Bicycle Radio- Tune in Tonight

Tune in on Mondays from 7:00-8:00 PM PST to hear the live broadcast of Bicycle Radio.

Thanks to New Belgium Brewery, I just got turned onto this radio show. Check out the broadcast live, or listen to podcasts of previous shows online. Their blog has video, articles, and some interesting bicycle notes from around the country. Whether it's racing, commuting info, or sport, this is a pretty cool site. Have a look (and listen) for yourself.

Bicycle Radio Online

(Thanks for the tip, New Belgium-- I've always loved the duo of bikes and beer.)

Got $25? Take a helicopter tour at Lake of the Ozarks

$25 will get you two tickets to a movie on Friday night, lunch and a beer at a ski resort, a day’s bike rental in most major cities... or it’ll get you a helicopter ride in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.

Lake Ozark Helicopters, which opened last spring on the Bagnell Dam Strip at Lake of the Ozarks, offers very short helicopter tours for $25 seven days a week. Other tours start at $40 per person and go up to $199, depending on length of time, amount of people in the helicopter, and destination.

Having watched the graceful red whirly-bird levitate vertically and fly all summer, my interest was piqued. Turns out the $25 price gets you just a few minutes in the air-- about five minutes after you take off and land. But that five minutes is enough to experience the thrill of riding in a helicopter, an opportunity most people don’t get. You’ll fly over the dam and back, clipping away over the tops of trees and watching boats soar across the lake. $40 gets you about a 15 minute flight; $65 translates to about a half hour.

Lake Ozark Helicopters is family-owned and operated. The pilot is a former navy helicopter pilot. My dad decided to take my mom and myself on a ride as part of a birthday gift. An initial conversation proved the pilot amenable to deviating from their advertised routes and taking us anywhere we wanted to go along the lake or in the area, which was great because my parents wanted to fly over their house and see it from the air.

After being grounded because of fog and rain on the day of our reservations, we called the next day and were told we could come by any time. Because I wanted to take photos, we waited until later in the day for the haze to lift.

It’s a strange sensation to be in the air before you realize you’ve even moved. Not being a fan of flying, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about a helicopter ride, but it was pure exhilaration. Strapped in and wearing headsets, the pilot pointed out landmarks and told us of other flights he’d taken as I snapped away pictures from the back. My mom’s view from the front was all sky, and beneath her the trees and water of the Ozarks. Boats raced down the Channel as we banked and turned, circling my parents’ house.

When we touched down again, my mom said she felt like we’d been gone a few mere minutes, not the 30 that had passed. I nearly skipped inside to tell the pilot’s father how great the flight was. There aren’t many things you can do for $25 or even $65 that let you experience a thrill, see the world differently, and take stock of your fears, but my helicopter tour did all that. Now I want to see everything from the air. For a girl who doesn’t like flying, I’m learning there’s a lot of different ways to travel in the sky.

Lake Ozark Helicopters
1075 Bagnell Blvd
Lake Ozark, MO 65049
(573)302-0022


Details: Flights start at $25 per person and are priced according to route and duration of time. Other routes can be requested in advance. Helicopter seats up to three passengers at a time, and walk-ins are welcome. Open seven days a week until 7pm, weather permitting. Flights being scheduled through the first week in October, and then again Thanksgiving-Christmas.

The Beginning of An Easy Adventure

Learning To Fly
I am not the kind of girl who hang glides. I don't even like to fly in planes. But something about it has always stuck in my head like a poem, the slow grace of watching someone run off a mountain side and then glide slowly turning through the air for miles. That image came back to me recently, and I decided to try it myself. If there were lessons, I could learn to do it. I would hang glide. I would become that girl.

For me, this is how most of my adventures begin. There is some idea or a memory, some late night Google search or a magazine article. 4 years ago it was a National Geographic Adventure article that lead me to trek through Tasmania. A Travel Channel special I saw when I was 20 brought me to Coober Pedy in Australia's Outback ten years later. My desire at 17 to go live in Montana finally came true last year when I quit my job and packed my car, heading west for the summer and writing about it along the way. Mostly, I get things in my head and see no reason why I shouldn't do them.

Hang gliding was different. It was never something I wanted to do, but when I found Kitty Hawk Kites Hang Gliding school in a late night web search, I knew I wanted to go. Instead of the mountains of my youth, there were small sand dunes of 15-25 to jump off. The sand provided soft landings, and the price ($99 for a 3.5 hr beginner lesson) was great. If the Wright Bros. could make flight a reality for the first time at Kitty Hawk, then I could move hang gliding past the possible and onto the list.

Suddenly North Carolina loomed large as I started to think of the possibilities. There were mountains AND beaches. But unlike Oregon or Washington, there was actually warm weather and warm water. And just like that, maps were consulted, routes were planned, VRBO and Homeaway were trolled looking for a vacation rental. I quit my job, threw my bike on the car again, and headed towards the Smokies, the Outer Banks waiting for me at the end.



Adventure doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't even have to be something you'd usually do-- that's the point. I know everyone thinks there's a certain type of person who's an "adventure enthusiast". 3 years ago, no one one have thought that person was me; much the same way I didn't think I was the type of girl to go hang gliding. I'm glad we were all wrong.

Kitty Hawk Kites was a great place to learn to hang glide, and North Carolina was a great state. Easy as that, I'll be returning to both soon.