Follow Your Folly

There is a micro-brewery in Fort Collins, CO called the New Belgium Brewery.  They make excellent beer in a wind-powered, green, employee owned brewery, located just north of my parents house in Boulder, CO.  Over the last couple of years, they have had a really entertaining advertising campaign featuring the slogan "Follow Your Folly."  You can check out their website here:  www.followyourfolly.com

Don't worry, this post isn't an advertisement for 

New Belgium, nor did The Slow Lane sell out the blog to a massive corporate sponsorship deal to fund our journey (although a little extra coin would be nice).  No, this post is about the fact that for my 21st birthday (ahem), I decided to take New Belgium's advice.  I am following my folly.  Back in the day when I was still in grade school, and Ronald Reagan was president (see I really am 21), I was an avid skateboarder.  With a friendly group of miscreants, I would ride streets, curbs, and ramps all over the Greater Orono and Maple Plain area (we were big time).  They were fun times.  It was a good crew.  There were exhilarating runs down big "bomber"hills, which sometimes resulted in road rash, and there was the occasional broken bone when someone crashed down the roll in deck of a big half pipe.  But mostly, there were just long summer days spent riding your board all over the place.  Days when you arrived home tired, dirty, and happy.

In a fit of insanity (maybe inspired by New Belgium's products), I decided that I needed to relive those days a bit.  Who knew you could have a midlife crisis at 21?  Sure I have snowboarded for years, and even surfed the occasional break on a warm winter vacation, but I hadn't been on a skateboard in . . . well . . . at least 5 or 10 years (okay, maybe 15 or 20).  So what did I do? Well, I jumped on the trusty 'ole world wide web and ordered myself a 46 inch Arbor pin tail longboard, with Randall II trucks,  and Abec 11 wheels.  What does that mean exactly?  Even I don't fully know, but suffice it to say, the longboarding grandmother (true) who helped me pick it out says it is a great long cruising skateboard for an "older" skateboarder like me.  No more ramps, curbs, or pools for this camper, just some mellow sidewalk surfing is in order.

Operation Folly was initiated last week when I placed the order and then the waiting set in.  There truly is something to be said for not getting instant gratification.  I intentionally didn't choose to expedite the delivery, but rather accepted the offered ground shipping and bided my time.  I spent days thinking about my purchase and surprisingly, I felt no buyers remorse or sense of having come back to earth having been temporarily abducted by aliens.  No, I was genuinely excited.  I felt like a kid again and it felt good.

Yesterday was D-Day.  UPS so helpfully informed my that my package would arrive "sometime between 8 AM and 7 PM" and would have to be signed for.  They actually took the time to place an automated call to my cell phone to let me know that valuable information.  Phew, at least I didn't have to wait ALL day for it to arrive. (They make the cable guy look like an attorney billing every 6 minutes.)  So there I was, arms deep in skinning a chicken for an Indian feast when the UPS man arrived.  Then, I really felt like a kid again.  Cutting open the box, pulling out the goods, and trying on my new helmet for fit (I thought the helmet a prudent idea, given the circumstances).

After getting everything set up, it was off to the driveway for a test ride.  Surprisingly, it was a bit like riding a bike.  I actually didn't feel like a total beginner and was soon swerving around the cul-du-sac like a pro.  Well, at least as pro-like as a XX year old with 20 pounds to lose and two bulging disks in his back can look.  Nonetheless, it was a blast.  Even more so because I could put Maggie on the board with me and listen to her yell, cheer, and giggle as we carved some turns down the driveway.  At the end of our little session, we both were a little tired, a little dirty, and very happy.

So, here is to following your folly, which is what I will be doing on the next leg of the journey.  Carving down the sidewalks, bike paths, and RV parks of the Pacific Northwest.