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Kristen ArnimNot a typical Bruce photo but I love this. So does Juniper.
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2 months ago

Bruce LellmanTo Kristen ArnimWith half a million images you would find lots of photos that would surprise you. Whimsy has always been a theme of mine. Or, as my good friend John Solem would say, "A high degree of cleverity."
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2 months ago

Ron SuchanekI love this
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2 months ago

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I am not a cyclist.  Now, immediately, just about everyone reading this will ask, 'Well, why on earth are you starting a journal on a cycling website if you are not a cyclist?'  

Andrea and I have had a lot of explorations in SE Asia previous to bringing our bikes along for the ride.  From those travels we learned a few things about SE Asia.   But our past five trips have been by bikes which have allowed us to see SE Asia in a more intimate way.  Our bikes take us to places where public transportation won't, where nobody speaks English, where finding food can be an issue and to remote places where we see our comfort zone lying in the ditch as we pass.  Once you leave your comfort zone behind, the adventure begins.  

On our adventures by bike we have often been surrounded by nature and the birdsong creates an indescribable feeling of peace.  When we are back home longing to be traveling again we watch other travelers' YouTube videos and when we hear the song of the Koel and what I call the Counting Bird, we look at each other and smile.  The sound is like home to us.  We want to be back there hearing those sounds and feeling the peacefulness again.  

That's why we are going on a sixth bike trip in SE Asia.  That's why we are calling this trip's journal, Song of the Koel.   The Koel is calling us back.  The Counting Bird (Coppersmith Barbet) hammers it home; we need to go back to Asia for the winter.

It's fall here in Portland, Oregon and the other day I was talking to my good friend and neighbor in his backyard.  I was observing how his enormous cedar tree was shedding.  I always marvel at how coniferous trees, in preparation for winter, shed needles galore every fall.  

Many years ago a different neighbor, my next door neighbor who often sat on his front porch smoking cigarettes, would always make a comment about my fir tree.  Every fall.  It would go exactly like this:  I'd be working in my yard and I knew eventually he would say it.  He would look up at my fir tree and then I knew it was coming.  He'd say, "Yeah, looks like it's diseased, Bruce."  He knew nothing about plants and I would let his theory fall to the ground like the fir needles themselves.  My fir tree is a healthy fifty feet taller since he died twenty years ago.

I was telling my cedar tree neighbor this story about my long deceased next door neighbor and his theory on fir tree diseases because I think it's amusing how, like clockwork, he would tell me my fir tree was dying every fall.  I'm not at all making fun of my next door neighbor.  He would have completely agreed that he knew nothing about trees or any plants but he knew a lot about investigating crimes, which I do not.  

Then I started to wonder how many times I had told my cedar tree neighbor this very story.  I think I may have told him this story every fall for years!  He probably waits for it.  He sees me looking up into his cedar tree and knows it's coming.  He's thinking, 'This is like clockwork.  Bruce is going to tell me that same story again'.  I see the brown clumps of needles in his cedar tree and, yes, like clockwork I launch into that story about our other neighbor thinking my tree was diseased.   It's like Groundhog Day all over again!  

Along with forgetting other things daily I am starting to think the unthinkable......I'm getting old.  I always thought I was about 35 and immune to aging!  What's going on?!  How can this be!?  Talk about comfort zones, this getting old thing is completely foreign to me and I don't like it.  Better get on our bikes while we still can.  Better do some more traveling while we can before this age conundrum continues, which I suspect it will.

In the past 11 years we have started bike trips from; Bagan, Hanoi, Mandalay, Bangkok, Saigon and now Chiang Mai.  If you have read our other journals you will know that I've always considered Chiang Mai my second home.  Cumulatively I've spent well over a year living in Chiang Mai.  Chiang Mai was my base camp when I was intensively traveling in the region which meant that I returned to Chiang Mai countless times from neighboring countries and towns by all means of travel but I have never flown into Chiang Mai from America.  I've never started an Asian trip in Chiang Mai so it will be a bit like going back home, getting reacquainted with that good feeling of home and then setting out to explore new territory.  Our four and a half month long trip affords us the freedom to have planned little.  It is long enough for us to get good and lost or stuck somewhere in some random situation but also time to figure out how to solve it.  I have a new bike that I'm very excited to try out.  It's basically identical to my previous red Bike Friday but this Bike Friday is yellow, or "Yay Yo" as our five year old grandkids say.  And, what is more exciting or cute than Yay Yo!

lovebruce

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Steve Miller/GrampiesOr as my German father who could not pronounce y's in English would say "nice jello bike"
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3 months ago

Jen RahnThere's a song brewing in my head ..

There goes Bruce
On his yellow bike
Yay yo!
Yay yo!

Riding fast or slow
As he might like
Yay yo!
Yay yo!
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2 months ago

Christopher WeeWelcome to the yellow or canary yellow or mango sticky rice yellow BF club Bruce. Canary yellow has a $50 surcharge by BF.
This is what I said to Charlie the owner of AIM Bikes in BKK.
He said its OK, no surcharge for me, as well as some discount off his baht priced AllPacka, already lower than the factory retail.
Good times in Bangkok.
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2 months ago

Bruce LellmanTo Christopher WeeYellow bikes just look happy or I should say, they make me happy. I'd pay a surcharge for happiness. My very first ten speed was also yellow. A Schwinn Continental.
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2 months ago

Bruce LellmanTo Jen RahnSounds good, Jen.
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2 months ago

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