Almost Time to Leave

[Alan]

I leave on Friday morning for my annual trip out west to visit my kids in Arizona and Washington State. My son has a KLR650, so we will be biking and camping in Utah and Colorado. From there I head north to my daughter and grandkids in Prosser, WA. We will probably go camping via car and then I head home on the 23rd.

My bike is all packed and strapped up, just waiting to do a final tire pressure check, then on the road at about 0430 dark. I'm ready to go, the bike is straining to go, I can hardly wait!:D

[Mellow]

Sounds like a great trip Alan, have fun, ride safe, take a ton of pictures and most of all, enjoy your kids.

[Trailace]

Alan Have a Great trip. Remember waiting is the hardest part, once on the road it will be over in a blink.

[motomac]

Have a SAFE trip Allan. I'm sure there will be a few spoiled Grandkids before the month's out!!!

[STeveGray]

Woo Hoo! I know that feeling! One more month for me... then I'll zigzag my way up to CanSTOC visiting friends and relatives, more zigzagging on the way back with a stop at Lagua Seca for the MotoGP.

Why is time so relative? It goes so slowly while you're waiting and anticipating but so fast when you're riding. Not fair!

Have fun and be safe, Alan.

[Alan]

Thanks for the well wishes. My only concern is the very hot weather out west. Last summer on my trip to Arizona, I was cooking alive crossing New Mexico on I-40. This summer I have added a cool-vest to my equipment list. Now that I am prepared, I will probably cause a cool spell out west. Sort of like washing your car causes it to rain.

So if it does cool off, I plan on taking the credit.:D

[Mellow]

Woo Hoo! I know that feeling! One more month for me... then I'll zigzag my way up to CanSTOC visiting friends and relatives, more zigzagging on the way back with a stop at Lagua Seca for the MotoGP.

That's cool, someday I'm gonna make it there for that race, maybe in 2007...


Why is time so relative? It goes so slowly while you're waiting and anticipating but so fast when you're riding. Not fair!

I'm sure there's an explanation, one of our Professional mental care guys here might be able to answer that.... I'm thinking it's because of how much information your brain can take in.. sitting there at work or home you aren't really taking much in.. so your brain gets bored 'thinking' about the upcoming trip... always thinking about something that isn't packed or whatever and it's still not enough because the time goes by fast...

Get on the bike and 5 mins flies by... Your senses, while not overloaded, are taking in the initial part of the ride...

But, even on the bike, after a 500 mile day say you have 20 more miles to your campground and it's been a long day and you are ready for some rest... that 20 miles that flew by in the first few mins of the ride now seems like it takes hours... your mind isn't taking in any new info. it's concentrating on getting to the destination and unpacking... not to mention, staring at that gps every 2 seconds doesn't help...

Oh well, those are my thoughts on the matter while I sit here at work waiting for my ride this weekend with mom.

[STeveGray]

That's cool, someday I'm gonna make it there for that race, maybe in 2007....

That's one of the advantages of living in California. :D It's just a one day trip for me from home to Laguna Seca. You have to feel sorry for me though because when I go I usually have to suffer through riding up the Pacific Coast Hwy. ;) Just one of the many sacrifices I make in life!


I'm sure there's an explanation, one of our Professional mental care guys here might be able to answer that.... I'm thinking it's because of how much information your brain can take in.. sitting there at work or home you aren't really taking much in.. so your brain gets bored 'thinking' about the upcoming trip... always thinking about something that isn't packed or whatever and it's still not enough because the time goes by fast...

Get on the bike and 5 mins flies by... Your senses, while not overloaded, are taking in the initial part of the ride...

But, even on the bike, after a 500 mile day say you have 20 more miles to your campground and it's been a long day and you are ready for some rest... that 20 miles that flew by in the first few mins of the ride now seems like it takes hours... your mind isn't taking in any new info. it's concentrating on getting to the destination and unpacking... not to mention, staring at that gps every 2 seconds doesn't help...

Oh well, those are my thoughts on the matter while I sit here at work waiting for my ride this weekend with mom.

I guess, since I'm one of the "professional mental care guys," I should take a stab at my own issue here. It has to do with the way the brain stores and accesses memories. My analogy is that time perception is like a pair of binoculars. When you look at the past in your mind it's like looking through a pair of binoculars. The binoculars compress space and the memory compresses time. You can simultaneously access the memory of the beginning of a trip, the middle and the end of the same trip.

When you're thinking of the future it's like turning the binoculars around and looking through the wrong end. In the case of the binoculars it's space that stretches out forever, in the case of the mind it's time that seems to stretch out forever. We experience the present in real time. Every minute that passes really takes 60 seconds to pass. There's not much we can do in our minds to change that reality. So as long as we're focused on the future event our conscious mind is acutely aware of the passage of time and its inability to compress that time as it can with a memory.

While I said there's not much we can do, there is something that helps, but, depending on the degree of anticipation (positive :run1: or negative :ph1: ) we have for the future event, it may be more or less successful. It's something that we all do. If we distract the conscious mind with another task it has something else on which to focus besides the passage of time in the present, relegating that time to the past where it can be compressed by the memory making it seem as if it passed more quickly. (Make sense? :dizzy1: )

The more highly anticipated (or dreaded) an event is, the more difficult it is to distract the conscious mind because the unconscious mind is still focused on it. Dread and excitement are emotions that come from deeper within the brain (the limbic system) than conscious thought (the cerebral cortex.) We can only deal with our limbic systems indirectly through the cerebral cortex (or chemically :rx1: :couch1: which is a whole different can of worms.)

Anyway... before I ramble on and on and on and on and put everybody to sleep :sleep1: (which helps time to pass too!) I'll shut up. Hope some of that made sense.

[Alan]

Anyway... before I ramble on and on and on and on and put everybody to sleep :sleep1: (which helps time to pass too!) I'll shut up. Hope some of that made sense.

Very well put. As I grow older, time also speeds up. When I was a kid, the summer stretched on forever. Now that I'm in my 60's, summer just zips by and suddenly it's fall and football time!:rolleyes:

[Mellow]

That's kinda what I said... just without all the words... boy, reading that definitely took 60 seconds.. .LOL Thanks...

[STeveGray]

Very well put. As I grow older, time also speeds up. When I was a kid, the summer stretched on forever. Now that I'm in my 60's, summer just zips by and suddenly it's fall and football time!:rolleyes:

Thanks, Alan. And ain't it the truth. Used to hear the old people say that and now it's that way for me too. Does that mean I'm old now? :confused:

That's kinda what I said... just without all the words... boy, reading that definitely took 60 seconds.. .LOL Thanks...

Hey. If there's anything you learn in college it's how to fill up a blue book! Lots 'n' lots of words. :D

[Trailace]

So if It seems like something takes a long time to do does that mean I'm not having fun? :confused:

[STeveGray]

So if It seems like something takes a long time to do does that mean I'm not having fun? :confused:

I hope that isn't the criteria for determining whether I'm having fun! :p It does seem, however as if the fun times never last long enough. :(

[Doobage]

I had read that the seemingly faster pace passage of time with age was in relation to how the mind consciously processes your environment. When you are younger, your brain is writing lots of things into memory. Lots of new experiences. This makes the day takes longer because there is so much new data. However, as we get older, our brain saves processing time and excludes writing certain information into long term memory. A daily commute home, for instance, simply doesn't "sink in" and thereby it's as if you've skipped through that time because it doesn't have the dedicated long term memory associated with it.

This same logic can be applied to safety engineers that review the same area over and over. It becomes increasingly more difficult to spot subtle problems within an enviroment because they simply don't get the full impact of an environment as one might that's never been in it. And even if it's a new building, if it's a similar building, it can have the same negating effect on long term memory or consciousness of the environment. Which means you have to forcibly focus on the environment to catch the details. (Or focus on your commute to actually "remember" that specific trip instead of the blur of snippets of all of them).

I'm not a head doctor, I just play one on TV. (nor am I a safety engineer).

I am I.

[Mellow]

So, is that the same as desensitization (is that a word?).

I'm also not a head doctor but I slept at a Holiday Inn Express..

[STeveGray]

I think that the process to which Doobage is referring definitely occurs in all of us. Another good example is the proof reader. We tend to read what our brain interprets as the intended word in a given context rather than the word actually written. Proof readers have to force themselves to focus on what's really there or their brain will miss errors by automatically replacing the error with what it believes was intended. While this process occurs, to my mind (what I have left of it) it doesn't explain the entire phenomenon of age-related memory loss... maybe just a small portion of it.

There is, for instance, the whole physiological side. Memory is dependent on neurons connecting with each other. Any age-related deterioration of neuronal connections is going to negatively impact memory. The mind is amazingly complex and an endlessly fascinating subject.

And, yes, Mellow, desensitization is a perfectly good word. I don't think I've heard it used to describe this process but it could. I've heard it used more in relation to a form of therapy that has been used successfully to help people overcome phobias. Enough of this talk about Holiday Inn. This is a camping forum! :D

[Doobage]

I've tried altering my mode in order to see things more definitively. When I proof read I will sometimes read backwards (not the word, but the sentence).

But to apply this phenomena to camping, I'd recommend that on each camping trip that people try either new recipes from this site, or try something at the park that you wouldn't normally do, such as hiking, bird watching, talking to a ranger, etc... The more brain stimuli that you receive that's unique to the trip will hopefully make the trip last longer and make it even more memorable.

Although there is a lot to be said to what we all enjoy. Fire and a nice drink - that never gets old, even if it's not distinctly memorable (especially if you have lots to drink).

One notion that one of my brothers and I took upon ourselves (even before I learned about this mind numbing we go through) is that we'd always run to any significant body of water we traveled near and make contact with it (foot, hand, head, whole body). Sometimes it would take a great deal of effort to get to the waters edge, but it always made a special connection inside our warped mind that made it somehow easy to recollect. And gave us bragging rights about being in "said" body of water.

The last time I went to Germany for instance, I had stayed awake on the plane the entire flight over. I hopped onto the train in Holland and fell asleep from exhaustion and rode down to Koblenz. I woke up and promptly went to eat dinner with my brothers and dad to start off a 6 week backpacking tour of Europe. We drank a fair amount of beer and when I stumbled out of the restaraunt the sun was setting and the Rhein river was about half a kilometer away. Both my brother went tearing down an escarpment of grass (flood plain) and dunked our heads over a wooden dock to soak our heads in the cold water. (it looked clean, but then again, I had beer goggles on). I don't remember too much else about that particular evening (except my meal), but it did give the moment a source of reflectivity or recall.

[STeveGray]

I've tried altering my mode in order to see things more definitively. When I proof read I will sometimes read backwards (not the word, but the sentence).

Excellent technique. That destroys the context that the brain uses and forces it to see what's really there.

But to apply this phenomena to camping, I'd recommend that on each camping trip that people try either new recipes from this site, or try something at the park that you wouldn't normally do, such as hiking, bird watching, talking to a ranger, etc... The more brain stimuli that you receive that's unique to the trip will hopefully make the trip last longer and make it even more memorable.

Although there is a lot to be said to what we all enjoy. Fire and a nice drink - that never gets old, even if it's not distinctly memorable (especially if you have lots to drink).

One notion that one of my brothers and I took upon ourselves (even before I learned about this mind numbing we go through) is that we'd always run to any significant body of water we traveled near and make contact with it (foot, hand, head, whole body). Sometimes it would take a great deal of effort to get to the waters edge, but it always made a special connection inside our warped mind that made it somehow easy to recollect. And gave us bragging rights about being in "said" body of water.

Cool idea! Our memory, after a period of time, becomes limited to whatever it has that serves as a "hook" or an "anchor" for the memory. Any event with an elevated level of emotional content is remembered because that high level of emotion (either positive or negative) serves as the hook for the memory itself. One of my techniques for creating hooks for travel memories is to take lots of pictures, making the picture the hook for the larger memory, and when I'm on a trip, to force myself to journal every night. The act of writing down my experiences of the day, while the memory is still fresh helps anchor the memory and reviewing what I've written at a later date further cements it.

I hadn't thought of doing something like dunking a body part in a local body of water but I sure like the idea.

[Mellow]

I hiked, well tried to hike, the Guadalupe Peak at the Guadalupe Mtns Nat'l Park and that was a great way to break the habit of sitting at the campsite waiting for a fellow rider to show up.

I'm starting to make a habit of taking the park brochure and reading it to learn a little about the area, after a couple times you start to appreciate your surroundings even more.

[STeveGray]

I hiked, well tried to hike, the Guadalupe Peak at the Guadalupe Mtns Nat'l Park and that was a great way to break the habit of sitting at the campsite waiting for a fellow rider to show up.

I'm starting to make a habit of taking the park brochure and reading it to learn a little about the area, after a couple times you start to appreciate your surroundings even more.

I'll add a hearty "amen" to taking and reading the park brochure. I use some of the information off those brochures to go with my pictures. Makes the pictures more interesting than just another picture of a bridge/mountain/river/old building/etc.

[Alan]

I'm back! :(

My 15 day trip just flew by, talk about time flying fast!

Only real bummer from the trip was discovering that my new FujiFilm camera did not save most of my pictures. I hope my son's pictures come out OK and he can send me a CD with trip pictures.

A highlight of the trip was my coldest campout, 29 degrees at a Forest Service campground outside of Silverton CO.

[Mellow]

Glad you made it back and had a great trip. It does go by too fast...

[motomac]

Welcome back Allan, did you spoil anyone???

[Alan]

Welcome back Allan, did you spoil anyone???

Yep, my three year old grandson enjoyed playing with grandpa. My newer granddaughter is only 10 months old and the last time I saw her was at Christmas, so she had no clue as to who I am. Next Christmas she should remember better.

[STeveGray]

I'm back! :(

My 15 day trip just flew by, talk about time flying fast!

Only real bummer from the trip was discovering that my new FujiFilm camera did not save most of my pictures. I hope my son's pictures come out OK and he can send me a CD with trip pictures.

A highlight of the trip was my coldest campout, 29 degrees at a Forest Service campground outside of Silverton CO.

Welcome back, Alan. Those cold mornings sure do make it tough to crawl out of the sleeping bag! :eek:

[Trailace]

Welcome back Alan can't wait to see pictures. How many miles did you end up doing?

[Alan]

Welcome back Alan can't wait to see pictures. How many miles did you end up doing?

Total for my trip was 7,571 miles. About 4,000 of them was just going back and forth between Michigan and the west coast. The other 3,500 consisted of a lot of great twisty roads in the mountains. I got to to do Route 12 through Lolo Pass twice, once going to my daughters in Prosser, WA and the second time when I headed home. Another memorable road was the Colorado National Monument at Fruita, CO, well worth the trip and the campground at the monument was also very nice.

Pictures are a problem, my FujiFilm camera has a software bug and lost most of my pictures. I am hoping that my son's digital pictures come out well and he can send me a CD with his pictures.

[Trailace]

Just remember pictures are never as good as your memories.