Roger Bikes

Category: Rafting

  • Chillin at the Maya ruins in Piedras Negras

    Chillin at the Maya ruins in Piedras Negras

    During our rafting trip on the Usumacinta we spent 2 nights at a Maya ruin known as Piedras Negras.

    These ruins are only accessible by boat and our guide estimates that at most 200 people a year visit them. We spent an entire day camping at the site and were given an extensive tour by our guide. The site has had minimal work done to it for preservation. For the most part the jungle has reclaimed a town that is estimated to have had a population of around 2500 at its peak.

    While this site is remote it has been essential for the deciphering of the Maya language. There are numerous stones with various inscriptions throughout the site. In some cases the local caretakers have built structures to cover softer stones to slow their erosion.

  • Editing Video and staying sane

    Editing Video and staying sane

    One of the main services I offered customers when I had a company was short form Youtube videos. This was in 2010 and Youtube had been around a few years but was still just catching on. I couldn’t get my clients to write blog posts but I could get them to sit still for a few minutes while I got them to say something helpful about their company.

    It was hugely successful, not because the videos were super great but simply because the Youtube video would start ranking immediately for whatever keywords were in the transcript. So we cranked up the output to make as many videos as we could. I setup a simple studio in my home office and clients would stop by for an hour and we would get a ton of videos shot. One client even had me build a studio in one of his less used offices.

    One important thing I learned was how to get quick with editing videos. For the most part these were pretty simple videos with one camera and no b-roll. I got started when Final Cut Pro X had come out and switching from iMovie to FCPX was easy. A lot of people like Adobe Premier as it reminds them of Final Cut Pro. If I were starting now I would consider Davinci Resolve cause its free and super powerful.

    Currently I am sitting on 260GB of video I shot while on vacation to Mexico. There are 470 files in total. Most of them are 10 to 20 seconds long. My current trick for organizing a video is that I create a new Library in FCPX for the final video I want to make. This helps keep footage organized so that once a project is completed I can delete any system created files and archive things to an external drive. 4K video really eats up the disk space.

    To be honest I gave up on video editing a few years ago. Video is really hard. You have to plan, organize, direct, shoot, edit, and create something people like. Taking photos is almost simple in comparison. I had gotten burnt out doing commercial work that I didn’t really enjoy or like.

    Then this Mexico trip was organized and I started thinking about how fun it would be to have a video of the trip. With the new theater room at home I am enjoying watching home videos a lot more. Just a few second clip of Kate and the dogs from a few years ago is joyous to watch. For the trip video I want to make something five to ten minutes long that tells a story of the trip.

    Now I just need to get it done.

  • Back Home

    We flew into Salt Lake City last night from Mexico and opted to get a hotel room rather than start the 6 hour drive home to Mancos. We got up around 6am this morning, found coffee and started the drive. There was some snow in the forecast and the roads were icy in places. We managed to get home and return the one way rental car without issue.

    My brain is still reviewing everything we experienced over the last two week. For a jungle river trip I think we did very well. I managed not to lose my shit at any point even with heat rashes covering a lot of my body at times. Neither of us managed to get sick nor injured.

    We met a lot of great people both in our group and the various local areas that we visited. We saw a lot of Maya ruins and learned a lot of about their culture and use of the Usumacinta during the Maya Classical Period. I took a lot of video and need to spend some time reviewing it and creating some type of overview of the trip.

    For now I am going to rest.

  • Travel day

    We are done with the Mexico trip and flying back to the USA Today. Traveling during COVID had been interesting to say the least. On the way to Mexico my ears felt like they were falling off due to the mask we need to wear in the airports.

    On the plus side the flight attendants look like ninjas from Mortal Combat which is really cool. For the most part everyone seemed cool with masking up and we saw no incidents.

    For traveling back to the USA we had to stop at a laboratory yesterday and get a COVID test. It took about 30 minutes in total and we both received negative results. This means we are able to fly back to the USA.

    If we had gotten a positive result then we would have had to stay in Mexico until we have a negative test result. Since the probability for that happening was high we did purchase COVID travel insurance. That would have paid for lodging if we had tested positive.

    One member of our group has tested positive and will need to stay until she tests negative. We aren’t sure how we didn’t contract it from her but suspect it is due to us not riding in the same van to and from the river.

    On our way down to Palenque there were a lot of flight cancellations from Aeromexico due to staff getting sick with COVID. We were fortunate and avoided any delays but some of our group had a less than ideal experience. Eventually everyone got to our destination but not without some colorful stories about navigating airports and airlines.

    Heading home we seem to be in the clear. Our initial flight was cancelled but we were able to rebook without much hassle.

    Flying is a lot like rafting: you gotta go with the flow. The airlines are gigantic machines with complicated and inflexible systems. Things may go wrong and change and the best you can do is accept them and keep a cool head. Stay in the boat or plane and get home.

    Such a great trip. Definitely ready to be home after two weeks away. Rafting on a jungle river was a new experience and it presented a number of challenges both physically and mentally. I took a lot of video and hope that I can put something together that captures some amount of what we experienced.

  • Tips for Rowing the Big Rapids in the Grand Canyon (Colorado River Whitewater Rafting)

    Some of my friends have rafted the entire Grand Canyon and from listening to their stories it sounds like they are falling off of cliffs. While I am sure it is terrifying and formidable this video helped me get a better idea of what happens on the river in the Grand. Someday I will need to put these skills to the test:

  • Don’t forget to take your Malaria pill

    Don’t forget to take your Malaria pill

    Since we are traveling to Mexico for an extended period of time it is recommended that we take Malaria pills as well as get a number of vaccines. Its been a busy couple of months getting shots for Hep A and B, Typhoid, COVID Boosters, and the flu. At one visit to the pharmacy I had two shots in one arm and two in the other. The COVID booster made me feel a little woozy for a day but it was tolerable.

    For Malaria we started taking the pills yesterday and are instructed to keep going for two weeks after the trip.

    Better living through Chemistry.

  • Usumacinta prep week

    Usumacinta prep week

    We leave for Rio Usumacinta in four days! Its going to take us 2 days to get to Palenque, Mexico. One day to drive to Denver as flights out of Durango to Denver are not reliable at all. The second day is flights from Denver to Mexico City to Villahermosa. Then we drive to Palenque and spend one or two nights there.

    On Jan 11th we hit the water. Including guides we will have 21 people in our group which is the largest group I will have ever gone rafting with. We are on the water for 7 to 8 days, I am still a little fuzzy on the details. The good news is that I am not organizing or leading this trip. I am like water and will flow where told to flow.

    We have purchased some new dry bags that open like duffel bags. Traditional dry bags open at one end and you stuff everything in them. The problem with that setup is that if you want some clothing on the bottom of the bag you have to remove everything to get to it. With a duffel style dry bag it is much easier to rummage through and get that t-shirt you need for the luau or whatever.

    I also bought a couple of long sleeve sun shirts with hoods. We are going to be in the sun a lot and I prefer to just block everything rather than risk a sunburn. We have our life jackets, or Personal Flotation Devices (PFD’s), and are renting the tent from the rafting company. They are also supplying the rafts and food. We will handle everything from preparing meals to cleaning toilets/groovers while on the river. I am getting excited.