Within reach

The anticipation is building. April is going to be a busy month and it's about to get going here real soon. My hooves are stomping, my tail is up, and my fur is bristling. I've sharpened my horns and my claws and after swimming upstream through fluffy snow all winter, I'm in great shape and ready to spawn. I may also be just about as confused about what I am as you are.

Alpacas? Llamas? While on mybike ride up Kelly Canyon on Sunday, I passed by this farm. The hounds in the background definitely did their job in alerting my presence to their owners.

Q: What's the difference between alpacas and llamas? A: Size and fiber quality. Llamas were primarily bred to be a beast of burden, and alpacas were bred primarily as fiber producers. An average alpaca standing 34"-36" at the withers, where llamas stand 42"-48" at the withers. An adult alpaca will generally produce 5-8#s of high quality exotic uniformly crimped fiber in a single fiber fleece each year. Find out more about these unique beasts here.

Here's the new Fitzgerald's Bicycles team kit I'll be sporting this year. Find out more about Fitzy and the shop here.

My favorite part of the jersey? The print around the collar: EAT FOOD CHOP WOOD RIDE BIKE

Say hello to my little slippery friend, a 1999 Saturn SL. It slips through the air like a hair and it goes through gas like my... well, let's just say it's very economical. The little banker in me says, "Oh, how very practical."

So what, exactly, brought this little gem into my life, you may ask? How about 40mpg? A +50mpg Prius it's not, but it's also about one-sixth the price and recovering $2900 by not driving an 18mpg Jeep could happen quite quickly at $3.50/gallon. And just what, exactly, does $2900 get you? Well, frankly, it's more impressive to list everything this plastic-wrapped beauty doesn't have: No more than 4 cylinders, no more than 100 horsepower, no automatic transmission, no power windows, no power door locks, no power seats, no power steering, no passenger side mirror, no adjustable headrests, not sure about power brakes, but let's just say there aren't any, no CD player, no metal body panels other than the hood, roof, and top of the trunk, no gross vehicle weight over 2500 lbs, and best of all, no complaining about high gas prices and no regret or remorse travelling almost 500 miles on 12 piddly gallons of petrol. Perfect.

Oh, and I also should mention that I've been learning to kayak.

What?! What about the fear of doom and demise at the hands of relentless, pounding, frothing, churning whitewater?! Well, that's just a mental thing I have to get over. And after two separate sessions in the Jackson Rec Center Pool during "Kayakee Night" (that's kayaks and music sing-a-longs mixed together), I'm ready to meet Mr. Snake River upon my trusty, but yet unfamiliar 24" wide water vessel: a rented sea kayak from Rendezvous River Sports.

All this, in preparation for my full-blown assault on this year's Pole Pedal Paddle. Grrrrrrrrr... Woof! Woof! Woof!