Aristophanes and the Perks of Biking

Ancient Greek drama isn't exactly a biking kind of topic for a lot of reasons. Among other things, I have biked in a dress and can only imagine biking in a toga is more difficult than that.

That being said, last night I suffered from a bit of humanities-in-college nostalgia. So I went to see The Frogs, which currently is playing various nights in August outside the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

In order to understand the biking story there are two things you should understand:
    1) "The Frogs" is written by Aristophanes. For those of you who didn't have to take a general humanities survey in college, he is considered "The Father of Comedy" and wrote him some pretty funny plays. He was also Greek in the time of togas and agoras and shit.
   2) Riot Act, Inc., the group in charge of this whole theatrical event is Jackson Hole's "alternative theater company." So in a town with a lot of hippies, they're the biggest hippies in the theater scene, which is kind of like being the biggest douchebag at a Ferrari dealership, only you're a lot more fun to be around.

The reason these things are important is that I arrived at the show only to find they'd been selling Greek pita picnic dinners. To those who biked or walked to the show, they sold Greek pita picnic dinners at a discounted price. Granted, it was only a $2 discount, but still, if a penny saved is a penny earned, that's earning 200 pennies. Plus, it's always nice to get that little "I got rewarded for reducing my carbon footprint and getting more exercise" glow that comes when you get Bike Perks.

So you see, Greek play - Greek food, alternative theater - alternative transportation. 

I totally rode my bike to the play last night. The National Wildlife Art Museum is an easy biking destination because it's right along the bike path between town and Grand Teton National Park. There's even a handy underpass from the pathway to the museum driveway so you don't have to cross the highway (my what a lot of ways), which is good, because tourists drive like morons the whole way to and from the park.

Trouble was, I'd already eaten, so really I saved $13 by not buying a picnic dinner at all. But it's nice to know I could have gotten a discount. And the cupcakes they sold had frosting that looked kind of like hummus, which freaked me out, so I saved $3.50 by not buying one of those either.

Oh, and the play was pretty good too. 

A Much Belated Ridin'...Wednesday: Jackson to Moose

Clearly, I suck. On the plus side, I made all my deadlines in real life. On the minus side, it's Wednesday and I'm just now getting around to telling you all about how you totally should check out the "North Highway 89" pathway.

Because you should. Everyone should, whether they have a bike or not. They should accio bicycle that shit (and if you don't know what that means, go read the Harry Potter series and examine your life closely). Or, you know, rent one or something.

Anyway. My experience riding it with Tori Freak was three parts fabulous and one part pure pain and suffering.

 

You ride about four miles before you get to the park entrance, the last mile and a half of which is spent on a pretty continuous uphill. I was proud of myself when I realized I didn't need the break Tori asked for at the sign here, although I'm not going to say I wasn't glad to take it.

We got up pretty early, considering we'd closed down the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar the night before. Luckily, our bike ride was our only Sunday plan, so we still had plenty of time to get our respective rears in gear. Sunday is probably the better of the two weekend days to get out into Grand Teton National Park. Most of the day's flights out of Jackson Hole leave in the morning, so the weekend tourists have already left by the afternoon.

Now, Tori didn't bring her own bike, having flown to Jackson from Arizona. Luckily, Bike Pimp's One-Stop Don't Pay For It Shop (ie: her garage) yielded a spare mountain bike that she was willing to let Tori borrow. It was hot out, but pretty windy as we started down the path. Sunscreen and chapstick definitely were in order. A huge plus with this whole planning a ride weeks in advance thing is you remember to bring that kind of stuff.

In the early stages, the path swoops up and down as you pass through by the river bottoms where the park shares a boundary with the Gros Ventre Wilderness. It's gloriously pretty there - and head's up, these are the last trees you're going to see until you get to the Snake River, which is almost to Moose.

Once you're past the Gros Ventre Junction, your view is pretty consistently this:

The whole ride, the Tetons are just looming up on your left. People get in car wrecks on this highway because they were watching the Tetons and not the road. That's how distracting they are. Riding the pathway, along with being a nice long, almost totally flat ride, is also the best way to see just as much of the Tetons as you'd like. You even pass a turnout about two-thirds of the way to Moose that makes a good spot to rest, hydrate (remember this was an 80-degree day) and gawk. The view on the right is basically a field of sagebrush with a few hills in the far distance, so there's really no comparison.

You get your own underpass to cross the highway at Moose Junction. Handy, given the number of tourists that are turning left across the highway in their RVs at that point. At Moose Junction, you start biking along Inner Park Loop Road instead of Highway 89 - fun fact, Inner Park Loop Road is cyclists and pedestrians only during April. Trouble was, I didn't know which road was Inner Park Loop when I got my bike and it was practically May by then. Next year, y'all, next year.

The Moose Visitor's Center isn't far from the highway, and by the time we got there, we were pretty much out of time.  The path continues on to Jenny Lake, which is well worth the seeing. However, we wanted to have time for our much-anticipated Two Woman Stir Fry Party (ie; making stir fry and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns) that night, and we had a few hours left of biking to get back to town.

We stopped in at the Moose Visitor's Center so I could snag a year-round park pass for Yellowstone and the Tetons ($50 bucks, LRMB-ers) and we could rehydrate.

PS: This is the view from Moose

So thus far we have the fabulous. Now, on the way back to town, comes the pain and suffering. Turns out the wind kicked up while we explored Moose, and the moment we turned back onto the highway the wickedest cross wind in the West threatened to knock us over.

You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. The wind came across the sagebrush flats in gusts that literally pushed us both sideways. I don't know for sure about Tori, but every last muscle I had was tensed to keep me upright and moving forward, given how hard the wind was trying to convince me that I really wanted to head off to the left. Or maybe just collapse leftwards. I know Tori and I both spent the ride back in low gears so we could pedal enough to maintain forward momentum.

Suffice it to say we were approaching too tired to move by the time we got back and were more than glad to sit completely still while Buffy did all the work. The good news? Even in those circumstances, the Teton views were good enough we still decided the ride was totally worth it.