosaic.

The Turkey trip served to add more and more tiles to the mosaic of my life. Though some of these experiences confirmed what I already knew about myself, others revealed something new. Regardless, all of the experiences helped me to get a clearer image of myself. All of the experiences helped me to learn more about myself and to asymptotically hone in on my true nature.