The Song Remains the Same

Danielle says the best thing you can do after your vacation is to take a vacation.  That way, you won't get sad when your first vacation is coming to an end, because you know you have another vacation as soon as you get home - you don't even have to unpack your bags!

So as soon as we got home from Europe, I jetted off to Kodiak Island for a day of work, and as soon as I got back to Anchorage we jumped back on the jumbo jet and jetted down here to Hawaii, where we are hunkered down now, waiting for tonight's hurricane to hit the islands.  (After tonight's hurricane, there's going to be a second hurricane a day later. I'm not kidding.  I don't bother with just one hurricane.  Surviving a hurricane ain't no thing.  I take my hurricanes in pairs.  Here's video - wish us luck tonight: Looks like we're going to make history!)

So, since I've got a few hours until tonight's hurricane hits, I'll tell you a little story about an experience I had in the Black Forest of southwest Germany last week:   As we were driving our rental car through the area on our last day in Europe, I started getting the strange feeling that something wasn't quite right.  It was a familiar feeling - sort of a deja-vu - but I couldn't quite place what it was.  We were driving toward Furtwangen that day.  Dieter Ebner had graciously offered to let us keep our bike box at his house while we drove and biked around the Alps.  As we got closer and closer to Furtwangen, this strange yet familiar feeling got stronger and stronger.  What could it possibly be?!  As we pulled into downtown Furtwangen just a couple hundred meters from Dieter's house, the feeling got so strong I could actually smell it!  And suddenly I realized I knew that familiar stench - the smell of broken carbonfiber!  And all at once the pieces of this mystery fit together and it all made sense.  Hadn't Lukas been here just days earlier with Mackenzie, before flying back to Alaska?  Hadn't he been training for next winter's racing season as a professional ski racer while he was in Furtwangen?  Everybody knows Lukas and carbonfiber don't mix, and it only made sense, considering the circumstances, that Lukas would have come into contact with some ski poles or some rollerskis right here in Furtwangen, just days earlier!

Dieter showed me where the rollerskis are kept in the Ebner garage.  And there they were - a broken pair of One-Way rollerskis - the break so fresh you could almost hear that familiar splintering crackle still echoing through the garage.  Dieter confirmed that Lukas had, as I suspected, tried to go out for a tour around the area on a new pair of carbonfiber rollerskis.  Apparently, Lukas isn't aware that some rollerskis are made of aluminum.  Or even wood.  Hey Erik Bjornsen - are you going to hook your old UAA teammate up with some Woodskis or what?  (Lukas - check the link - these rollerskis have not an ounce of carbonfiber in them!)