Seven Springs Part 2 and Part 3.

So a few return trips have been made to the Seven Springs bike park. The only weekend we really missed out on was Father's day (coincidentally, I remember my dad being pissed at me for a few weeks in 1999, due to skipping Father's day to race in the National Championship Series. This was the last time I raced, and the only time i failed to place).

Regardless, I headed up to Pioneer Park campground on Saturday evening, June 7. BJ was in Niagara Falls for the weekend, but agreed to join me at the campground, and then again for his first Freeride experience the next day.

We ended up setting up camp in the dark, right next to the lake, and after a few excursions up a Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre looking back road to pick up a couple loads of firewood, I relaxed by the fire. I didn't expect BJ to show up, as he was driving from Niagara Falls to Monessen, dropping his girlfriend off in Latrobe, and then making his way to our campground almost an hour south of there. He didn't know where the campground was, it was dark, he hadn't eaten in hours, and he sounded tired as hell.

BJ showed up at around midnight, and told me some good news, so we broke out the Jagermeister. An hour passed, and 3/4 of the bottle was gone. We stumbled to bed around 1:00 in the morning.

We woke up at 9:00 AM absolutely frying in the morning sun. It was supposed to be over 90 degrees that day, and it seemed like we were already at about 85 when the sun came up. BJ woke up and informed me that he vomited in my tent, which, to be honest, didn't bother me as much as the fact that the tent blew away in the wind, causing the vomit to evenly coat the inside of the tent. He has yet to clean it.

Breakfast consisted of beer, eggs, jager bombs, more red bull, turkey bacon, and cigarettes. We pulled out of the campground and headed past Seven Springs to Speedgoat's rental shop. Bill hooked us up with some amazing, brand new Santa Cruz Bullits, and met us in the parking lot to give us the goods.

The course was absolutely unbelievable on these bikes. 6"-7" of front and rear travel really made a world of difference. I was more confident over the dirt jumps, faster through the corners, WAY smoother through the lower section, and an all-around better rider.

In.

I finally did the last of the moving stuff yesterday, as I did the final walk-through at the old apartment. I always feel like I've gotten away with something when I get my security deposit back, as I'm going to. Cody kicked a hole in the wall in his old bedroom and I fixed it with a $7.99 drywall patch kit and some perfectly matched paint from sherwin williams. You'd never know it was there. And the carpets were shit when I moved in, but they're definitely worse now. But I'm completely out, aside from... I think my lawnmower is still there, but I can pick that up today after work.

The new house is filled with boxes of nothing. It's really going to be a months-long process to get everything organized and set up properly. I get the feeling my attic is going to be pretty packed, as I can't throw anything away. I suck.

Anytime Greensburg or Pittsburgh gets an inch or so of snowfall, I get about 4-5 times as much up here. As we speak, I'm looking at about 3 inches covering everything, roads included. Working at Seven Springs is going to require the use of my parents' car or jeep pretty often, as it's really a different climate up here.

Although I'm an hour, 50 miles away from Pittsburgh, I can see the USX Tower, the Mellon Building, and a good deal of the skyline from my road, and even more clearly from Route 31, 2 minutes from my house. That's the elevation I'm at, almost exactly 2000 feet.