For a tourist economy. Fri, Sat, and Sunday was the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival. Define scads as the quantity of mtn bikers injected into the community and onto local trails. Today I saw several of the branded box vans around, hangers on, perhaps their job schedule allowed them to mix work with extended stay for play. Dunno. Sunday dawned puffy jacket chilly for warmth and wind block. Conditions continued into today except the temp is rising and will continue thru the week back to the 70s. Didn’t ride today because of both internal and external conditions. I am working thru a chest cold which causes hacking racking coughs bring up gunk from the depths of my lungs. If the cold is above the shoulders it’s ok to ride, below, wait healing out. Tomorrow body effort is going to happen. I spoke with the promoter to learn if they had population data from entry forms which they do. I have no need for the data but to me it would be informative to learn from where the riders come from.
Friday afternoon I worked the first shift at the VVCC booth swapping US funds for circular wood tokens used to buy beer from the beer vendors. We solicited tips / contributions for the western gateway new trails, raised $6,xxx towards construction cost. Again, consumers were my audience, they chose to be captive. I chose taking cash as I didn’t want to do the card swipe thing which turns out took less thinking than making change from a $100 for 2 beers at $4 a piece. And the bills were mixed up, it was windy such that a rock was placed on top of the bills, my fingers were dry decreasing my grip, and math skills as simple as they were did not come readily.
Turner did not attend for reasons that I understand. It was 2 years ago I drooled over a demo RFX as mine was yet to ship. The frame remains the same which is less attractive than the big box bikes who make a slight change and market as sliced bread. Lots of bike manufactures were in attendance.
Drove back down to VOC then out to uncrowded beaverhead flats. The guy with he trailer has returned and posted up in my preferred spot.
Check out the health of the vegetation, in the lower left corner is a played out prickly pear plant. I wonder the recovery. Cows grazed down dead grasses and left shit.
Sat in the afternoon I hiked Slim Shady from the VOC entrance in my normal street clothes. My purpose was to gather experiences from mountain bikers. Only 1 rider scored a perfect for for trail love: Stopped with his tread on the tread(1) and (2), smiled(3) and (4) is escaping memory recall: “yielding to hikers”. Others appeared to believe that they had inalienable right to own the trail such that hiker (me) had to get off the trail. I am working on a trail love idea to provide knowledge of conduct for bikers which will help make hikers better friends.
Sunday I drove back to the festival and visited. I ran into a few people I had met previously. Chilly. Cold beer. Watch men’s pose when beer is available: i had holds the container, the other is in a pocket. I waited till mid afternoon before I assumed said pose.
Zags play conference semi finals tonight, bar front seat right under a big screen TV and bartenders who know to replenish my beer. I normally drink a beer per half. Tomorrow is the final which I hope they make as they have cred to do it. This AM I realized that I bought a Banff film ticket for Tues. Can’t be in 2 places at same viewing time. I asked to change the Banff night to which happened. One night of award winning videos is enough stimulation for this cowboy.
I am reading Edmond Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom. He reveals slavery by the Spanish before the English who hoped that they could build an equal society. It is chronological. The stage was set for negro slavery yet to come because many of the English settlers were wealthy and did not work but not enough workers came over. Workers who should have been growing crops were consumed as servants to the wealthy and the wealthy persons measure was how many servants he owned. They cooked the books for infractions to mandate workers to remain in slavery servitude under conditions worse than what they escaped from back in England. Makes for non literature reading that I prefer. I am reading the root for the literature.