Sad news from Goma

Yesterday the rebel group M23 took control of the town of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is a place I have been to when I went to climb the Nyiragongo volcano. It looks like the town was taken without much of a fight. Which in a way is a good thing. The civilian population of the city was largely spared. That doesn't mean that people were killed or injured however.

Even worse it means more instability in that part of DRC. The government in Kinshasa is far away and in recent years has been increasingly ineffective. I am not sure that the rebel forces holding the town will be any better. Especially considering the leaders of the group are wanted for war crimes. The rebel group is associated with and possibly supported by the government of Rwanda. This attack is similar to what happened 15 years ago which led to the First and Second Congo wars.

I am sad for the people in eastern Congo, because it looks like they will have more years of bloodshed and starvation to endure.

New Blog

Hello to all my readers out there. I realize that I haven't posted much in a while. My life has been boring and stable recently. So I haven't had any new adventures to post here.

Most of what I have to say now is about my life cycling around Seattle, and not in far off places of the world. I have created a new blog at www.bikequestrian.org to post thoughts and ideas about the world of cycling. I have already added a few things in there. My plan is to move some of my non-touring related posts there as well. The writing will be about more mundane issues of what I am doing and bicycle polotics. I hope you enjoy the new blog.

Fear not, I have no plans to get rid of this blog. For now it will remain a place where you can go back and read up on some odd destination or weird adventure. When I get ready to go on my next big trip, I will be sure to post it here.

-Dravis

Tour Videos

I have new videos of my tour up online. Right now I have just a few from various parts of Africa. Remember, for the ones where I am biking, that is me holding the camera with one hand while riding along. One of these days I will put in an outtakes reel with all the times I ended up dropping the camera or nearly crashing...

For now enjoy: www.youtube.com/DravisBixel

-Dravis

Washington D.C. to Bridgton

Date: November 1st, 2010
Song of the Day: Drive - R.E.M

Left the capitol and drove straight on up to Maine. Nothing too exciting about the drive. I guess I have just gotten used to drive 12 hours or more at a stretch.

Got to the family home up in Bridgton, Maine. My aunt and uncle live up here. Their son Adam put me up in Indiana, and I stayed with their other son Allen way back in Morocco.

I plan on sticking up here for a few weeks. Hopefully I will get some writing done. I have far too many ideas kicking around in my head. I want them out and on paper. Of course I thought of two more ideas on the way out. So it doesn't bode well for actually having less ideas floating around my mind than when I started. Oh well.

The Lakes Region of Maine is a good place for writing though. I guess Steven King has a house about 12 miles away. It is quiet and calm. Frankly, not a lot of night life or distractions around here. So with any luck I will get a few things written.

-Dravis

West Lafayette to Washington D.C.

Date: October 28th-31st, 2010
Song of the Day: Woke up in a Car - Something Corporate

Left Indiana this morning. Went through Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and back to West Virginia. Spent the night in Maryland. Drove into D.C. in the morning.

When I got to the city, my friend Sarah wasn't off work yet. So I rode around through the city. I really love the capitol mall. The monuments. The Smithsonian. With all the people though, it makes it a bit hard to bike through. Getting out onto the Potomac and some of the other places was less crowded and a lot more fun for real biking.

The next day I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity. That was a lot of fun. For some idiotic reason though I decided to take the metro instead of walk. That was a dumb idea. I couldn't get on in the right direction, so I had to head all the way to the end of the line in Virginia and wait until the train turned around to come back. The crowds were just crazy. It took me a good 30 minutes of walking through to get to a place I could even hear anything. I only saw a little bit of the performance on one of the screens when the person in front of me would move a little bit. Still, it was a lot of fun. Really I went to be there and see people. The signs were great. I will post a few of my favorites below.

Spent Halloween quietly with my Sarah and some of her friends. Had "lunch" with them, which lasted all afternoon. Played some games and generally had a good time. Thanks Sarah for letting me stay at you place. See you at Christmas.

-Dravis

Denver to West Lafayette

Date: October 25th-28th, 2010
Song of the Day: MFC - Pearl Jam

Left Denver this morning. Drove straight through to Iowa, two miles from the Illinois border, before stopping to rest for the night. The next day it was crazy windy driving into Indiana.

In West Lafayette I met up with my cousin Adam and his wife Sarah. They are great. Plus they have two big dogs (boxers) Rusty and Daisy. Sweet dogs, but a little slobbery. Adam is working on his P.h.D. So that was a lot of fun to talk with him about what he was working on. Adam also took me around Purdue, and told me all the news that was going on there. Sarah worked until fairly late, but would be by for dinner. So we would have a good dinner together. It was great to catch up with them. Thanks guys.

-Dravis

Portland to Denver

Date: October 22nd-25th, 2010
Song of the Day: A Life of Arctic Sounds - Modest Mouse

The trip from Portland to Denver was a hell of a drive. I did about sixteen hours from Oregon into Wyoming before crashing at a rest stop there. Woke up the next morning and continued on. I got a bit of snow through Wyoming over Medicine Bow, but nothing too bad. The drivers actually seemed to be pretty good. Slowed down to keep it safe.

Colorodo was a different story. The drivers had a wicked habit of speeding up to 75 then slamming on the breaks! The first time that happened I was just a couple of feet from hitting the car in front of me. Not something nice to do to a guy who had just driven a thousand miles. I was just saved by the space that I normally keep between me and the car ahead. But idiots kept using that space to cut in front of me and then slam on their breaks. So annoying.

I did get into Denver without serious bodily harm. I met up with my friend Ryan who was with me on the last road trip. He is now living with his brother in Denver and showed me around downtown a bit. We had a pretty good time. There was also a Zombie Walk going on.

The next day I went for a bike ride. Denver has a great system of intra city trails. I did 30 miles through the city. It was quite a bit of fun. I like my new bike a lot. Though I did have one clip out fail. It feels pretty stupid to just fall over sideways. I will try to avoid that in the future.

That evening Ryan' brother Sean and his wife Thanvee came back. We had a good evening hanging out. Ryan cooked a great dinner. Thanks to all of them for letting me stay.

-Dravis