Our Own Tough Man and Tough Woman Triathlon Cochiti Lake, NM

(Spotty photos because I used an old digital camera just in case it got wet)

If anyone told me a year ago that I would even be tangentially involved in a Tough Man Triathlon I would have laughed.

But my friend Linda volunteered to set up buoys  for the swim yesterday and I said I'd go out in the boat with her today to watch the swimmers and help if any got into trouble on the 1.2 mile swim.

So we arrived with a borrowed inflatable raft boat at 6:00 am only to be told that some of the buoys had drifted overnight and could we go out and reposition them as there was no one else in a boat to do it. They gave us four 25 pound sand bags and lots of rope.

So we did. Unfortunately the 5hp electric motor quit after fifteen minutes, so we were left with oar-power. We didn't need the sand bags because we were able to pull up the 5-gallon bucket that was anchoring one of the large buoys and we repositioned that one. Another boat did come along to realign a few other markers. I told Linda that we getting rid of the ballast and I took her handy knife and slit the bags...sand in the lake OK, nylon bags NOT.

So after the race we had to retrieve all of the buoys....and their anchors...some were 5-gallon buckets half filled with concrete, others were held in place by 2 cinderblocks tied together and all were buried in mud, which made getting them loose a bit of a challenge.

After retrieving one or two buoys and concrete anchors we had to row the boat to the dock, unload and row back out for the next ones. We did this at least six times hauling either two 5-gallon buckets or four cinderblocks in the boat between the two inflatable seats that were pretty useless for any activity other than sitting to fish or watch scenery.

After hoisting up several of the anchors...have you ever tried getting 2 cinderblocks or 5-gallon buckets up from a depth of 50 feet or more and over the side of an inflatable raft boat with bare hands pulling on a nylon rope?...well, after hoisting up several of the anchors I just couldn't pull hard enough...so we decided to cut a few free. So now there are a few 5-gallon buckets and some cinderblocks at the bottom of Cochiti Lake.

I felt like we'd done a Tough Man event that wasn't on the schedule of events! And neither of us are exactly young. But we had a blast doing it...wet and muddy. My favorite thing to be out on a boat...too bad it wasn't salt water, I'd have been in heaven.

Didn't even think about taking photos of our efforts; these were taken early in the morning when we thought we'd just paddle around and drink coffee.

Oh, and did I mention the hunky guys? There was one beefy stud with two pierced nipples who was definitely "family" and was waiting there on the dock to help unload a few tons of concrete...and he untangled one of the ropes...I made some comment about not minding being tied up...and he ....well, enough about that.

(Spotty photos because I used an old digital camera just in case it got wet)

2016 Carnival in Provincetown

Over so many years of going to Provincetown, I've never been to Carnival. For one, you have to book way in advance, and two, the price of rooms skyrockets from exorbitant to out of sight.

BUT...it looks like fun....

https://www.facebook.com/droningprovincetown/videos/1740942639506174/

Can't share the video, but can share another link HERE


Nevertheless, my new book takes place in Provincetown during Carnival week 2006. If only I could sit down and finish the thing....

An excerpt:

Traffic wasn’t too heavy on Saturday morning until they hit the Mass Pike, but even then it was moving steadily to Buzzard’s Bay. Once on Route 6 on the Cape it was practically bumper to bumper. Jack was driving because he was much calmer in traffic.

“It looks like all of New England is being funneled onto Cape Cod this weekend,” Andrew said. “Where on earth are all these people going and where will they park when they get there?”

“That is just a little a bit of hyperbole, don’t you think?” Jack observed. “Unless they’re all going to Provincetown. Then there definitely will be a problem with parking.”

Andrew continued, “I expected a four hour drive or so from Hartford, but we’ll be lucky to make it in six at this rate.”

“It’s ten-thirty. Barely four hours since we left Terri’s house and we’re already ten miles out of Orleans. We should be in P-town in half an hour provided we keep moving.” 

It was close to thirty-five minutes later after driving through the pine tree-lined road that they came to North Truro. Andrew pointed out the rows of quintessential one-room cottages on their left and Pilgrim Lake on the right. 

“Oh, my. Those quaint little cottages are still there. They are like a harbinger of the land of OZ. When Jack saw the sand dunes rising up from the great pond on the right he glanced over to Andrew. He was about to point out the dunes as if Andrew hadn’t already noticed them. He could see that Andrew had a tear running down his cheek.

“Drew, are you crying?” he asked.

“Oh my god, Jackie, we’re back. I can’t believe it. We’re here,” Andrew was trying desperately to hold back tears. “Our first summer together. Kind of where it began. I mean, you know, all in love and horny as hell.” Andrew giggled at what he’d just said, mixing sentimentality and horniness in the same sentence. Then he burst into laughter, the tears streaming down his cheeks like a waterfall.

His emotions were contagious and Jack got teary-eyed as well while laughing uncontrollably. “You are still a horny little devil, that hasn’t changed.” And they both laughed some more. Jack said, “After all these years. I think there’s still a magic here, like there was back in ’72.”

“Let’s hope so,” Andrew said. Then, after a short pause, he added, “I’m sure I’m feeling it already.”

Jack signaled and then pulled over onto the sandy shoulder. He turned to Andrew and gave him a kiss, a good, long, smack-on-the-lips kiss. He wiped the tears from Andrew’s cheek with the back side of his fingers, then kissed Andrew’s cheek. They took a moment to take in the view. 

“Oh, Jackie. Coming back here was definitely a good idea. It feels like a coming home.” Andrew held Jack’s hand tightly and kissed the fingers that had wiped his tears. “I think it is definitely the right place. I can’t believe we haven’t made it a point to come back here until now.”

“Let’s pull it togehter. We’ll be at the guest house any minute,” Jack said. “and it’s unbecoming to arrive for a vacation with tears in your eyes.”

Jack turned left onto Conrad, then right onto Bradford Street, following the directions he’d printed out to the little alley where Adrian’s Guest House sat nestled on a bit of real estate between Provincetown’s two major streets. There were four parking spaces. Jack pulled into the only unoccupied space, the one with a number 3 painted in white on the pavement. 

The guys checked in at Adrian’s front desk where a young man with an Eastern European accent ran their credit card, explained the house rules “breakfast is from 8 to 10 and do not forget your key if you are going to out past one AM because the main entrance will be locked” and politely directed them to room Number 3. After unpacking the car, and freshening up, Jack said, “I’m famished. Let’s go grab a bite for lunch.” 

In Celebration of Woodstock August 15-17, 1969 - An Excerpt From My Memoir

Soon after my return, [from my junior year in Italy] I got together with a couple of my college friends, Michael Buonanno and Wayne Chesney. Wayne, as I’ve mentioned before, was a bit effeminate despite his tales of womanizing, and Michael, a lanky bookworm-type with dark-rimmed glasses, was a self-proclaimed intellectual and free thinker.

Both were interested in attending (but Michael was the more eager) a concert we’d heard about that was scheduled for later that summer in nearby New York State. I was elected to get us all tickets for the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, which was to be held from August 15 to 17, 1969.

Since I was the only one of us with a car, I also provided limo services. I picked up Michael in Springfield and Wayne just outside of Albany and we drove down to Bethel, New York, to join a half million or so other young people who were gathering to listen to Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Lovin’ Spoonful, and dozens of other performers who had become icons of the counterculture that was sweeping the country.

We were hearing news reports on the radio about huge traffic backups on the New York Thruway and on rural roads leading to the music venue. Despite the reports about all roads being totally jammed, we decided we would try to get through. About twelve miles from the farm where the Woodstock Festival was taking place, we came to a dead stop. It was Friday afternoon.

Of course we were not the only ones. Cars lined the road and people, these so called hippies mostly, were sitting on lawn chairs or on the hoods of vehicles eating sandwiches, drinking Boone’s Farm, and smoking grass.
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Many of the concertgoers began abandoning their Volkswagens, Chevy vans, and beat-up pickup trucks along the side of the road and walking. Some were saying it was a ten-mile walk to the gate, others were saying more like twelve or fifteen.

Michael, not one to think about practical matters or miss out on something he had his mind set on, said, “I think we should walk. Everyone else is.”

Wayne, more cautious and a little out of shape, said, “I don’t know. I suppose if it were a mile or two. But they’re all saying maybe ten miles or more. I don’t think I can walk that far. Besides, that means walking all the way back to our car later.”

“Yeah,” I said, “if we can even find the car again.”

I was quickly coming to the conclusion that we were not the free spirits we pretended to be. “Well,” I said. “I’m not really willing to leave the car here. I’m really not as laid-back as all these freaks and potheads. What if a bunch of these guys on LSD decides my car is a spaceship or something and break in so they can return to the earth from whatever planet they’re on and save the universe?”

I had no clue what tripping might be like, but it was my car, and I had the last word. I convinced them it was prudent to return home.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I guess you’ve got a point there.”

We dropped off Wayne in his upscale Albany suburb late that evening. Michael and I headed home. It rained hard overnight.

On Saturday evening we heard that the traffic jams around the concert had cleared and the roads leading to the festival were open. Michael and I decided to head back to Woodstock early on Sunday morning. We didn’t call Wayne because it would take too long to drive all the way up to Albany again.
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When we passed the gate, or should I say walked over the chain link fence, it was early Sunday afternoon. Most of the concert was over, but groups that had been delayed due to the rain and technical problems were still playing or waiting their turn.

What I remember most is the smell. The aroma of deep, dark, fermenting-hay-and-manure-enriched mud. And alternating whiffs of wood smoke from smoldering campfires and the unmistakable and ubiquitous aroma of cannabis sativa, pot. The combination created a sensory backdrop for the music of The Band, Blood Sweat and Tears, Crosby, Stills ,Nash and Young, and the other groups that played on through the night as we sat on a piece of plastic that we had found left behind in the pile of trash, in the middle of what had recently been a cornfield.

Michael said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to try to find some grass; I want to get high for this music.” He knew I had never smoked pot and I declined his invitation to try it now, so he didn’t insist I join him. He wandered a few yards away and soon ended up talking to a group of guys and girls. He was laughing his odd, snorty laugh as he took a joint from some guy with long, unkempt hair and a barely discernible yellow bandana that, when he gestured, caught the glow of the campfire in front of him.

Michael took a deep drag and held his breath. “Thanks,” he must have said while trying not to breathe out too much of the potent smoke. Then I’m sure he followed with, “I’ll have another toke, if that’s OK.”

He was not shy about asking complete strangers for something he wanted. He sat down with his new friends until he was sufficiently high to enjoy the music and then wandered back to where I was sitting.

“After the joint, we did a bowl of hash. That’s some good shit,“ he said. “I’m really fucked up.”

We sat, Michael swaying his head to the sounds of Ten Years After. I was probably the only spectator at Woodstock who wasn’t stoned. We sat, me most uncomfortably, on our plastic real estate while others around us were so stoned or high or drunk that they didn’t care about mud or smells or being comfortable.

I was the one who had suggested coming here, but, even though I may have looked like one of the crowd, it was not easy for me to go with the flow. It was never easy for me to go with the flow. I’m not even sure I knew what the phrase meant.

Here I was at Woodstock, in the midst of America’s youth subculture, trying again to fit in. Three months before, I’d been wearing an Italian fitted camicia and hip-hugging black velvet pants at the fancy farewell dinner dance, sipping Sambuca at a trattoria and hailing taxis with feigned European sophistication.

Now, on a smoky August night, I sat with Michael as shirtless hippies made love to their women in the open air on sleeping bags or in sagging orange tents that moved tellingly with their sexual tempo. Rock bands I’d never heard of serenaded all of us into the night.

We’d been mostly awake for more than a day. The sun was rising. It was Monday morning. If I had nodded off at all it was a half-sleep, not dreaming, not fully awake, the music hypnotic except when the microphone squealed every time an announcement was made from the stage; the campfire and marijuana smoke and people walking by, talking, laughing, asking things like, “Hey, man, anybody got some acid?” or “Where are the Porta-Johns?” all wove their way into my sleep/wake dream.

The Porta-Johns, just beyond the field of tents, had evidently been overflowing for days, and entering one was pretty disgusting, even to pee. I was glad that circumstances had shortened the time we had to spend there, the free music not quite making up for lack of creature comforts.

The misty light of sunrise revealed the debris of what had been, for a few days, a small city of half a million people. Empty wine bottles, soda and beer cans, paper bags, blankets, clothing, trampled nylon tents, and smoldering campfires dotted the pasture.

We were too tired to be very hungry. We had eaten the chips and sandwiches we brought along and made a breakfast of some grapes, a package of peanut butter crackers, and a couple of warm Cokes. We wandered around the field taking in the sights—lots of shirtless, barefoot young men caught my eye—as we headed toward the gate.

“You ready to leave?” I asked Michael. “Or do you want to hear more?”

Much of the crowd had already deserted the venue during the night as even hippies had responsibilities that came with Monday morning. Neither Michael nor I had anywhere to be.

“Yeah, I’m ready to go. I hope we can find the car,” Michael said. “I think we came in from over there.” He pointed to the left.

We walked along the side of the road past a wooded area and a pond where people were swimming and washing up. There were a few naked guys and girls splashing around and I envied their freedom. I couldn’t see much from the road, so I also envied their up-close view of the activity.
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Buy The Book HERE

What We Do For Love

What we do for love. 

Leon had me sign on as an official BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Volunteer so that I could help him re-position and antenna that had fallen - a task that needed two people and four hands.

We had to hike up to the peak of a small mountain near Tent Rocks, where there is no trail. It was a mile up to the peak (and of course, a mile back) and a hefty climb at that.

We accomplished our task, reinforced the mount for the antenna and tightened up the guy-wires, so it's looking good. Communications restored.

I say, what we do for love...because I was a little nervous this morning with weather reports calling for downpours and flash-flooding -- something that would tell you to avoid arroyos and mountainsides.

And the fact that I'm almost 68 1/2.

But I kept up and did the hike.

The views were great - and not a viewpoint that most people would get to see as it is in an area that's off-limits to all but authorized personnel ... and official volunteers in the line of duty.

Now I am wondering if BLM will be calling me to ask when I'm available to volunteer again....

My off-trail guide, Leon

Antenna down

Antenna Up

Across to Slot Canyon - Tent Rocks

A Pinon
but in the Shade of Other Than a Juniper

The Descent - La Bajada?

Lots of Loose Rocks and Dirt to Slip and Slide On

A little bonus feature: our new china cabinet? credenza? and chairs we got at an estate sale for a very very good price. And our front doors finally got oak stain to look just like fake wood.