Whose Counting?

Five days and counting. 

On Monday, after spin class of course, I depart for the 2018 Western States Video Tour. This trip, by car, will, barring fire detours, cover the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota and Wyoming. It will cover almost 2,500 miles and be done in five days. The math says this a clean 500 miles per day. My back already hurts. 

In self defense, this is part of the larger picture, the goal, of having video of all 50 states. For the uninitiated, my professional video career is highlighted by the work we did at CompuTrainer and the Real Course Video (RCV) line of indoor cycle training products. Over the ten years on this project, I was fortunate to enjoy all-expense paid trips to many of our planet's coolest cycling locations, including France, Spain, UK, Germany, Hawaii (several times), Switzerland, Australia, Virgin Islands and Norway. In between the sexy International sites were the the domestic locations that created the demand for our videos. After a few years of doing this it became a goal of mine to compile the aforementioned collection, video of every state. Kinda like collecting baseball cards, once you have a few, finding, trading, collecting becomes a driving factor towards the goal of ‘the complete set’. 

My set, somewhat ironically, is missing four of the states mentioned above, MT, ND, SD, WY. Wyoming and Montana include Yellowstone. Without the funding from the now defunct corporate sponsor I am on my own and as I frequently break the number one rule of independent filmmaking, do not produce expensive films for a small audience, the quest persists. I should be doing life without parole. But as I am free and capable, the dubious quest continues. 

Again defending my fool of a client, I like doing this. Nolo contendere. I am guilty with explanation and throw myself at the mercy of the court. My pithy little videos are used in our training facility as accompaniment for our indoor training sessions, held nightly in the World Famous PowerBarn. I enjoy creating them using archive footage gone to public domain, stock footage and whatever animations, time lapse and other local media I can capture. The WSVT (Western States Video Tour) should provide me with enough media for the entire Season 5, so the $1,000 budget is rather amazingly small for so much new media. My biggest concern at this point is fire. I could be re-routed by any flare ups and miss the target epic routes such as Beartooth Pass, Yellowstone and The Hiawatha Trail. But we will deal with that in real time, live on location. 

Last night as we set up for a brick session, and indoor ride followed by an outside run, one of the participants asked for the Bend video. It was with special pride that I put it up on the big screen as we began our set. 

Five days and counting. A thousand dollar budget. 2,500 miles. Ten videos. A hundred views. One request. 

But whose counting?