Don Thomas, libidinous progenitor of umpteen-ish misadventures during my RibbonOfRoad trip, has made his way into the early Fall 2010 Patagonia catalog via a photo I made of him mountain biking through a forest of Giant Rhubarb plants in austral Chile.
We had just left Pumalin National Park, and everything was clicking along in a clickless way as we passed this scene. But the peace was rudely interrupted by the snap crackle and pop of el Don's rear hub--fricasse a la Shimano XT. Don hitched a ride with a tour leader from Patagonia Clothing Company for 50 gravely miles to the next major town with a bike shop. The car had just dropped several of their employees off for a week of volunteer work at the future Patagonia National Park site. So it's oddly fitting that my first image in print for Patagonia Clothing Company is one that they were serendipitously involved in producing. There's my metaphysical panhandling for the day.
For more, check out the Patagonia store on Pearl street in Boulder. Rumor has it that Don Thomas has been spending quite a bit of time there lately--offering autographed catalogs to outdoorsy, ideally ultimate playing, MTBing, can camp in the rain without whining about it, enthusiastic about nude hot spring-ing, tequila swilling, brunette, good sense of humor, hiking boots in the mountains heels on the town all in the same day, smoke free, confident, not too into Yoga or at least doesn't talk about it all of the time, can hold their wine glass correctly, speaks more than one language, traveled outside of the US (Cancun or Cabo don't count. Whistler wins points but doesn't cut the mustard), has managed to work through most of the skeletons in their closet, saucy and petite but taller than 5'6", played a sport in high school, can squash a bug with their own hand, well educated at a liberal institution, handles bumfuzzlements in stride, curious about the world, not afraid to let their man get carried away with himself or sleep in an old musty sleeping bag in lieu of bedsheets from time to time, 26-32 y/o single (or with current relationship on the rocks) genus femininum.
whoa, thats quite a requirement list....
ReplyDeleteanyway, I recently finished a big adventure and have been looking for the next one. I just started hearing things about the pan-american highway... did some searches and found the ribbon of road site. Mind blowing beauty. How did you even start to plan something of this size?!?
Hi Kelsey - I stopped trying to plan the trip when I got into Mexico/Guatemala. At that point, the journey itself had manifested its own gravity/momentum and just started to pull me along in its wake. Serendipity, Havana clubs, and good street food became the primary players in my planning process.
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