Escaping the Cold Snap – looong distance driving
While it is possible to train for triathlons through a Canadian winter, it is much easier, safer, and less stressful to do this in a warm, snow (and cloud) free climate like Tucson Arizona. With the goal of maximizing our 2009 seasons results myself and C3 team mate Sean Bechtel met up in Caledon just over a week ago to pack for our snow-bird flight south.
Sean and I are fairly similar characters. While I had packed from midnight to 2:30 am before heading to Caledon, he packed a little one evening, went out for dinner with Krystal, and then we finalized our packing the following morning. The end result being that our ‘early’ start was noon-30
Of course there was snow in Toronto, and we got searched at the
boarder for a little while. The ex-marine’s main issue was how I supported myself. Gee, I don’t really have a good answer to that. Maybe I should look into working one of these years. Blizzard through MI, we kept driving. Somewhere in Indiana, I decided to get US money from an ATM. It kept my money, I called the ‘help’ number and no one answered. 
So we drove some more.
My credit card got turned off.
Sean Drove.
I drove.
We listened to a story on tape. 
The sun came up.
Sean Drove.
As the sun was getting ready to set we realized that we needed to sleep before Tucson, despite being 4h shy of ‘home’.
So we decided to take the whole day and make a road trip up to the Cliff Dwellings near Silver City NM.
This turned out to be both a great, and really bad idea all at once. We pointed the trusty 4runner uphill towards Silver City, and enjoyed the breath taking scenery (pic at right). Then noticed that the trusty car was leaking some fluid. The second garage we went to said that he would have an opening later in the day and that it was OK to drive. So we headed up the narrower twistier road to the cliff dwellings.
They were really really cool. Worth a visit, and concrete my plan for one day having a long back pack through the US
South West.
On the way back from the area we passed Christian Vande Velde, Tom Danielson and some other roadies out for a ride.
Then the car stopped shifting into 2nd gear. we pulled over on the side of the highway and drove sloooow. Next it stopped shifting into 1st. Somehow there is enough friction in the drive train that we limped back to the garage. 1.5 quarts of tranny fluid had us off and on our way to Tucson.
Fixed?
no.
Leaky bandage solution?
yes
