Day 1: Flagstaff

Food shopping for the grand!

Pre-shopping meeting

Max and his food shopping hat

Chelsea introducing our trip mascot, Zebadiah (or Zebs or Zebbi). Notice the scenes of 'merica in the background

 

Us and our carts

Group shot, with the itemized receipt.

Hazaaa! Flagstaff

We made it! The drive was long, and pretty hot. Western Missouri and Oklahoma were damn hot. Like stick your arm out of the window and it feels like a blast furnace hot. The duma, even with its lack of A/C, made it through and we made it to Flagstaff. Kurt and and I showed up at the downtown diner at 8:30am and then did some shopping (including picking up my computer! Hooray its fixed!). We then headed to Lisa's house (Kevin's friend from when he was in seattle, who is on the trip and grew up in flagstaff) with a little trepidation, mostly because we had never talked to her really and the arrangements had been made for us (plus we were wicked early)

anyhow When we showed up, the only person at the house was their friend, who is an inner city kid from boston (his shirt said D is for Drunk) who was staying with them for a bit. We were a little confused.

Anyhoo, Lisa showed up, and Kurt and I spent just enough time socializing to make it not awkward anymore and then passed out for a few hours because we were zombies.

So then I wake up and stumble out of the room and immediately meet Her parents (Who are awesome) Pretty soon after that Lisa's dad, Karl, asked if I wanted to go for a ride (he saw my bike on the roof) And I went - it was awesome. Super fun trails, basically in their backyard (like the green to thayer). Pretty national forest. Awesome. I was not expecting to have this much play time before the Grand actually started.

I bought a time for my DSLR and decided that I wanted to play with time lapse photography and decided to document the drive. I mounted my camera in a few places in my car (until I settled on the rear passenger window) and took a picture every 20min (with a few extra that I took manually). Its real rough, but here is the results. I'll keep playing with it. I think this could be real cool for some other drives out west (I think it will work well out the front window as well..

Check the previous posts for other highlights of Kurt and my drive.

Screw the rafting The canyon. Kurt and i are just going to hang out at the grand canyon deer farm zoo instead.

Arizona! The grand canyon state welcomes us!

Texas. I wont mess with .it. I swear.

Ooooooooklahoma where the wind comes shiftin' down the plains! Where it is also quite warm.

94 and driving into the sun. Although there will probably only about 4 hrs of wicked hot heat.... Once that sun goes down....

The peoples bank of cuba, world's largest rocker, and the vacuu museum. Exit 208 on i.44 is where it is at.

St. Louis- mi. ARCHTASTIC!

Illinois. The land of lincoln.

Well the nuvi just routed us around a 10 mile construction delay outside of indianapolis. No idea how bad the traffic actually was, but it was fun.

Made it to indiana. They let you drive faster. Corn!

Ohio. Home to quaker steak and lube and kurt. So much to discover!

Pennsylvania. Woot.

New york!

Heading West!

So I left Hanover today. Like actually left. Finally. Still have a few more edits on the thesis that I will take care of after the grand, but otherwise GONE. Crazy.


The Duma is fully loaded. Everything fit, and I have an exciting collection of fun toys on top.

Kurt and I arriving at the 'rents house in Stow, MA

She is a little heavy, her mighty 1.7l engine was having a little trouble on some of the bigger hills in VT (50mph max....) but she can handle it. Since I also don't have cruise control, having a max speed of 65 is quite handy.... reminds me of driving the cage trailer on a sprinter van to spring trip.

Tomorrow we wake up early and head to Kurt's house in Ohio. Then to Flagstaff (mostly) straight. If we can survive the lack of air conditioning.


Here is a taste of our future:

Yes it is hot. Yes we are driving straight through Oklahoma City. Yes it is going to be a blast. (Did I mention that I don't have AC?)

Anyhoo my computer is dead, so this is the last multimedia post I'll have in a few days. But I might text in things along the way.

Next stop GRAND CANYON. I am so excited. 2 wks of doing nothing but amazingness.

NY, NY

Tourist shot: Ana in Times Square

So I headed down to Mass with all the rest of my stuff to my parent's house. Then headed into boston for the day on monday with the 'rents and went to the Museum of Science (it was awesome). Then I headed over to the new abode of Greg and Alice and broke in their local bar - Rivergods. I wish that I had my camera with me for that one. The decor was a little funky - think my little pony meets angst teen vampire movie - but it is right across the street from them, which is cool.

then ON TO NYC! Yay visiting Ana, boo big city. Seriously I don't know how people can actually live in NY. The couple of times I have been there, 2 days is my maximum. We had an awesome day on wednesday. Unfortunately I left behind the DSLR, but I stole Ana's point and shoot for the day.

The Book of Mormon Lottery

Most of the big Broadway shows have what they call the Rush Lottery, where you can put your name in a drawing for cheap front row seats for the shows. It is wicked cool, especially if you don't really have anything planned (especially because shows like Book of Mormon are sold out for months).

We Won! Ana's name was the third called - which meant we got 2 front row center tickets for $32! It was pretty phenomenal. The show is super solid and hilarious.

Look, we also found Tom Flynn. He isn't in Idaho - he is in Wicked on Broadway looking damn sexy

Now back to Hanover and week of frantic finishing up work and getting ready to leave Hanover (yikes!). Just remember, tomorrow is a ladder day!