INTRODUCTION Tales from the Trails came about after I'd received a phone call months back from Ed Pedersen, a retired trial lawyer from Michigan and one of the kids in the photo above. He’s the small, light-haired one admiring his fish behind the smaller, dark-haired one who needs a haircut. Ed had called because he was planning a month long, 900+ mile bicycle trip through the Canadian Rockies to raise money for a charity called MCHS Human Services, something he's done for other charities periodically over the last several years. He suggested I sign up as a rider with him and two others. (Stay tuned! More on Fred and James in future posts.) I reasoned with Ed, my oldest friend on the planet, that while I love the Rockies and the charity idea, bike riding had lost its appeal after the days he and I clothes-pinned baseball cards against our spokes to make our Sting-Rays sound like motorcycles. It was a compelling argument, and Ed’s only rebuttal was to cough the word “wimp”...