Chain Stays, Poison Ivy and being a Montana girl.

I bought a new bike. It was quite an impulsive decision but I'm happy about it nonetheless. Its funny how emotionally connected I've become with it. He needs a name. I can't think of a good one.



In other news, I've been attacked by poison ivy and/or oak 3 times in the past 3 days. And only this morning I woke up to find that my legs are covered with a nasty, relentlessly itchy rash. Really, it was unavoidable. The poison ivy that is, not the rash. Obviously the rash is unavoidable after contact (side note: 30% of people are immune to the effects of poison ivy. I, however, am not apart of that 30%). It was not asif I wanted to frolic in fields of it, that's just how it had to be, being a Montana girl and all... Allow me to recount the past 3 day's worth of my poison ivy adventures:


Day 1: Hike up the Missions: Along with being one of the main corridors for Western Montana's Grizzly population, it alsohouses the highest population density of poison ivy (that's not a fact, just an exaggerated assumption). And while I was too busy checking my back to make sure I wasn't going to get mauled, I failed to notice the bushes and bushes of poisonous plants all around me. Only at the very end of the hike did I realize the situation. I turned around and pointed this out to my brother, who said "oh yeah, I know, but I'm immuuuune." And when I woke up the next morning in the clear, I thought I was "immuuuuune" too. Oh, how very wrong I was.

Day 2: After a lovely day of sailing, swimming, boating and water skiing, I joined my brother on his evening fly fishing adventure. After making far too many verysharp turns on a "road" which was really just a field of napweed and cheat grass, we arrived at the Flathead River. A beautifully, big, slow flowing river that's lined with fields of golden wheat and tall corn. But the r
>iver is about 100 feet down this gnarly cliff and as I look down, I see, scattered just below the ledge, bones. Yes, bones. And to the right I see a pile of what looks the remains of some sort of medium sized animal. A coyote maybe? Regardless of what is, I'm scared that a) I too, will end up like this poor creature and b) there are more of this creatures and they're going to eat me. And when I finally get down to the bottom of this cliff (I made it without any real injury) we find a huge pile of bear poop, and its still warm. But since it is made up mostly of berries, we figure its a black bear and not super dangerous. We continue along a small path that parallels the river, looking for a bank where we can set up our stuff. We find a bank and Brother trudges through a thick covering of, yes you guessedit, poison ivy. He says "you're just going to have to tough it out Kristine, this is what makes you a Montana girl." Thinking in my head "Yeah! I'm a Montana girl!" I skip across the ivy and jump in the river hoping that the water will wash it away before those chemicals have time to bond to my skin. The river was beautiful, and fly fishing was great. And when I woke up the next morning, my legs were fine! The water really did get rid of the ivy's poison! Oh, how very wrong I was....

Day 3: I took my sweet new bike up for a ride last night. It was incredible, as per usual. I did the wallman loop up the rattlesnake, which kicked my butt. I ate it hard on the descent (also as per usual) and landed in a thicket of...yes! Poison Ivy! WTF? I seems as though I am attracted to this stuff. And I woke up this morning, legs itching like crazy. So, I am that 70% of the population that does, in fact, react to poison ivy.

I can't stop itching.