Cruisin’
I’m Sitting in the bar aboard the Norwegian Gem cruise ship. Drinking a Belgian beer in my favorite bar; staring at the seas of the Atlantic Ocean and pondering, as I often do. I sat down to write something to put on the website and found myself pondering the way we travel and the reasons we choose the means by which we do.
Over the Edge exists in places that people travel to ride and without those people; you people, we would have a very different business than we do. Of course we have our local communities and so does the ship; here they’re called “crew” and they have a community of a thousand folks who live and work here and earn a living bringing me beer and wine. The other ¾ of the population here are the travelers. People from all over the world and the USA and here for a variety of reasons and with a plethora of interests and social styles. But as I sit here I am feeling a little appreciative of the style of people that I get to work with and meet in Fruita or in my cycling related travels. Of course there’s a dramatic difference between a MTB trip and a cruise trip and of course we will at times overlap and mix the two; heck, here I sit after all. I suppose the key thing I am expressing is an appreciation for the people I share common interest and lifestyle with and I raise my glass to the way we live and play and the style we have in common. As I seek to put a few words around that thought I come up with this; we touch things and we do things and we like to drive. I raise my “Leffe” to those of us who aks a little more of our travels than a cruise. Cheers
Cruisin’ to me is like being teased; I’m not very good with teasing, I don’t mind in ways IM sure you can imagine when you know that the good things are coming but there’s a teasing quality to measuring out the delivery of such. Maybe like a slow kiss or an Italian meal. But in the cruise ship world you never get to reach the truth of anything, everything is viewed from afar, sampled but never realized, its there but cannot really be touched. If you haven’t done this let me explain to you how cruises work; you sail point to point in a floating mall. The mall or ship has restaurants and shops and casinos and clubs and bars and more bars. When you do reach a port you are aloud to go ashore and be in a real world for a scheduled time but even then you are most often in a cruise sip version of the real world which is also filled with shops and restaurants and bars and more sterile packaged experiences of “look but don’t touch”. But for the truly adventurous you have the option of adventure tours; really quite exciting, you might want to sit down for this. On an adventure tour you get to sign up to go after selecting the style of trip that appeals to you. Then you que up and rush off the ship to a waiting tour bus and you, with 73 of your closest friends, head off to your adventure destination. Once there you can sample a whole slew fo touristy traps and even pet a caged animal or pretend your dining with the locals and watch a show before you are herded back on the bus to return to your waiting ship and sailing off to another port and a thousand more tropical calories.
I know I seem just a bit too negative here and I do not mean to be. There are people who find joy in eating and a thrill in watching a film about someone else doing cool things and there needs to exist a world where driving your own watercraft is considered too dangerous and heck; if everyone were like mountain bikers than we would have to solo 8000 meter peaks to find the solace we seek. All I really wanted to express and say; as the table behind me takes pictures of their beers, is that I appreciate you people and I cant wait to be back amongst you. I look forward to touching the earth and driving my own bike across a rocky desert land and doing so without a waiver or a guide. I look forward to drinking a beer beside a campfire and sharing stories of things we actually have experienced and not swapping tales of something we saw on TV. Cheers to you and I’ll look forward to our next meeting. I thinks its time for my scheduled family dinner and then the 2 hour window of open climbing wall (if its not too windy) and then another night of drinking and blackjack all leading to the highlight of the week… getting off this boat, this time for good.
I’ll see you somewhere dirty… “Bartender…” (oh she’s busy taking a group photo with some folks from Chicago)