What up, Traiiiiipser!

Good news: after all my health drama and visit to the ER, I'm good to go other than whiplash symptoms.

After I passed out (twice) and almost broke my neck, the best guess from doctors after a ton of testing is that I had a vagus nerve episode in response to nausea.
My takeaway: Humans are fragile, leaky bags of goo.
Also, ~20 Traipsing readers emailed after my last newsletter sharing their experiences with the same thing! Whaaaat. Either this is a common occurrence, or I have a strange audience (more likely).


Hot Springing About, Edition 106 features:

​-Bikepacking the Oregon Big Country route.

-Risk of bear attack: really pretty quite gosh dang high

Dakota
 

Bikepacking the Oregon Big Country

Way out yonder in SE Oregon lies the Oregon Big Country bikepacking route. If you’re looking for a remote desert getaway, you’ve found it.

Overall, I expected cruisy gravel roads, mild vertical gain, and hot springs to soothe bikepacking soreness.

I nailed 1 out of 3: the hot springs were amazing.

In reality, the Big Country route served up a variety plate of different terrain ranging from desert playa up to snowy mountains. I’ve bikepacked and road toured a lot and this trip surprised me with the physical difficulty, remoteness, commitment level, and sheer beauty.

Check out the full blog post here.

OR just look at the photo gallery. (Some sweet photos, if I say so myself. All iPhone!)

What's wrong with my vehicle?

As part of dialing in our van for an upcoming summer roadtrip, I bought a OBDII scanner to diagnose any engine codes on the fly.

I had an old Scangauge before, which I found cumbersome to use. Instead, I found a Fixd scanner on Ebay for $20. It syncs to my iPhone via Bluetooth and shares far more information about the problem vs. just "ERROR423j2foff."

Bears, bears, everywhere

My Brazilian piano teacher and Italian teacher are both convinced that every time I leave my house, I'm at severe risk of bear attack.

Obviously, I fan those flames whenever possible. For instance, my in-law's wildlife cam recently captured a burly black bear wandering around on their deck in Idaho. I immediately passed it along to my bear-fearing teachers.

So you can be sure I shared a chart of bear attacks from this "hilarious maps that no one asked for" collection. NOWHERE on Earth is safe, people!