STP no longer stands for "Stone Temple Pilots" in my head

or Swords to Plowshares. And that's the second time I've used "Stone Temple Pilots" in a title line of a post.

I rode my bike to Portland last weekend! It's 202 miles away! It's not really that impressive, 9500 other people did it too. But it's kind of impressive. Whatever, I don't care whether it's impressive.

I'm not so good at thinking right now. Here are a few jumbled thoughts:

It was sort of fun. Part of the time was miserable, part of the time was just slightly painful, part of the time was pretty good. I went with friend Nick, acquaintance (I mean he's a cool guy but I'd only met him once before so I don't think it's fair to call him friend; what do you call people in this situation?) Kevin, and new acquaintance Andy. Kevin and Andy were fast, Nick was a little bit fast but I could keep up with him. This worked out well. And we all camped in Chehalis, about halfway there.

It rained overnight. That makes camping significantly less fun. Luckily Nick had woken up and put the rain cover on the tent, just in case. Also, my backpack is apparently waterproof. Hallelujah.

When you ride a long way, you eat EVERYTHING. That's kind of fun. Props: Dave's Killer Bread. It's quite good. Slops: Clif bars. Those things are just as fake as anything. It's like eating a plastic brick, but it tastes like a cookie, but not as good.

Now that I've ridden 200 miles, I could ride hrair miles. That's neat. Gives another boost to the idea of just going off and traveling someday. How cool would that be, just go off with a bike and bike from town to town (or town to field, camp, go to next town)?
Subtopic: screw Daniel Burnham. He's the one who's credited with saying "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized." As I was riding home today, I was going to make another big plan (ride across a continent for charity sort of thing). But when I make big plans, they tend to never come close to being realized. That's demoralizing. If I can't even make a big plan, I kind of have to start somewhere, right?

Sandals are great! I didn't get wet socks. I'm still not super-sold on the clip-in pedals. Seems like more trouble than it's worth. But I should have brought bike gloves...
oh, and another layer...

It was full of bicycle folks. I feel as out-of-place with them as anyone. It's so white rich male. I think I saw one black person the whole time. I feel like, after you get a certain level of intense, like the level where you must have clip-in pedals and drop handlebars, draft off other riders, and take ibuprofen to survive, it's not real anymore. It gets to the point where only white rich males can do it. (and not even most of them. see: ibuprofen.) It's like bodybuilding... lifting weights so you have muscles to carry things or whatever is cool; lifting weights for its own sake gets really weird. And damaging (see creatine for bodybuilders, or ibuprofen for bicyclists).

As a result, I never ever ever want to be in a bicycle race.