Easy living...

Felt like a southbound pachyderm on Friday, high-tailing it to better water quality for a Saturday float. Arrived in the dark, set up camp and watched some guy pour gas on a campfire and speculated his life expectancy. Woke up and I tested my maximum heart rate with coffee, which freaked out Chula. Shortly after, we were greeted with a majestic view of a bald eagle (read: white-headed vulture) and the fixin's for fishhead soup. This helped me combat pegging my heart rate and slip into hillbilly mode. Not another person on the river. Perfect.

Then we traveled through storms to Lake Ozark to camp and make Nutella s'mores to finish out the day. Come morning, I slipped in to plum smugglers covered by baggies for racin' on Sunday. The course was rocky, hilly and felt remote. If you would have told me to find my way back to the start without taking the trail, I would still be wandering around (unlike this guy). It is one of those places where, if you are feeling good and have power, it was a blast, but if you are fatigued, it is a death march. By mile 28 my legs were feeling it, and the tank was on empty. I was pinballing around and losing a gallon of fluid every hour, from the heat that is. Normally this is the end of the season for racin dirt bikes but this is still to come.