BIOGRAPHY OF RAY BANGS

Welcome to GroovyTrip.com and a big hello from either out on the road or back here at headquarters in this sunny megalopolis of Phoenix, Arizona. My name is Ray Bangs. I'm spending this go-round the Earth nexus as a writer, ecologist, artist, athlete, gardener, musician, classic air-cooled Volkswagen enthusiast, world traveler, pacifist, paraglider, zen taoist, scuba diver, fisherman, gourmet chef, IPA beer-lover, and ultimately, an overtly optimistic, peace-loving, dirty little fun-haver.

Hey, life is what you make it!

This website, GroovyTrip.com, acts as the primary portal to my writing, creative design, consulting, and publishing enterprise, "Groovy Trip, LLC" but also offers insight to my personal life (as if there was much distinction). I consider this web project a record of my complex compartmentalizations and my random bohemian artistry, or tomfoolery, depending on how you view it. I simply seek the everyday sublime, and go easy over the glorious speedbumps along this tangled roadtrip adventure called life. Every day I wake up, every day I survive this crazy world, I'm happy to be alive. I enjoy seeing the solutions.

People who know me consider me a global citizen, a post-modern curious intellectual who loves getting into all kinds of messes whether through art or writing, working on computers, or tinkering in the workshop. Meanwhile, I've spent nearly 18 years studying Writing, Ecology, and Politics, attending university off and on, part-time or sometimes fully loaded with classes. I've taken a number of longer leaves-of-absences from college, but somehow kept truckin' to finish off that pesky degree. With my wide range of interests and experiences, I find myself living a rather non-traditional life. I'm busy, yet try to stay balanced, even-keel, and chill. Folks I work with usually find me to be a mildly quirky, multi-talented and very resourceful, determined, kind, fun-loving polymath on a quest for knowledge, producing top results, meanwhile suffering a travel addiction...

My first book was published in early 2002

Some highlights along the way - The first time I took a "break from college", I headed to the Rocky Mtns to live/work as a ski bum in Breckenridge, Colorado for a season... That following spring, I hit the road on a three-month, 2,500-mile bicycle tour around the U.S. heartland, much in Nebraska. Enjoyed the rest of the summer in the Wisconsin northwoods, and then moved to sunny Arizona via an insane Greyhound bus trip. Spent a couple years taking classes, and really started learning more about computers. Got a bit bored with school, so I served a few years in the Army Corps of Engineers, and tramped all over Europe the two years stationed in Germany. Returning to Arizona, I worked a few seasons guiding hikers and mountain bikers... Wrote a pair of travel books that got published and wrote a few more books that should never be published... Wrote a bunch of magazine articles, mostly freelance and frivolous, but hard to forget that heavenly winter spent writing golf course reviews.

Ambitiously launched an Arizona outdoor magazine that failed before it ever took off, later launched a scuba diving magazine that did much better, and also jumpstarted several other business ventures with both hits and misses... Found a sweet young woman, then lost sweet young woman... Dropped out for a while to live on the road in a Volkswagen van... Lived on a hippie commune for a brief blip... Enjoyed an athletic year as a bike taxi pedaler... Spent eight blissfully-loaded months cooking at a great Scottsdale brewpub, but had to bail before becoming a full-blown Barney... Started doing a few more professional website development projects on the side, and starting to earn better commissions for a variety of custom woodworking and carpentry projects... Saved some money, and right back on the road in the old VW bus, this time almost three months up and down the California/Oregon coast, a nice break before starting the new job with the world famous Harlem Globetrotters.

Biography of Ray Bangs (continued) ...