White Rim, Canyonlands, Utah...The trip was fabulous: gorgeous weather, beautiful sunrises, sunsets, sleeping under starry skies, and biking. I had the opportunity to handcycle the first 15 miles of the trail with my road bike. This consisted of miles on a nice rolling hard-packed gravel road, down a steep bumpy 4-wheel drive road with hairpin turns and dangerous drop-offs, and down a flat road until I got STUCK in a sandy part of the road. We stored the bike in my truck for the next few days until we reached Musselman Arch. Then I had the opportunity to ride the handcycle over the arch, TWICE. Since the rocks on one side of the arch were impassable, I had to return over the arch the way I came.

Near the sandpit

Murphy's Hogback

The two French people on the trip, Ben and Flo, did great! Ben managed to keep up with Bryan most of the trip. Flo, not very experienced with mountain biking, hung in there for the whole 100 miles of biking. Shari, a friend of mine, who decided spontaneously two days before we left to go with us did great. She also wasn't too experienced with mountain biking. She ended up biking a hell of a lot more than she was planning on. Jan, a Dutch friend, living in Canada joined us for the trip as well. It was great hanging out with him again, catching up on everything.

Musselman Arch

On the way back, I-70 was closed because of snowy roads and an accident. We ended up sleeping at a Holiday Inn, falling asleep to David Letterman. Fortunately, we stopped in Glenwood Springs and had an incredibly delicious authentic Mexican meal at Jilbertito's beforehand. The next morning was winter driving over Vail and Loveland Passes and slow going, but we made it back home to Boulder.

Boulder, Colorado...The weeks are flying by. Last weekend was a mellow rainy weekend consisting of cleaning the house, coffeeshop scrabble, and catching up with old friends. But the weekend before was Oktoberfest in Casper, Wyoming with my uncle Bill. Then it was off to Lander to hang out with my Dad, now a barista at a local bookstore/coffeeshop, my stepmom Sue, and my buddy Clay and his boys. Then back to Boulder. Lots of driving, but nice downtime! Now it's off to Utah for a 5-day desert trip around the White Rim.

Oktoberfest

Uncle Bill

Barista

My dad and Ethan and Aidan

Jim, Ethan, Clay, and Sue

Meadow Music

Boulder...The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy. The weekend before last we had three days of Fall Fest on Pearl Street. We listened to people relate their stories about seeing foxes, bears, and other animals. Each time we acted surprised and awed like it was the first time anyone had ever told of such an occurrence. The next day Jeff Kagan and Mark Wesson performed their last Meadow Music for the season generating a crowd of about 400 people at Chautauqua Park.

After an ordinary work week, this last weekend was fun-filled with the highlights being a handcycle ride and a trip to Fort Collins. Jeff performed his children's nature songs (Rocky Mountain Tunes for Rocky Mountain Kids) at Bloomba. Check out his website at http://rockymountainmusic.info . Jeff, Paige, and I piled into his 2-door Civic and headed to the show. The grand performance escalated with his new song...Giardiah Opera. My friend Soley and one of her sons Owen stopped by to enjoy the performance as well. It was great catching up with her as it has been many many years.

Giardiah Opera

Marshall Mesa...Saturday we had the Adaptive Mountain Bike Clinic at Marshall Mesa. ASC from Crested Butte came over with downhill bikes and one-off handcycles. The 18 participants all seemed to have a great time. Weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. Last night (Monday) we had a full moon hike with City of Boulder EXPAND program. It turned out to be a beautiful night with a clear sky, bright moon, and starry sky. Good times!

Marshall Mesa Downhill

Full Moon Hike

Boulder, Colorado...After 18 hours of grueling travel I am home, yeehaw!! It was an extraordinarily long day of travel involving a car, 3 planes, and a bus. The most exciting part of the day was trying to catch my plane in Amsterdam with only an hour to do so. With the assistance of Susanne, the airport helper lady, I gathered my baggage, went through customs, checked in for the next flight, went through customs again, used the bathroom (she didn't help me with this), dashed for the gate dodging bags and hopping over small children, and last but not least went through security one more time. By the time I got on the plane I was out of breath, but on the plane.

The rest of the trip was relaxing and calm for the most part. . .except for maybe the butt push-ups I did every 20 minutes to keep from getting ulcers on my arsh. I think I did over 200 push-ups, but who's counting. My triceps are really huge now, though. Watch out Arnold!

So since I haven't written in my blog for so long I'll backstep to the previous days. After the wedding in Karlshamn, I headed to Ängelholm with Todd, Julie and Todd, Tony and Ned, and Mike and Katarina. Some of us took the train. Others drove. We had a really short layover between trains. Julie sprang for the train while we grabbed the bags. She kept telling the Kontroller, "Please, just one minute." The Kontroller kept saying, "No, we must close door NOW!" When I seconds later arrived, she pointed at me and said, "No room for you!" I just replied, "I've got my own chair. I can sit right there," pointing at her. She shrugged, defeated, knowing that she couldn't send us to a Turkish prison like she so wanted to do. Todd grabbed the back of the wheelchair to pull me up the steps and onto the train.

We stayed at a little bed and breakfast near the ocean owned by Elisabeth, an incredibly friendly and radiant local artist. After getting our rooms arranged, we headed to Katarina's parents house for a Crayfish Party (Kräftskiva), involving more delicious seafood, alcohol, songs, toasts, and good company.

View from Bed and Breakfast

Elisabeth

Crayfish Party

The next day the group headed to Nimos on a difficult hike to see castles made entirely of twigs and scraps of wood. I went to school with Pernilla, an idrottslärare (athletics teacher)for 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Classes seemed a little more structured than the gym classes I remember. After helping to umpire the baseball games with Håkan, another idrottslärare, I went to an English class with Pernilla. Here, I shot the shit with the students and told them a little about myself in English.Håkan

Pernilla

Nyhemsskola Class

Todd and I headed for Stockholm the next day by train. At Stockholm, my friend Linda met us. Todd waited for his friend Mirjam. Linda and I headed back to her house where Johan and her kids Alex and Hannah were making a fancy delicious dinner for us. We caught up that evening, played Legos, and laughed over a self-inflating whoopie cushion (those innovative Swedes, making the world a better place).

Linda and Johan

The next day I had a fika with Fia. Fika is the Swedish term for taking a coffee with someone. Actually, it was more like lunch, shrimp salad and fish soup. Fia, a reknowned egyptologist, works at the Meditterranean Museum so I partook in an in-depth, behind the scenes tour of the Egyptian section before our lunch. Very cool! Everything I wanted to know about mummies, but was afraid to ask.Fia

After lunch I wheeled around Gamla Stan, the old part of town with lots of cobblestones. If I ever moved to Stockholm I would definitely purchase some extremely large softer caster wheels for my wheelchair. I was getting beat up, tossed around, bouncing, and getting stuck in cracks.

The next few days I spent with Lukas and his wife Mirja, and children Svante and Hannah. This included Star Wars Legos, a trip to Vaxholm on a ferry, wandering through the subway system of Stockholm (elevators, escalators, stairs, and ramps), and a nice dinner at Grodan with American and Swedish friends.

Lukas, Mirja, and Hannah

Svante hid under the coffee table

Roger, Kimberly, and Eva at the Grodan

Todd and I took one of these days and toured the Statshuset, lunched at the top floor restaurant Godolan while looking out at the city of Stockholm, and ferried to Djurgården. Todd checked out the Vassaskepps museum. I rolled to Ostermanstorg to fika with Eva, another college friend from Uppsala. Lots of fikas, and I don't even drink coffee!

The last day I spent with Marcus, a Swedish roomate from college years, and his American wife Carolynn and girls Natalie and Mikaela. We had a fika, took it easy in the afternoon, arranged my ticket back to the states, and caught up. The girls bounced around on the furniture. No Legos:(

Carolynn and Marcus

Considering how many of my friends have kids now, I guess this was the trip to decide if I ever want kids. The vote is still not in, but all the kids were fun and great. Everyone was great and everyone was very, very hospitable.

So there it is... next day was off to the US of A, sad to leave, happy to head home.

Mike and Katarina's Wedding...Today the wedding is officially over. We had the sunny, Sunday brunch at Karin and Ulrik's summer cottage, said goodbye to almost everyone and are now taking it easy. The last few days have just flashed by. Friday, we had the BBQ to attend, meeting everyone coming to the wedding the next day. Max, Katarina's uncle and professional clown took charge of the grill and grilled up some 30 hamburgers American style. Many people took advantage of the cold ocean and warm sauna to freshen up. After hitting "Harry's Bar", everyone finally got to bed around 2 am.

The wedding was incredible: sunny day, calm ocean backdrop, and a rocky seaside. We walked through a forest to get there. Todd and Miroslav helped me over the big rocks and up to the wedding site, carrying me part of the way and pushing the other part.

Reception was really cool, traditional Swedish style w/ lots of singing, speeches, games, and dancing. Anna, the toastmaster, was awesome and kept things moving along. Roger, Mike's brother and best man/toastmaster gave an excellent speech practiced a few days earlier at the cottage. We ended up dancing and drinking until about 4 am at the recption hall by the seaside. A few hours later the morning arrived very quickly.

Toastmaster

Karlshamn...Yesterday was a very long day. I traveled by train or trains (4) the whole day, from 10:30 to 5:30. The train personnel were very helpful, getting me from one train to the other and up their accessible lifts. The most difficult part of the day was getting across the 7 pairs of railroad tracks with two bags on my lap after arriving to Karlshamn. My little front wheels immediately dug into the gaps beside the tracks. The bags went crashing onto the tracks. "Oh, Shit," I thought as I looked both ways down the track, "This is the scene in the movie where the train comes rumbling down the tracks and hits the stalled car or runs over the fair maiden who hasn't been saved by the hero." No one else was around to ask for help. I scrambled as quickly as a quadraplegic can scramble to drag the bags between the sets of tracks. Then I took each bag meticulously to the other side of all the wheel-eating tracks.

After getting the bags loaded up again, I started pushing to the center of town where the hotel was. About a mile later, I figured I better ask someone if I was going the right direction. The first person I asked was from out of town and had no idea where the First Hotel was. The second lady, pushing a walker, didn't speak much Swedish, no English, but lots of the Bosnian language.

An emergency room doctor who was biking around named Raffid helped me out. I was going the right direction. He pushed me up the incredibly steep hills and over to the hotel. Now I could relax!

Karlstad...This is the last day here, then it's off to Karlshamn for the wedding. Last night we went for sushi, picked up a bucket of ice cream, and headed home to chill out. I spent yesterday and today at Wayne's Coffee writing my book. Great to have some free time to just write. Malika and Sofia, the baristas were very helpful and friendly the 3 days I sat devotedly at Wayne's tables.The Baristas Sofia and Malika

Wayne's Coffee

Frihetssgudinnan and KarlstadsDomkyrkan

Torsby...Sunday we drove to Torsby, checked out an exhibit of Erling Ärlingsson (a very good swedish painter), ate pizza in the center of town, and watched raggares drive by (Rockabilly swedes that drive American muscle cars displaying fuzzy dice). Afterwards we visited Linda's grandma in the hospital and chatted with her for awhile. Then it was back home to Karlstad.

Linda, her Grandma Elfride, and Martin









Monday the weather was beautiful again. I cruised down to the center of town and purchased a photo card downloader and a telephone. The rest of the day I spent hanging out by a coffee shop, writing and watching people walk by. As unexciting as this may sound, it's one of the things I really wanted to do on the trip. I'll probably do this again today :) At night we drove to a hospital where Linda used to work and snuck me in so I could take a shower. Man, did that feel good!

Me (Topher) and Martin at Sahlströmsgården checking out the art exhibit

Karlstad...Yesterday was nice and relaxing. Martin and I walked into town, checked out the walking street, an outdoor shop (gear is about twice as expensive here, even on sale!), and purchased beers at the govt liquor store. We took it easy at the apartment, then headed out to the center around 10 to check out the nightlife. Good fun. I've been speaking tons of Swedish with some English thrown in for good measure, but my head is spinning with all the mixed information. I don't actually know vilket språk I am speaking anymore.

Today I woke up in Karlstad Sweden at Martin and Linda's house. Yesterday was the last day in Norway. Then it was off to Sweden on a train. It was an incredibly fast week staying with Jens, Paula, Sofia, and Matilda. I had the chance to visit other friends and relatives, drink a few beers, and quickly visit many of the beautiful and historic sites of Norge. Some of the highlights were the Langseth Farm, Drammen, Vigelands Park, Henning's mama Gerd's lake cabin, catching up with old friends, and meeting distant relatives. I forgot my cord for downloading pics from my camera so, sorry, no images to go with this text. Hopefully next time.

Drammen

Langseth Relatives

Eric, Erik, Jens, and Morten

Gerd and her lakeside hytte