Knoxville

Mon - track.   8 x 200m, untimed.  Good effort.  Also got out for an hour ride later in the day.

Tues - bike commute 46.  Ten miles to work, eleven miles back home.  The wife and I also went to an hour session of yoga at CityRock.  We were the only two in the class.

Wed - run commute 40.  Good five mile effort to work, easy four miles back home.  Guitar lesson in the evening.  The F chord is ruining life right now.

Wednesday AM was also a motorless morning in the Garden.  $100 and I took the dog over for a nice, long road march.

I'm approaching Knoxville on my Tennessee run.  464.7 miles, 73.2% done.

incline 19

Had a great trip down to the San Juans last week.  We tried San Luis Peak but the wind was horrible once we got up to around 13000 feet, so we turned around.  I'll go back there for a solo attempt over July 4 weekend.  Rest of the weekend was spent in Chaffee County and we had a blast.  Hit up two new breweries over the trip - Irwin Brewing in Crested Butte and Tres Litros in Salida, both were good.

On Saturday a friend and I headed over to the Incline.  It's still closed, and there was a protest hike that morning.  We were a bit early for that, but on our way down we saw quite a few folks hiking.  The closure has nothing to do with public health and has become a pissing contest between Manitou and COS, so I'll start up weekly hikes up the thing again.

For the week ending June 20:

run - 30 miles, 5 hours 45 minutes
ride - 54 miles, seven hours
hike - 25 miles, 9.5 hours

For my Tennessee run I'm 431.6 miles in, 68% completed, just past Philadelphia, TN.  For the Breck Epic virtual CO trail ride I've gone 266 miles, almost halfway. 

Shit continues to slowly but surely open up here in Colorado.  I have reservations for yoga and climbing at CityRock this week.  The Pikes Marathon is a go.  The Classic 10k is taking registrations. 

My dog got me a pretty sweet fathers day present:

bike commute 44

Thurs - run commute 38.  5.25 to work, 5.71 back home.

Fri - bike commute 44.  Ten miles to work, six back home.

Taking the van down to the San Juans this weekend.  Been a while since I've been down there.  Buena Vista on Fri night, two day hike of San Luis Peak, some down time in Lake City, then 1.5 days to get back to Colorado Springs.

bike commute 43

Twenty miles total, on the bike, to and from work.

I am 341 miles through Tennessee.  Not competing with Dr. Slow Ride but if this was a real life race I could probably yell at him and he would hear me.  53.8% finished.

I also got suckered into doing a virtual Colorado Trail bike ride that started when the Breck Epic cancelled.  Doing even less inspiring there than Tennessee, as I sit at 159 miles (29% done).

We were originally planning on heading out to Fruita this weekend, but the dog pointed out that she does not enjoy temps in the mid 90s.  So we're gonna go hike San Luis Peak instead.  A 14 mile round trip at altitude is a bit much for a senior pup, so we're gonna overnight it.

run commute 37

Monday might have been a little rough on the hangover front but I did get the dog out twice for a combined five miles and did a 12 mile ride in Red Rock Canyon.

Tuesday was run commute 37.  Four miles there, four miles back.

I have doubled down on my lockdown musical education and am now learning to play two instruments.

Not sure if the ukulele is similar to playing a guitar, as I don't know how to play a guitar.  Yet.

Holly is now an internet superstar.

incline 18

On Saturday I headed over to the incline.  It's still closed, but that seems to be due more to a pissing match between COS and Manitou more than any pandemic precautions.  They put a high school kid who should be working her summer job at the local pool at the base of the incline at 6AM to try to turn away hikers.  I was at the bottom tie at 5:15AM as to not have to deal with some 15 year old kid.  Great hike up, then dropped down Barr and ran the new-ish Ute Pass Trail that also starts at the base of the incline.  As I ran by that kid was sitting on a bench staring at her phone.  Got in nine miles total.  Hit Benny's later in the day with an old hasher buddy, becoming quite the regular there now that they're back open.

Our Air Force cadet returned on Saturday.  She headed back to the hill Monday morning.  She has to quarantine for 14 days and then she will help run basic training for the next wave of cadets. 

Kircher picked me up early Sunday and we went up Pikes via the Crags route.  Hot damn was it windy.  But we made it and it was my first big day in the mountains in a long time.  14 miles, just over five hours.  The first 14er for Ollie the dog.  Took a nice digger shortly after starting down the hill, my left hand and right knee are banged up pretty bad.  Should heal quickly though.

Another lackluster week in the books.

run - 35 miles, 6.5 miles
ride - 62 miles, six hours
hike - 38 miles, 13 hours

CityRock is showing signs of opening.  They're doing some weird reservation system now, but at least it's a start.

Winchester, TN

Wed - run commute 35.  Good five miler to work.  Home was a bit different, as I got word that Benny's was going to re-open.  So the run home included a long stop at Benny's followed by another long stop at Smiling Toad.

Thurs - morning was a 6.7 mile run over in Red Rock Canyon.  Evening was 7.6 mile fatbike ride in RRC, stopping by Fossil for a few mugs of Mammoth IPA.

Fri - run commute 36.  Little hard getting out of bed this morning but still got the dog out for a good hike before jogging 3.4 miles to the office.

Looks like CityRock will be opening back up soon.  I've been using my lunch hour since the gym closed to hike, getting good mileage towards getting across Tennessee.  I'll need to up the running mileage once CityRock is open again.  Currently 285 miles into the state, near Winchester.  44.9% done!

Crestone

Quick trip over the weekend and on Saturday morning we headed down to Crestone.  Love that place.  Just an overnighter but got in some good hikes with the dog.  Hit the Salida triple crown of Soulcraft/Moonlight/Elevation and they are all open for business.  Tried 14er Wiener on the way back home and that place is delicious!

Holmes track on Monday morning for 6 x 400, all in the 89-91 range.

Tuesday was bike commute 42.  Ten miles to and from work on the fatbike.

I'm currently 260 miles through Tennessee.  41% of the way there, near Crowley Hollow.  Projected finish of July 18, but I hope that date moves up as my wonky knee is starting to return to normal.

road trip

We finally decided to hit the road and we had a pretty good time.

Our first stop was Scottsbulff, NE.  Flyover Brewing, which I had been to way back when I ran the Monumental Marathon.  First time sitting down and eating inside a restaurant since Salida weekend in Mid March.  It was kind of weird but awesome as well.

After lunch we made the trip over to Carhenge to view the greatness there.

Then it was off to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  There were some tourist towns near Mt. Rushmore and they seemed pretty packed, and in general SD was open for business with very few rules.  We found two breweries in Hill City, where we would end up camping for the night.

Practiced a little every day.  I have now "played" guitar in four states.

My one fan was totally into the performance.  Need to teach her to hold up a lighter.

On Sunday we drove north to White Butte, North Dakota.  Definitely on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere.  Pleasant 3.7 mile hike from the small parking spot to the peak.

Then it was back to Spearfish, SD.  Three breweries there.  Spearfish, Sawyer, and Crow Peak.  I know I'm spoiled living on the Front Range but I didn't have a single local NE/SD/WY beer that was any better than mediocre on this trip.  The burger at Spearfish was pretty fantastic though.

Great spot along a creek just outside Spearfish.  Woke up Sunday morning and made the short drive over to Devils Tower.  Great place to check out and it really made me miss climbing.

Headed down to Laramie after that.  Kind of weird there - it was sort of open but also wasn't open.  Definitely kept the mediocre beer theme going though.

Parked for the night at Vedauwoo.  Another great climbing place.

On Tuesday it was time to head home.  Dropped by Fort Collins to see a buddy, then continued south.  105W was open for business.

As was Pikes Peak Brewing.

Happy to get the van out after sheltering in place for so long.  Will probably head out again this weekend.

Pikes is a go! (50%)

Working on the road trip post.  We had a great time and I got my 21st state highpoint in.

Run commute 33 on Wednesday.  Knee is feeling much better.  Bike commute 41 on Thursday.

Red Leg Brewing opened last night.  Lots of weird new rules but maybe, hopefully, this is the beginning of a long crawl back to normal?

Word on Pikes was released today.  The Ascent is cancelled.  The Marathon is applying for a waiver and they hope to have the race.  I guess I need to add some hills to the low weekly mileage I've been doing.

bike commute 40

Odd week for me without the running.  Lots of dog hikes, lots of riding to/from work via Red Rock Canyon, and I'm still hiking at lunch until CityRock opens back up.  Lots of yoga/stretching.  Knee seems to be improving a bit.  Will start running again on Wednesday. 

Currently 194.3 miles across Tennessee.  30% done.

Barr Trail Mountain Race cancelled today.  Was looking forward to doing the new Garden to Peak challenge (formerly the Triple Crown), but now two of the three races aren't happening.  I expect Pikes to cancel soon as well.

I do expect two of my races to happen - the Alpine 50 in Lake City in late August, and the Rut in Montana in early September.  And if (when) Chicago bows out I might be able to keep my Salida Marathon streak alive.

Van trip is on for the long weekend.  Seems like everything is open in Nebraska/South Dakota/North Dakota/Wyoming.  In some of those places I'm not sure anything actually closed at all.  We will be doing lunch at Flyover Brewing in Scottsbluff, Nebraska (my second time there - I drank a few beers there when I ran the Nebraska Monumental Marathon a few years ago) on Saturday and I'm guessing it will be pretty weird to go into a place and sit down to eat/drink. 

Rocky Mountain

Friday - run commute 32.  5.5 miles to work, 3.2 miles back home via Front Range BBQ.

Saturday - Rocky Mountain via Barr Trail.  Ten miles.  I haven't been running a while bunch of hills and it showed.  There was a Manitou city employee at the base of the incline telling folks not to use it.

On Saturday afternoon we drove the van for the first time since the COVID stuff kicked off.  I'm doing the Feast of St. Arnold's pub crawl, so we went out to Black Forest Brewing and then up to Pikes Peak Brewing, finding some good dog walking spots along the way.  Pikes had a full on tailgate party going on in the parking lot.

Sunday - my knee is still giving me some minor issues so I've decided to take the week off from running.  Did get out on the bike, up High Drive, down the Chutes, and all over Red Rock Canyon.

new guitar day!

Sunday - I'm knocking off the Feast of St. Arnold brewery pub crawl and I rode around to hit up a bunch of east side breweries on the list.  Lost Friend, Cogstone, and Metric over 34 miles.

Mon - 8 x 200m at the Holmes track.

Tues - good morning garage gym session followed by bike commute 37.

Wed - run commute 31.  Five miles to work, four miles back home. 

Thurs - an early morning dog hike followed by a rare zero day.  Might have drank a bit too much on Wed night, and then I justified being lazy all day Thursday by claiming I was trying to heal my bum knee.  Weaksause.  At least by driving to work I could hit Roman Villa and Red Leg on the way home.

Thursday was also a new guitar day!  Picked up a Martin Backpacker.  It's a very small travel guitar, as I wanted something relatively cheap and small that I could bring along in the van.  But even this low end Martin is several levels better quality than the suzuki that was in my basement.

Bolivar

Wed - run commute 30.  Sondermann Park route both ways, 5.5 miles each.  Another 7.3 miles of hiking throughout the day.

Thurs - bike commute 36.  Awesome new route to work through Red Rock Canyon and Bear Creek Park.  Earlier that day the dog and I had been out and she ate something, and I could only get about half of it out of her mouth.  No big deal as this kind of thing happens on a lot of our hikes.  But later that day, $100, who was working a rare 1PM to 9PM shift so she was home, called to say the dog was acting strange.  Similar to the last time she got a hold of some drugs a homeless guy dropped.  We decided to see if things would pass.  When I got home at 5PM and she wasn't there to greet me at the back door, I knew something was up.  I found her in the living room and it was terrible - she couldn't move and she was looking at me with fear in her eyes and I felt like she was also trying to apologize for not coming to the door to greet me.  Immediately called my vet and then took Holly to the dog ER.  I was really worried this might be it.  But the clinic worked their magic, gave the dog an injection of other drugs, and Holly has been recovering fairly well.  The vet did have a chat with me about the possibility of Holly eating one of the poisoned meatballs that some loser has been leaving around the Westside lately, but there's no way to tell if that is what happened.

Fri - the dog didn't sleep at all on Thurs night and I stayed up with her, and I ended up taking the day off to hang with her.  Did sneak out for my 7.4 mile Garden trail loop in the afternoon.  Holly made slow but steady progress in the right direction all day long.  The dog is single-handedly trying to bring the USA out of the current economic hardship - this is her second vet visit during quarantine and the total bill sits at $1000.

Sat - the dog continues to get better and we got out for a 1.5 mile hike before I headed over to Cheyenne Canon.  Ran a good loop there which included some new to me trails and summits of Muscoco and Cutler.  8.8 miles with 2500 feet of gain.  Knee was not happy with the downhills though.  Later on Saturday $100 made it out to the hash, complete with special social distance rules.

For the week:

run - 41 miles
ride - 54 miles
hike - 28 miles

I'm at 99.8 miles in the Virtual Race Across Tennessee.  Near the town of Boliver.

The guitar playing continues.  I'll move to level three on Fender play this week.  The chords are still sloppy but slightly improving. 

Writing this on Sunday morning and the dog seems to be approaching 100%.

run commute 30

Sunday - 14 mile run on my COVID loop.  Followed by a 14 mile ride on the COVID loop.

Monday - currently dealing with a bum left knee.  Think I pulled or tweaked it or something.  It gets better, close to 100% when I hike or run, but hurts when I'm not using it.  Decided to take two days off from running to see if that did anything.  Did do some yoga, and got in my daily Tennessee 5.1 miles over three dog hikes.

Tues - early morning hour of biking in Red Rock Canyon before work.  Bike commute 35.  14 mile ride back home.  Since CityRock is closed, I have been going for an hour hike during lunch at the office.  That, and two dog walks, helped me get to 5.1 miles.

Wed - run commute 30.  5.5 miles through Sondermann in 45 minutes.  So damn happy winter is gone.  5.5 miles back home the same way.  And another 7.3 miles over three hikes, including down to Front Range after work for a burger and to-go beer.  Started the Jordan documentary and it validates my personal opinion that civilization peaked in the mid to late 90s and we are on the downside now.

I'm at 77.1 miles in my virtual race across Tennessee.  Approaching Laconia.  12.2% done.  The official website is a bit of a mess since approximately 18 million have signed up for the race, but the doc has been doing some good work of documenting the course.

I had planned on tagging along on the annual brewfest bike pub crawl this weekend, which had obviously been amended due to the lack of a beer festival.  Even had a campsite reserved in Lyons.  But then the town of Lyons cancelled that, and I decided to bail on the ride.  I think shit needs to start re-opening, but I'm still going to stick to El Paso County for at least two more weekends.  We have a van trip through Nebraska/South & North Dakota/Wyoming planned for Memorial Day and we are planning on breaking our quarantine at that time. 

Williams

Good long run on Saturday.  I haven't been up Williams Canyon since before the Waldo fire a bunch of years ago.  Got back there on Saturday and was reminded of how spectacular that place is.  From my house over to Manitou, up Williams, down Rampart Range Road, and some Garden trails back to my house is a great 15 mile loop.  Took me just under three hours, including a long break to chat with Hessek and Sullivan over in the canyon.

Another week in the books.

run - 41 miles, seven hours
ride - 98 miles, 9.5 hours
hike - 28 miles, 10.25 hours

Christ, another month in the books as well.  The numbers for April:

run - 131.5 miles, 21.5 hours
ride - 346 miles, 34 hours
hike - 120 miles, 44 hours

Been lacking in motivation lately so I signed up for the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee.  The only time I'll attempt a Laz race.  1000k between now and September, which is an average of five miles a day.  Counts hikes, so my dog will be a big part of it.

Speaking of virtual races, I got this in the mail the other day:

Also on Saturday I did my first ever virtual hash.  It is about one millionth of a percent as cool as regular hashing.

run commute 29

Wed - run commute 28.  5.5 miles to the office through Sondermann Park.  Knee was feeling wonky so I took the bus home and jumped on the bike for 15 miles.

Thurs - bike commute 34.  Eleven miles to/from the office.  Watched the Andy Frasco World Saving Shitshow, his weekly show, and it was fantastic.  Will watch it every week from here on out.

Fri - run commute 29.  3.7 miles to work.  2.7 back to Front Range BBQ for a to-go beer.  Then walked over to Routes Outfitter, who had their grand opening today.  Seems like a cool place.

Pikes Peak Brewing

Friday - run commute 27.  3.7 miles to work, 3.2 miles back.  Met $100 and Hollydog at Front Range on the way back so we could enjoy a nice brew on the walk home.  The current menu at FRBBQ includes these items:

Our order:

On Saturday Marc and I met at Red Leg Brewing at 10:30 to ride up to Pikes Peak Brewing.  Red Leg wasn't open yet, so we were just sitting out front drinking a beer when the owner pulled up and invited us in for another brew.  First time during quarantine that I've drank inside a bar.

22+ miles from Red Leg up to Pikes Peak Brewing via the Santa Fe trail.

With a stop at 300 Days of Shine.  They sell hand sanitizer  now.  And delicious drinks in mason jars.

Good times at Pikes Peak where we ran into Kircher and Jeremiah and a few other like minded folks.  Been trying to get up there since this whole COVID thing blew in but we had some really wet weather (Santa Fe is a shitshow for a few days after snowfall) and then the damn vice president caused the trail to shut down.

Good day on Saturday as I got in nearly 50 miles on the bike.

Bit hungover on Sunday so I cruised the COVID loop on the bike, 14 miles, then went for a seven mile run in Red Rock Canyon.  Dropped by the Buff Lodge on the run for a brew.  Nacheaux works there now.

Monday - another COVID loop on the bike before work, then a 6.6 mile run in Red Rock Canyon over lunch. 

Tues - bike commute 33.  Eight miles to work through Sondermann.  Rode the world's greatest commute home, via Bear Creek Park and Red Rock Canyon, 13.5 miles.

bike commute 32

Monday - started my new proj of running every single street in Pleasant Valley.  I'm approximately 33% there.

Tues - bike commute 31.  Eleven miles to work, 14 miles back home. 

Wed - run commute 26.  4.3 miles to work, with the middle two miles at 6:30 pace.  5.4 miles back home through Sondermann.

Thurs - bike commute 32.  Eleven miles to and fro'.  On my way to work, near the library about half a mile from the office, I had a random homeless guy spit on me.  Ran up to me in the middle of the street and launched a full on loogie.  I've been around homeless people a lot since I moved to Colorado, and I've never had anything like this happen to me.  Super weird. 

Got some new signs for the front yard.

AF graduation

The annual iconic shot taken by my friend Christian Murdock.  This one looks a little different than usual.

beer to go!

Tues - more shitty weather so another easy day.  Four mile run on the Garden trails after work.

Wed - bike commute 29.  Eleven miles to work, 13 back home.  Dropped by Red Leg on the way home as my Hazy supplies were getting a bit low.  My normal route to/from work goes right by the location of the new Red Leg brewery, and work continues and is coming along nicely.

Thurs - morning garage WOD followed by run commute 25.  3.6 miles both ways, easy.

Fri - bike commute 30.  Four miles to work, eleven back home.  $100 and I ordered supper from Front Range BBQ and not only was it delicious, but I also got a sixer of the Ska Hazy and they have beer to go!  Pictured below is the hazy from Goat Patch Brewing.  So damn perfect for the walk from FRBBQ to the house.

Fridays have become a quality night at the house as we watch Ben Morrison (lead singer of the Brothers Comatose) from his living room, then $100 has her weekly chick chat zoom thing and I retreat to the basement to practice guitar and watch the weekly Brendan Bayliss (lead singer of Umphrey's) Wine Not set.  I am up to four chords now.  But it still takes me a while to switch from one to another, and my fat fingers continue to mess things up.  But last night I was going through a song, and I may have been pretty drunk to hear this, but I swear what I was playing almost sounded a little bit like the song.

zero

On Monday I did something I can't ever remember doing before - a complete zero day.  No biking, no running, no taking the dog out, no weights.  I was terribly hungover, it was below 20F all day, it was snowing hard, and the office was closed.  And this made for a perfect storm where I sat on the couch all day.  Practiced some guitar and watched The Mandalorian in it's entirety.  Took a nap.  Ate two bags of chips and a gallon of chocolate milk.  Oof.

The one productive thing I did paid off big though - they had toilet paper at the local King Soopers!

tortoise & hare 5k

Actually did two virtual things on Saturday.  The first was a virtual 5k dog walk to benefit the Ark Valley Humane Society in Salida.  Signed up for this a while ago thinking we'd make a van weekend out of it.  We went through the Garden over to the Buffalo Bike Lodge, where they had an adult lemonade stand, then made our way over to Trails End for some mason jars of various IPAs.

Before the drinking could commence I headed up to Holmes middle school for the virtual Tortoise & Hare 5k.  The goal was to break 20 and I accomplished that, running 19:19.  Mile splits were 6:14, 6:13, and 6:09.  Pretty happy with the result.  I had thought I was in shape to run sub 90 at Platte River, and I think this shows I at least had a shot at that.

The race had 418 finishers including runners from Arizona, California, Texas, Hawaii, Washington, Great Britain, (including this guy), Ireland, New Zeland, and Slovakia.

Ran the 5k shirtless.  70F and sunny.  Woke up today with several inches of snow on the ground.

muscoco overnight

I've had some good times on Muscoco over the years.  Looks like my first time was back in 2006 sporting a pair of Montrail Hardrocks.  Our first non-neighborhood dog hike was in the area.  My first overnight was with Kircher less than a year ago.

Decided to break all the rules on Friday as Marc and I got out of the house for another overnighter to Muscoco.  First stop, of course:

The expansion of Fossil is almost finished and it looks fantastic.  Maybe someday we'll be able to sit around the new bar.

9.5 miles up High Drive and back down the Canon to the trailhead.  Then another two plus miles of hiking to get to the summit.  So over two hours once we leave Fossil until we are cracking our first crowlers.

Didn't see another person until we were on our way down on Saturday morning.  Lots (and lots and lots) of cars on both High Drive and Gold Camp Road all night though.

incline 17

Pre-work Friday incline.  That monstrosity of a closure sign at the bottom step wasn't there today, so maybe this thing is officially open?  I mean, how am I supposed to know without a sign telling me what to do?  There were two interesting signs on Manitou Ave on the drive in though - ordering Manitoids not to flush anything except toilet paper down the shitters. 

I was at the beginning of the climb (maybe 1.25 miles from Memorial Park) just before 5AM, and I saw two other dudes coming down, so who knows when they started.  They must be waking up at 3:30AM to beat me over there.

bike commute 27

Monday - my new work from home day.  Still got up early to hike the dog and run 7.3 miles on the Garden trails.

Tues - bike commute 26.  On the ride home I broke quarantine and dropped by to say hello to my dog Moose.

Wed - run commute 24.  4.2 miles to work and 5.4 home through Sondermann Park. 

Thurs - bike commute 27.  Back through Sondermann Park.

Still doing the daily garage workouts and they are starting to pay off. 

I realize I have a lot of RWPD type problems associated with this COVID thing - bars and breweries closing, the climbing gym shut down, the no-refund policies of a few races I missed.  But tonight I was supposed to be seeing Pearl Jam in Denver and I'm mildly bummed.  But somehow I will survive.

Sucks about people getting sick and croaking for sure, but if one can turn away from CNN for a few minutes you will notice there has been a lot of good going on out there.  Decreased air pollution.  Lots more folks enjoying the outdoors.  Musicians doing live shows from their living rooms.  Folks taking up new hobbies.

Including a ton of people either starting, or upping their game, on the guitar.  So no shit a few days ago I dug up an old guitar that had been sitting in our basement.  And I played it.  Saturday, literally, was the first time I had ever played a guitar.  And I have played every day since.  And if I told you I was going to play the first few seconds of Come As You Are, and I played it, you might be able to actually recognize the song.  So we'll see where that all goes.

Tortoise & Hare virtual 5k

On Saturday there is another Pikes Peak Road Runners virtual race.  The annual Tortoise and Hare 5k.  It gives you a handicap based of sex, height, age, and weight, and is often won overall by an elderly female.  I've volunteered at the T&H for quite a while, but no such work to be done on Saturday.  If anyone wants to take part you can sign up here.  Already have one runner from Alaska and three from Ireland taking part.

week in review

Pretty good week.  Despite getting five inches of snow on Thursday the weather is definitely trending towards spring.

Run - 33 miles/6:18
Bike - 74 miles/oddly also 6:18
Hike - 25 miles/9:10

Also continuing on with the garage gym sessions.  Definitely moving the fitness needle in a good direction during this shitshow we're all going through right now.

Slowly adapting to the new normal and accepting the fact that I might not do any real races this year.  Agree 100% with Kieran's post but I'm hoping things somehow play out differently.  We have a big road trip planned around The Rut but if that gets cancelled we'll probably switch to a trip based around a gas station and the loneliest road.  And once things start opening up again we will be headed up to bag the state highpoint of North Dakota.  Struggling with not using the van right now as it's very easy to rationalize a road trip, but for the time being we've decided to sit tight.  Still might make a drive to Fremont County though, one of my favorite breweries released a Tiger King themed IPA.

There is legit reason to believe that my beloved University of Pittsburgh may have a cure for this thing.  My friends are now weighing whether they want this disease to crush humanity or have to listen to me bragging about this for the next few decades.  One of the best online comments I've ever read was when someone mentioned that "Pitt will defeat COVID this week and lose to gingivitis next week."