First Person

Bend Bulletin: Confessions of a Leg-shaving Cyclist

I had never cut myself so badly while shaving before. My razor snagged on a piece of skin and, none the wiser, I kept pulling until I noticed the ruby-red blood streaming past my toes toward the shower drain.

Glancing past my knee, I saw that I’d unzipped the outside of my ankle.

From my razor, I pulled a linguine-shaped ribbon of skin and winced as much in embarrassment as I did in pain.

Bend Bulletin: Honoring a Pet: The Path from Mourning to Adoption

“Uh, Miss?” The New York Police Department officer said after conferring with his colleagues. “What we think happened was: Your cat had a party.”

That’s the clincher of my favorite anecdote about Fuzz, my green-eyed gray tabby. 

Bend Bulletin: Bikepacking the West Side of The Cascades

July 8, 2017 — Friends recently invited me to ride along on their three-night/four-day bikepacking trip. We would climb almost 16,000 feet in a 155-mile loop on gravel and paved country roads on the west side of the Cascades, a two-hour drive from Bend. It would involve summiting snow-capped Bohemia Mountain and sourcing drinking water from creeks and rivers, where we’d also bathe and wash our clothes.

I was in.