Telling my stories

I've been reading lately about so many people making money by writing about their travels. I feel like I should be in on that! I need to learn how to write better.. specifically more interestingly and develop the ability to captivate my audience. Some people are making money just by having tons of visitors come and read their blogs, others are making money by selling videos and articles to travel sites/companies. That's a sweet job!

Lately I haven't blogged much b/c I don't have too much to say, nothing new has happened. I will give you this one story though, it's short and maybe I'll start now on my "captivating" writing skills. Hope you enjoy.

Two days ago, Thursday, I broke the faucet handle off of the shower. Having never done much home improvement (plumbing at least) I thought, oh shit what's it going to cost to get this fixed? Well since I'm all into this dirtbagging lifestyle I thought I'd give it a few days, I didn't really need a shower for at least another 2-3 days. So the next day I go to the grocery store to get some foods and a faucet handle, but decide to hit up this dirt road on the way back. The same one I visited with the mountain bike, I thought it would be fun in the Xterra since it was so hilly. Well 2 hours later I'm stuck in the bottom between two big hills. The ground was so slick that going down them with the brakes pressed I was sliding sideways. It was the slickest I've ever seen, seriously.

It took me 45 minutes to remember the snow chains I had in the back that I've never used. They had to help even if it was just a little. Surprisingly they allowed me to power right up the hill without slipping the first time! As I'm driving back down out of this dirt road/trail I pass by the backside of this guy's house and he waves kind of confusingly. Once I get back on the pave road I had to drive slow b/c of the snow chains and I didn't want to pull over in someone's yard to remove them plus it was only .6 miles to my driveway. Well that same guy met me in the road and stopped me and said "why don't you take those damn chains off your tires before you ruin your car". I did. After he realized i wasn't drinking/smoking/stealing anything from "his property" he offered to take me up the hill in is Kawasaki Rhino. Now my dad bought a John Deere Gator 4x6 when they first came out so I'm interested to ride in this thing no matter where we're off to.

Speakig of "off to" this guy is nuts in this Rhino. Right out of the yard we're sideways finding out way onto the trail back up to where I was. The trail is about 5 feet wide with big ruts down the middle and left side and it's now dark-thirty. He was obviously familiar with the trail as we're doing 44mph with one headlight! You can't see around the corners and we're sideways half the time dodging trees the size of cars. "Holy shit we're going to hit a tree and/or flip" I kept thinking, but the Rhino held it's ground without any concern. I was really impressed. I don't know if the guy was drunk at all but he took me on some of the more adventurous obstacles he knew the Rhino would make it up, a 65 degree dirt hill for one.

I get home and I'm covered in mud from head to toe. Maybe now you're realizing as I am... the shower is not fixed. Luckily it only took about 13 minutes to fix the shower and it works better than ever now. I'm sure Janet and Phillip will be happy it's smoother now too. So that's my best day here yet which is isn't saying much considering I've been sticking around the house for 4 days.