So after being on the road for over 7 weeks at this point, I am really looking forward to some much needed spa massages and relaxation.
The Big Blue was absolutely amazing. The water is a radiant mixture of blue and teal and prisinte waves that gingerly lap on the shores of the lake. It was truly inspirational sitting on the shoreline and just enjoying the lovely breeze and the beautiful scenery.
After my education in Provo, I started out for my marathon 600 mile run to Lake Tahoe. Upon leaving Provo, I checked my mileage and I was at 23 miles into my tank of gasoline. I have been finding that on average, I can get around 150 miles per tank of gasoline on the motorcycle. With a working capacity of about 4 gallons, that was giving me an average of around 38mpg. Now as I was traveling northwest and heading out of Salt Lake City, I noticed that I was up to 75 miles into my tank. Knowing that I had a pretty desolate stretch ahead of me, I thought about possibly stopping for gas, but as I was passing, what turned out to be the last gas station for 88 miles, I also noticed a sign that had 4 exits listed that were coming up, and each was within a 50 mile
Now given that I have been traveling for many a mile at this point, I was looking for some sort of sign that would tell me how long before the next gas station, or if there was no fuel for X amount of miles. However, seeing no sign of the sort and also having FOUR exits upcoming, I figured I could stop somewhere along the way.
As I am coming up to the first exit, it says NO SERVICES. I did not think much of that as the stretch I was on was pretty empty and desolate. However, by the time I get to the next exit, have put about 100 miles now onto my tank, and it says NO SERVICES, AGAIN, I am starting to get nervous.
Let me put this into perspective, I passed SIX exits, and each said NO SERVICES, only as I was getting to the exit…SIX!!!!
So somewhere about here:
Now you may notice that there is NOTHING near me, and yes, this is where the unhappy gurgle, and sputter of the engine began to occur. About half a mile later, Angel turned over her last cylinder and I was left stranded on this road.
So I began walking the two miles needed to get to the closest gas station, when a trucker pulled over and offered me a lift. Luckily he was heading in my general direction and offered me a lift. It made what would have been a two hour ordeal into somehting that was a bit more bearable and managable.
After leaving the Grand Canyon, I headed north to Provo. There was not much going on in Provo other than Brigham Young University, and even that was kinda scary…more on that later. I took it as an opportunity to catch up on my summer movie viewing.
First I saw Dark Knight, the new Batman flick…WOW!!! Heath Ledger as the Joker was absolutely amazing and, come to think of it, quite insane. I later saw Hellboy II because I figured, it would not be the same on a TV. Eh, it was a fun movie visual effect…nothing overly great.
Now Provo, was, how to put this delicately, educational? I bet that you were unaware that in Provo, I am a spinster! Why do I say this, well it appears that when the Mormons were told go forth and be fruitful, well they did not take this as metaphor!
If I had a dollar for each twenty something couple, and I mean young twenty something couple that had not one, not two, but at least THREE children in tow, I would be able to finance this entire trip! I think that the area could be accurately summed up as the license plate that I saw, again cannot make this up, on an Econline Passenger van “TEN OF US”. I think that the area may be against Roe v. Wade, but maybe I am making that up!
So only one word for Bryce:
WOW!!!
The best way I can describe it is to imagine a giant sand castle…I mean like several hundred feet up sandcastle, made of rocks that are pink and orange and red, with white caps and lush green vegetation around them.
It was surreal and unbelievable, at any moment I felt that the structures would just fall over or when it started to rain that the rain would wash them away. However, the rains came and went and the canyon still stood in all its majesty.
I think that my camera captured some of the colors, I just hope that this can do it justice.
The most popular hike in Zion is the one called Angels Landing…which for obvious reasons I will now refer to as Angel’s Landing, note the subtle placement of the apostrophe. This hike only carries you 1500 feet up to an over look that gives you a great site of the park and the surrounding area, while not the highest point in the park, it still has some amazing views. The total roundtrip is a mere 4 miles, and while it was only half the distance of the previous days hike, my ankles, calves, thighs, and pretty much everything else below my waist were already sore and raw from the marathon climb the day before.
Now this climb I had staked out the first day I was in the park and I realized that the time to do this would either have to be in the early morning or late afternoon, with the setting sun. Seeing how this hike is notorious, and again not making this up, for people falling to their DEATHS, I figured maybe this was not the hike that I wanted to do with no sunlight, so a morning climb it was.
I woke up pretty early on this day and went down to the visitor’s center to wait for the shuttle that tours you around the rest of the canyon. While I was waiting at the stop, I thought to myself that there was a lot of geology in this park that I really was not aware of. I figured that some other time, when I came back, I would need to get one of those ranger folk to explain what half of the formations in the park were. Well, not that at this point much surprises me, however, on my shuttle heading up to do the exact same hike of Angel’s Landing was a lovely young woman by the name of Kellyn, who is a geology major!!
Now Kellyn is herself on a solo tour of the US and part of this trip for her was to try new things, get over fears, and in general push her limits. Her reasons for hiking Angel’s Landing was to get over her fear of cliffs. When I heard this I asked her if she had actually seen just how intense the climb was and she said that as long as someone had done it before, she should be able to get over herself.
The first 1.5 miles of the hike were aggressive but not that bad, just a really inclined path all along the canyon wall. This then brings you to the watch tower which is a nice overview of what is to come. In the previous picture it is at the end of the ridge spine, where the orange color is blended with the white. Now the last half mile is almost completely vertical. You are pulling yourself up the last portion with these chains that have been posted along the “path”.
This puts it all into perspective:
Needless to say, Kellyn has no more fears of cliffs!
120 miles north of the the northern rim of the Grand Canyon lies Zion National park which is the second “step” in the Grand Staircase. Perhaps I should explain how this thing works; the staircase. At the northern most point roughly 8500 feet lies Bryce Canyon. The Floor of Bryce is the rim of Zion, 80 miles to the south. Therefore at its highest peaks Zion is roughly 6600 feet. Now the canyon floor of Zion is the rim of the Grand Canyon, roughly 4000-5000 feet depending on where you are in the GC.
With the geology lesson out of the way, let me just say that entering Zion from the eastern side was THE GREATEST MOTO RIDE EVER!!!! I recorded just about the whole way in, so enjoy the vid and the musical selection.
(The vid was sped up so that you do not fall asleep. Also the musical choice was this or Vivaldi..I went with this)
I spent a total of three days in Zion and had a chance to explore a multitude of the trails and peaks in the park. On the second day I did Weeping Rock, a large cavernous sandstone/shale structure out of which…well water pours out.
The best thing about Weeping Rock is that it is a very cool respite at the peak of a 110 degree day. Again, I should probably know what that is in degrees Celcious, but lets call it FRIGGIN’ HOT!!
Now, being the adventuring sort that I am, I decided to hike up the most difficult trail in Zion which takes you to the highest point known as Observation Point. Why, well not because it was there…more like the heat had me thinking I could do things that are better left for helicopters. Long story short, the trail was an 8 mile round trip. (For those of you keeping track that left calculators at home, that is 4 miles up to the top and then 4 miles back!) Now I was thinking…ok 8 mile hike that is not so bad…I mean sure it gonna be inclined but how bad could it really be?
Let me put this into perspective, from the canyon floor to the summit is roughly 2000 feet or a 200 story building. So take the Empire State building, throw another one on top of it, and then take away the elevators and stairs, and that was your first 4 miles! I kept thinking to myself…it cannot be ascending the whole time…there has to be a flat part sooner or later…well that came later…much later…3.5 miles into the hike…right about the time that my 1.5 liters of water…ran dry, as the noon day sun began to crest the canyon walls! WHOO HOO!!! 110 degree heat, I am exposed on the canyon rim, and there is only one way down…hike the 4 miles back!
Now I have, as I am sure you can imagine, a very unique hiking style, I like to think of it as the MACK truck approach. You ever see one of those guys going up a hill, they are not the fastest moving object on the road…in fact most cars, SUV’s, motorcycles, mopeds, and bicycles, can pass them…but on the way down…LOOK OUT!!! It took me 3.5 hours to make it to the canyon rim, again for those keeping score at home, that is a little over one mile per hour…think The Little Engine that Could fast! Coming down, 1 hour!! I like to think of the descent not so much as hiking down or walking down, but rather…falling with style!
Now the hike had one element that I absolutely fell in love with…Slot Canyons!! Or really narrow canyons that during a rain storm, not that I was concerned, usually create fast moving river streams. And oh the fun I had in those canyons!!
Now before I go viral and become the next Star Wars kid, in my defense…the heat got to me…at least this is the story that I am sticking to! But how ’bout those canyon walls, eh?
(My dance floor!)
From the southern rim it is about 154 miles to wrap around the eastern portion of the canyon and get to the northern rim. Even though the stretch from rim to rim is a mere 10 miles, the wrap around to the east is actually the most direct method.
Coming into the northern rim was one of the most scenic and unique drives that I have done to date, and that includes all of the Colorado mountain scenery. On the southern side of the canyon, the altitude is somewhere around the 4000 foot mark, but the northern rim starts around 5000 which means that the “desert” that I had been in on the south side gave way to an alpine forest that as you came in would open up into these vast and wide meadows that would stretch for miles and miles. You can only imagine my excitement…MEADOWS!!! I resisted my urge to go and frolic amongst them, and eventually got to my destination.
I arrived just in time to watch the sunset and I found that on this side of the canyon, the colors “popped” a whole heck of a lot more than on the southern side. While there were not the multitude of trails that existed on the other side, I found the view to be more spectacular.
From here I am off to Zion, which I have heard nothing but amazing things about, so I am looking forward to exploring the second step of the Grand Staircase!
After having checked out Monument I figured, since I was in the area…why not go check out that big ol’ hole in the ground called the Grand Canyon, I mean I was just a few hundred miles away, when else was I going to be out this way!
The views were spectacular and the vantage points were awe inspiring.
I hiked down one of the trails that lead from the rim of the canyon into the valley before and decided to have some fun while on the way down…I just love how the shot came out!
One of the things that I came to realize while i was at the grand Canyon, was that I had been taking for granted sunsets. Now normally whenever we traveled, there was always a concerted effort to stop wherever we were and just be in the moment and admire the sunset. I finally stopped and did so while here.
This is one of the many clouds that decided to rain down upon me in, you know…the DESERT!!
The next morning I got up with the sun to spread some of Beth in the Grand Canyon. It was a beautiful morning and again I had a chance to be with her and with the beauty of the morning.
From Durango, I traveled West to Cortez and then began my drop into the American Southwest. Along the way I had an opportunity to visit Black Canyon and Mesa Verda, a southwestern mesa structure that is surprisingly…Green! Both places were pretty cool and Black Canyon in particular had a great road that had several S curves, U turns, and a few switchbacks.
Now at some point, probably once I am back home, I will write a post that has all that I have learned compiled into one place, so that future travelers will not necessarily make some of the same mistakes I did. For now, however, I believe it is important enough to list two of them here, as I learned both of these as I entered the “desert” regions of North America.
1. It rains in the desert…A LOT!!! Now I know that this is counter intuitive, you should have seen my surprise, but in fact the entire time traveling through New Mexico, which thankfully was a very short stint, and Arizona…RAIN!! This is due to the monsoons that come up every August. Now I know what you are about to say, “But Jorge, we are not in August yet!”, and that would be correct, however, guess what?!? THEY CAME EARLY THIS YEAR!! Two weeks early to be exact.
2. The Navajo people are not great believers in fossil fuels. I can say this because it was the first time during my trip that I have literally counted the miles between fueling stations and wondered if Angel was going to make it. In fact there was one stretch where into her 4.5 gallon tank I put 4.4 gallons back in…lots of fingers crossed on that stretch.
The good news is that once you make it into the heart of the Navajo nation you reach a little place called Monument.
So this is Monument Valley, within the Navajo Nation. Now I know that the Navajo nation is in the United States and they are technically part of the States and Nation…but I think they are trying to secede. That’s right you heard it here first. I believe that they are secretly in negotiations with the EU to at least go onto their currency. The reason why I believe that they are secretly trying to join the European Union, is that while I was there only a mere 2 days…I heard not another American voice in the territory. It seems that the only people that can find this location are either from France, Austria, Italy, or Germany. (I think it is because they have the higher fuel economy cars while the American drivers in their SUV’s were stuck in the middle of the desert.) The night I spent there, it rained on my tent, and I was kept awake until 1am with the partying French group that was just across the way. At least my immediate neighbors to the right were pretty cool. They were an Austrian family that came to the Southwest to experience the American cowboy. They thought my idea of going cross country was the best thing since sliced bread, “Ah you are traveling on American Iron horse, modern day cowboy! You take picture with my family?” Needless to say I am sure those photos are already floating about youtube. That is ok though, because in Austria I am huge. Like Hasselhoff of Germany…now there is Jorge of Austria!
Now as I have stated before I am not a marketing guru nor am I any type of marketing genius, however, when you “own” a natural wonder, that half of the European Union is traveling half way around the globe to see, you may want to have a hotel closer than 24 miles away…ESPECIALLY IF YOU OWN ALL THE LAND! Heck one may even want to put up more than one hotel for that matter…perhaps on just outside the park with “monument views”, or in the park on the “monument trail”. I mean there was obviously a demand for the park as all the hotels in the area, granted there were only 3, were completely sold out…and had been for weeks!! I almost wanted to send a couple of my Navajo friends to Disney World to go, “follow their lead!” For that matter, you may also want to invent in a market that is bigger than a general store. Perhaps even a third gas station!
Other than the poor location of services, however, the park was indeed amazing as can be seen by some of these shots.
Shot entering the park:
The three sisters:
Somewhere in Tennessee, I had camped over night at a beautiful lake that had reminded me very much of a vision that I had a couple of weeks after Beth’s passing. At the time it was close to what I had envisioned, but it was not complete. (If you never read that post, I would go back and check it out as the rest of this will not make any sense! I placed a link below)
https://whereisjorge.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/
As I was heading out of Colorado and traveling south to Durango, I was going over a spectacular mountain range that is known as the Million Dollar Highway. I am assuming this name comes from the spectacular views and vistas that were all over the three different mountain peaks that I had to climb to get to Durango. As I drove through the area, I noticed that there were several lakes in the areas that had their own entrances and side roads that lead to them. For some reason I passed over a bunch of them, until I came to a little dirt road that lead to a lake known as Little Molas.
The best way to describe the feeling was nothing more than, I needed to check this path out. The path wound and turned as it climbed further up the mountain, and for a while I was not sure if there was even going to be a lake at all. Then the following opened up as I rounded the last turn:
Now I knew that eventually on this journey I would find this. I was not sure when or how, but I knew that it would present itself once I was ready and the opportunity was there. If I would have taken a picture of the vision that I had, I do not think that it would look any different than this.
Beth had always been drawn to water and if there were a natural element that she embodied it would be water. She had a way of flowing and ebbing with anything that came her way. I know we had always discussed one day having a mountain home, and I think that given the circumstances, she could not have picked a better one.
I spent quite a bit of time by the lake. I think I ran through the entire human emotional spectrum while I was there. I think the hardest part was the letting go and allowing myself to be at peace with reality. So this is a compilation of various shots of the lake and feelings that I had while I was sending her home:
Friday morning~~ BOW SHOOT JAMBOREE TIME!!
Now for those of you wondering, Jorge, have you ever shot a bow…the answer is…Yes! I have to thank Fred for purchasing a bow and arrow set many years ago, when Ebay was first starting up, and one day while in the hellish pergatory that was Tuskeegee we took out the bow and shot at our target, a tree 25 yards away. I even hit the tree…after a couple of “practice shots” to get my range, that root system was permanently severed.
Now the folks that I was with were definately professionals. They made Robin Hood look like a a rank amateur prancing around in green tights. What you are about to witness is what would be considered “good technique”
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Things to notice with Erika, who was semi-pro shooter:
1. Note the lead arm how straight it is.
2. Notice that her bow string is pulled all the way by her cheek.
3. Her stace is solid and secure. Once the arrow is released nothing moves for a moment or two while she slowly breathes through the shot.
Kristen has a very similar stance:
In both of these instances the targets never stood a chance and the targets were on average about 20-30 yards away.
So now that you have an idea of what this is supposed to look like, let me now show you what “natural technique” looks like.
Step 1: Delicately place the arrow on the bow spring…this should be done delicately as neither the bow nor arrows were mine and the last thing I wanted to do was exert too much tension on any of the apparatus and have it break.
Step 2: Don’t bother with the bow string puller do hickey…just use your bare hand, a la Robin Hood back in the good ol’ days. After all Kevin Costner did not use one, and he looked great in the movie! I find that sans bow string puller, I look a lot more “authentic”. At least in my head it sounds good!
The good thing about still frame pictures is that you cannot see my arms shaking uncontrollably as I was trying to aim at the target. It took me a good couple of minutes just to find the sights where I could aim through and shoot at the target. I also did not get the pulling arm as far back as I could have to get maximum range on the arrow. I blame lack of proper equipment, or Erika not wanting to share all of her stuff. I think she was secretly afraid that my excellent marksman skills would show her up and then no one would ever shut me up! (She had nothing to fear!)
If you notice there is no shot of the actual target. The reason for this is that if we were all going hunting together, I would be the guy you would bring along to send warning shots at the targets so that they would run the other way into the hunters that could actually shoot!
For my second target, Erika was kind enough to loan me her string pulley firing device, which I am sure has some official name which I could not hope ot know what the heck it is, and this really made a huge difference as now I could actually pull the string all the way back, with the arrow still attached, and get a shot off!
This is my billy bad ass shot…from this picture it does look like I am actually aware of what I am doing and not just posing with a bow…that would have just been easy.
Now with all of the equipment in place and some reallly good coaching, like: open your eyes, stop shaking, look at the target, don’t aim that thing at us, etc…Well the results I was looking for finally showed up!
THAT’S RIGHT!!! THAT”S MY PIG!! Now this target was about 25 yards away…and I HIT IT!!!
My arrow would be the one sticking out of its posterior…more commonly called a “butt shot” as I was later told. I like to think of it as a rear tendon splicing shot that should I have encountered this plastic boar in the wild I would have been able to sever the ability of this boar to run away and then give me an opportunity to reload my bow and get my second arrow off…or if you prefer, the people shooting with me would now have a stationary target to shoot at. After all, plastic boars are very fast creatures in the wild and sometimes need to be slowed in order to get a clear shot off!
If you look carefully there would also be an arrow sticking out of the dirt, that would have been my second shot with the bow, that really scared the target…in fact I believe that the second arrow shocked the boar so much that it was stunned into a petrified state. This then allowed my third arrow to connect. The moral of the story is that if I have an opportunity to shoot 3 times at a completely stationary target, I am going to connect at least once!! I like to think of it as having a 0.333 average…not too shabby!
So if you recall, I met the following ladies, 
at Bishop’s crazy castle, and they invited me to a “Bow Shoot” later in the week. It turns out that both Kristen, she’s on the left, and Ericka, the one in the middle are experienced bowmen…er… bowwomen? Now the first question that you may have, as I did, where the hell did these two come from that they are going to a bow shoot in a couple of days. Well. the answer to that very good question is from a 4 day Bluegrass festival in the the neighboring county to Bishop’s Castle.
Oh the Places you will go!
So long story short, it just so happens that the area that I was going to hit next in Colorado, the Aspen, Veil, Leadville area, was exactly where Colorado’s Bowhunters hold their annual JAMBOREE!! Well, when I started this journey, I said I would be open to all new experiences, and let me tell you, this was definitely a NEW experience! The actual “festivities” or jamboreeness, if you will, started up on Friday, but they were going up on Wednesday with some of their family members, after all the family that shoots together…stays together, to pick out spots where everyone could meet up.
I am going to break this post up into two episodes if you will, as the time leading up to the jamboree, was just as exciting and entertaining as the jamboree itself, and I feel that putting it all into one post may overwhelm the average reader, not that you are the average reader, its just that I have been in the national park system for over a week now and I am very sensitive to what “typical” now means…more on this later.
Back to camping, so the Jamboree was moved from the “typical” location, to a new “campsite”. I use the word campsite loosely here as the only amenities that the RUGGED MOUNTAIN landscape provided was a trove of Port-O-Lets scattered about throughout the grounds. For three days I forced my peristalses to cease. Once I got over the fact that the 21st century was over 43 miles away, I took the task at hand of finding a suitable campsite. Now if you recall, I did say that the site was moved. Well the old site had lots of flat areas, where if a person say wanted to camp they could pitch a tent, hitch an RV, or in general use the terrain to their advantage in setting up a place to “live”. The new location, was literally on the side of the mountain, so everything, was sideways. Oh and if the perma slant did not bother you in gettting your tent up, much less sleeping at an angle, the other reason why I believe the site was chosen, was that it was the only site that had a rock in every square inch of terrain. Not a little rock either that could just be slid out of the way, no..no…I am talking boulders that had been there when the Rockies were first upheaved millions of years ago and were in no rush in moving on this particular day.
Eventually, we did find an area that could accomodate several tents and where we could set up the ever important communal tarp area. I have learned that the “tarp” is a very vital ingredient in any camping experience. It is a way for people to come together and try out their skill at engineering and making unnatural things happen to plastic. The tarp also provides the major area of shelter where when it rains everyone can huddle and shiver together and in general curse mother nature and the outdoors in general.
Now just look at those faces of utter delight!!! How could anyone knock camping…it’s like practicing to be a nomadic peoples once again, all we needed was a wigwam, and until she releases her new album, Erika can post the lyrics of her hit song, “Making memories…under the tarp, if she ever completes anything other than the refrain.
Now the first night on this lovely mountainside shantyville, the temperature dropped to a balmy 43 degrees Farenheit. I should probably know what that temperature is in Celcius but lets just call it FRIGGIN COLD!!! It would have been a little more managable if the rain storm that started sometime around 7pm would have stopped at 7:15pm like all other weather patterns in the Rockies, but instead this one lasted a little past 10:15 pm and therefore not only thouroughly soaked our tents, the ground, and most importantly our ever precious firewood, which was that evenings source of general heat. That night I found out what it was like to wear every article of clothing that I had brought on the trip. Sometime around 4:30 am when I was awoken by the frostbite beginning to eat away at my nose, I realized that my head was still exposed and being that I was going to be traveling in the summer and how cold could it get, my sleeping bag only came up to about my neck…and that was curling up in the fetal position. It was at this time that my leather jacket was then thrown over my head and I slept with my head as far up into a sleeve as I could get it as it was only there that I could still feel my extremities.
The next night the temperature was predicted to drop to the mid 30’s…30’s!!!! A couple more degrees and when it rained…as it did AGAIN, there was actually a chance of snow, on JULY 18th!! So I did what any good nomadic forager/hunter-gatherer would do, I went hunting…for civilization! Forty-three miles later I found my prey, Sportsman Paradise! You should have seen the look on their faces when I was asking, now mind you that the temperature in the afternoons was around 85 degrees, this was even the case in the frozen tundra that we were now inhabiting, for sweatpants, hoodies, and longsleeve outer wear. They pointed to the clearance rack, and I went to town. Now armed with my cold weather, or what I will refer to from now on as my tundra gear, I headed back to camp to roast some smores and enjoy the finally dried out wood that made our campfire.
Oh the People you will meet!
Now I have shared my rather jaded experience, about the site and the conditions, but I would like to take a moment to appreciate Kristen, Erika, and their entire crew, at least before I start up on the other people that made up this “Motley Crew” of hunters.
I camped Wednesday and Thursday with Ericka, Kristen, their cousin Jewel, and their uncle Brian. By Friday morning, their Dad and brother joined up with us and the time that we all spent together was full of fun, laughs, and in general good cheer. Well mostly, then Eeyore, I mean Erika would have to share about something downing her…and it would take several moments for the levity to return.
I really came to appriciate the American Bowman, and the trails and tribualtions associated with bow hunting. In the end here is how I feel about hunting, anytime you are in nature and there is just as good a chance that you could be killed by your prey…well then GAME ON!! If you shoot a bear with an arrow, and it falls, congratulations…stuff Smokey and proudly display him in your home…hell I would make him into an armchair that I could sit on. The reason why I am ok with this treatment of the animal, before the Panda and PETA people come after me, is that if let’s say you miss, a major artery or the heart, you now have a really, REALLY, pissed off bear that is coming after you. Now how fast can you reload a bow, this is not a six shooter, or a semi-automatic with hollow point shells, and can you stay cool and calm while the beast charges you, I figure in this instance you are just as likely to end up mauled as the bear was in being killed, to that end, if you live, with the majority of your appendages, then you can do whatever you deem with the bear, you have earned it!
Now I met several people at the jamboree that, once again, gave me a different perspective on, well life in general. The first was Jerry. Now I love Jerry, he was great and could make you laugh in under 3 minutes. One of the best things about Jerry is that you did not need an alarm clock, you could hear him choking and hacking up a lung at 6:30 in the morning, every morning, that is at least till he put that first cigarette in his mouth, then he was good. In fact, now that I think about it, I spoke with him several times, and everytime he was smoking! I know that on a couple of occasions, while speaking to him, I kept wondering, how black are his lungs?
Then there was ninja boy…correction ninja “man”. Every conversation, and I mean EVERY conversation that I had with him at some point or another, came back to ninjas!
Him: “You know who some of the first bowmen were…Ninjas”
Me: “Wow it’s cold tonight, don’t you think?”
Him: “Well if you were ninja trained, you could warm your body even in freezing temperatures.”
Me: “I wonder what we are making for dinner?”
Him: “I have been training to be a ninja for 7 years and therefore I do not need but one meal a day!”
DUDE!!!! I mean do not get me wrong, there was a time that I thought ninjas were cool, and I wanted to be a ninja and do all their ninja tricks…AND THEN I TURNED 8!!! I thought that this was just a show, but to my surprise upon comparing notes, with Erika and Kristen, who have known of him for a little longer, I was getting the usual fare.
There is more that I will tell but my time here at the internet cafe is coming to a close, as Ed the cook/manager is now glowering at me…and I am afraid…but oh if only I had that BOW!!!!
Till next time…when Episode 2, the actual shoot begins!!
Jorge 'n Angel tour America 
