How do you buy toilet paper?

I gave up my car 15 years ago, bought a bike (a Trek that died two years ago) and never looked back. My brothers and I ride the ADA charity events around New England. When I first gave up driving, one of my brothers expressed a lot of concern. When pressed, he said: "How do you shop? How do you buy toilet paper?" Part of me wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, but I told him I bought whatever fit in the pack on my back. And that I could always return for more. I later learned that he always bought his toilet paper in the large ten to 20 roll packages. Fifteen years later he still worries. He visited me this past weekend and we watched the NCAA basketball games. After he left I noticed a single un-opened roll in the bathroom. Some people never want to be without.

In the winter I use studded tires and sometimes chains and ride my mountain bike (a Klein that survived being run over by a truck..I had jumped off and was lying in the street at the time). One very nasty morning it took me two hours to ride the 8 miles to our office. For those New England riders this was on route 2 in the Berkshires over to Southern Vermont. Great riding, but not a flat stretch to be found. I left at 5:00 AM, hoping to have an easier time in the snow before the roads were plowed and got icy. It became a snow, sleet rain combo halfway through the ride. I got to the office drenched wherever not covered in Gortex. Dragging my bike into a back storeroom I was interrupted while trying to kick some of the ice out of the gears and such. It was a panicked employee whining that there was no toilet paper in the Men's John. I reached into a small pocket inside my Gortex pants and pulled out a small wad of neatly folded, relatively dry TP. I said: "I never travel without" and suggested he try to find some leaves in the forest in back.

The mountain biking in the Southwest is known for its' canyons, dry riverbeds and that sticky, red rock called slickrock. Many areas have whole trails atop slickrock.

Slickrock Trail is the trail that made Moab, Utah, the center of the mountain biking universe. Before heading to the trails consider the following:

STEP 1: Consider getting a front suspension or dual suspension bike for riding slickrock. Slickrock is hard and the riding is often bumpy.

STEP 2: Shift your weight forward while remaining on your seat to ride uphill on slickrock. You can ride up incredibly steep slopes due to the sticky nature of slickrock.

STEP 3: Slide your weight back so that your belly is above your seat when riding down steep slickrock sections. This will give you more traction on your back tire to prevent an end over end crash.

STEP 4: Ride it, don't slide it. Jamming your brakes causes your tires to leave black marks on the slickrock.

STEP 5: Take corners slowly at first until you get the feel of the slickrock. The rock grabs at your tires when cornering which could cause a tumble to the uninitiated.

The word "slickrock" was derived from early settlers whose metal-shod horses found the expanses of barren rock slick to cross. Mountain bikers find just the opposite is true because the naked sandstone is as "slick" as coarse sandpaper. This unique medium is a proving ground for many bike manufacturers because it allows a mountain bike to be ridden to its fullest expression. The traction between stone and tires can hold a bike at gravity defying angles, which can prove intimidating at first. But once mastered, or at least tolerated, the free-flowing nature of Slickrock might very well be the most fun you can have! Sections of the Slickrock Trail are named "Faith in Friction," "Steep Creep," and "Baby Bottom Bowl" giving colorful insight to the trail's demeanor.

Don't forget a wad of toilet paper". It's a long way to a Seven Eleven. Despite the name Slick Rock, it is not slick. I know. It is another reason I never travel without".

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The Swamp Thing was a creature originally conceived as Alec Holland mutating into a vegetable-like creature, a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man". However, under writer Alan Moore, Swamp Thing was reinvented as an elemental entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, with Holland's memory and personality intact. He is described as "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland."

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing had a profound effect on mainstream comic books, being the first horror comic to approach the genre from a literary point of view since the EC horror comics horror comics of the 1950's, and broadened the scope of the series to include ecological and spiritual concerns while retaining its horror-fantasy roots.

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