Most of the time, I have a very bloggable life

...so why don't I blog more? Why am I the prodigal blogger (or Prodigger, if you prefer)?

I am fairly confident it is because I make too big a deal out of the content. I want my posts to be masterpieces, the lot of them. I want to make sure I include every detail that is awesome and work the delivery of every sentence.

But I believe I've decided thats a bad idea. It instead encourages me to wait too long to spend time to blog, which in turn declines readership and when readership is down advertising dollars soon follow. This in turn discourages me from writing anything until its good enough to bring in the masses and the money. But what am I thinking? People won't come if updates are sparse. Oh, and also I don't have ads. So theres that.

In other words, I plan to go for quantity instead of quality.

Now, with out further ado- I present to you "New York- a less then concise recap":

Back a few months ago, I caught wind of the concert pairing I had been hoping- neigh, YEARNING after for years. Eisley, the indy-fresh angel voiced, mild mannered super stars in hiding from Texas band, and Mute Math, the amazingly creative and hard touring, always-the-best-show-you've-ever-scene-every-time band from New Orleans. I rounded up a group of 8 other people brave enough to drive down to New York with me in a 15 passenger van (and who's schedules lined up) and headed down 95 one bright October thursday morning.


The trip down there was a good time- I had friends from different social circles, but they gelled very well together which made me quite happy. Since I was driving I didn't get to be part of much of the conversations in the back, but I could hear them having a good time over the engine noise and stereo- which was quite an interesting set up in itself. I had obtained a 5.1 speaker system from the last geek swap fest I went to for a measly $20, and thanks to Jarin's 300 watt inverter, we were able to power the monster all the way to NY, booming the bass and blasting the treble. Quite fun.

In addition to driving down there, I also got to drive in NYC traffic. When I told this to people before I left, they would always give me a sympathetic "that sucks dude" kind of look (if I told them I was doing this in a 15 passenger van they went pale and thought I was sui or homicidal). But after I got into the traffic, I really enjoyed it. In NYC you have to be aggressive, you see. Its like a competition for the road- winner takes the lane, loser has to wait a few more seconds. If you look at it that way, I think I played a pretty good game. After seeing so many yellow cabs that were basically moving traffic law violations, I realized that the cops in this town had real crime to deal with. As long as you don't kill anybody, just about anything goes. Instead of being flustered with this revelation as people cut me off left and right, I instead took it like a liberating breath of fresh air. I knew my driving abilities and limits and now I could actually drive how I wanted to the best of them. I had a blast earning respect in the concrete jungle. I think my favorite part was when I played chicken with a semi- I was behind a double parked car, and the light turned green. I knew the semi at the light had several gears to get through before he got to me, so I veered around the cab into the opposing lane straight towards him and stepped on it, getting around the cab before he could ever be a threat and turning onto the lane I needed to get to with out loss of life or limb. It was pretty jokes, man.

Even though we left about and hour behind schedule we still got there with time to see a bit of the city. After getting some coffee and using the bathroom, we strategized about our next move. Renee suggested we go to times square, and all concurred it to be an idea of merit and achievability.

Apparently, our group was always moving very fast.

We got there via the subway, meeting a few colorful characters along the way (an awesome guy who explained to us some of the meaning in a big artistic display on a building, a man singing a soulful rendition of "work all day, party all night" while handing out flyers).

New Yorker explains to us features of a building

Before long we got to our stop and walked over to Broadway street.

Wow. I don't think you can ever quite capture the larger then life scale and dyanmics of this place on film. You really just have to see it to believe it. After being there in person, I am pretty much convinced that it is the place where all the display manufactures go to sport their newest technology because every single one was brighter, bigger, and higher resolution than anything else I have ever seen or heard of. And the shapes of the screens- its like everyone was trying to out do eachother in the I-have-more-curves-and-deformations-then-you contest. But the effect overall was spellbounding. I tried not to gawk like a tourist at NY the whole trip, but when your in the middle of times square I swear its almost impossible. Its just that incredible.



Another thing thats incredible about times square (and Broadway st. in general) was the amount of street entrepreneurs that would come right up to you and try to hard sale you on something right away. They had no fear! We ended up having this little joke we'd say to eachother if someone slowed down or stopped for a few seconds. "Don't stop, you'll be solicited!" we'd say. And it was true- it was like they could smell a tourist who didn't quite know what they were doing from blocks away. We had people try to sell us a few things- but I can only remember two. One was a print copy of "The Onion". The other was a rapper bumping his demo.

He at least was a good experience. The man came up to us and started his introductions, started to ask us if we wanted to hear his demo- then stopped himself mid sentence as if he had forgot something very important earlier. "First of all, let me just tell you- I've never killed anybody, never shot anybody..." We laughed, and it broke the ice a little bit. He had a practiced somewhat weary demeanor that comes from trying to sell all day to people who don't care. But we gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I took a listen on his portable CD player- expecting perhaps a somewhat novice sound- rough recording, genuine emotion, maybe desperate lyrics. He was after all, bumping his CD on the streets of NY. You gotta be desperate at that point, right?

But within seconds I was impressed. A symphonic chord filled the headphones as one of the tracks started off, and his voice, strong, clear and determined came on the track. "Yorel," it said, "spit that fire." His intro continued cinematically. "So much pain... come on, tell me what pain is." The beat dropped and I was already strainging my ears to hear where he was taking this. Soon I realized he was quite different then I had first thought:

"9/11 was supposed to brake us- all we did was wake up.
Many tears fell as mucas caked up, say what?
Lest we forget- those 4 planes hit,
My uncle died 9/11 so he ceased to exist.
Me and my tear drops are on the line and became best friends
Mines will be falling down my face till my death
We fall and we rise- so rise up and come to accept it
You'll be an old man looking back on life you neglected"

The song as a whole was a sort of "keeping on" anthem of rising through adversity- waking up and doing something with the days of our lives and bearing the pain necessary for rewards. I was blown away. By this time I saw him talking to some of my friends about the art on the CD. I took my headphones off and listened in "...and this represents us- you see we are born into this life dead, and there is a struggle for our souls between good and evil.

The album art for Yorel's debut disc "Redemption"

So it turns out, the guy is a Christian. And his rap name, Yorel? It is Leroy spelled backwords, in honor of his uncle who died in 9/11 (he was on the plane to Pennsylvania if I recall correctly.). Really interesting guy. I bought both CDs. He was really nice to us, thanking us perfusely for our time and telling us how he was honored with the attention. ("When I blow up one day, and you come to my concert" he said, "You can come up on stage with me.")

But enough of these side attractions- I went down there for a concert after all!

We arrived their two tickets short. Jake and I decided that we would be the odd people out and find some tickets from scalpers- long story short, we got them, but it cost me through the nose. It doesn't matter- the important part is we all got in.

The rest of this I suppose would best be served by footage of the bands. Well, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, I did take clips of each band and they came out pretty good. The bad news is, I don't have a couldn't find a firewire cable so I can't get it uploaded till I get one. But I do hope to upload it sometime, because the concert was amazing.


First, Eisley- I had never seen them live. I was not disappointed. Despite some small sound issues towards the begginng of their set, they sounded amazing. They sing just as or more beautiful then they do on their album. They didn't hold back at all- the music was so urgent in the sense that they were totally in it right then. You could feel the emotion; it was palpable. Well, at least for me. Perhaps I'm just a crazy fan though. They played just about all the songs I wanted them too- some from each album, which was really great, and some from before their album which I had heard on various live recordings.

The crowd was really great, too. I was kind of nervous for them going in because it was the north east and they were a little band from Tyler, Texas- not to well known in the mainstream and very different then the "main attraction" band. But the crowd seemed to know their work well, giving them a very warm welcome and being just about as roudy as you can be during an Eisley show. One of my favorites songs was " I could be there for you"- not just because Stacy sang a large portion of that song to me (no I'm serious!) but also because the crowd totally seemed to "get" what was going on when Chauntelle sang her bar of the song- celebrating loudly after she sang the last words with cheers and applause. For those who don't know, since Eisley's been signed (and a bit before), Chauntelle has been the only girl who didn't sing. She used to, but decided for awhile that her voice wasn't good enough. She just wasn't confident singing up on stage. Well, in the process of this album being made she had a bit of a breakthrough- singing guest vocals for a friend, and becoming more confident. So when she sang sang that key bridge, executing it confidently and perfectly, it was really, really neat to see New England cheer her on. I was quite proud to be part of this crowd, which on their blog Boyd called "by far - the most roudy, jam packed crowd" and even concluded that "By the end of the set the crowd had peaked the highest level of this tour.". I couldn't be happier. Now maybe they will come back more often. (I talked to Boyd- their dad and manager- afterwords, by the way and made sure he knew I was much closer to the Boston area and that they should come down their more often, or even to NH. I MIGHT have said that if he went to NH I would bring a crowd at least 20 strong... so...if that happens, please back me up guys, k?)

After their set, I actually gave up my place closer to the stage to go and talk to Eisley. They were singing and hanging out back by their merch booth, and I decided that if I came all the way from NH I had to at least say Hi to everyone. I did. Everyone was just as nice and sweet as I thought they'd be. I also learned that one of our group knew some of them from way back when the Eisley family played worship at a church in Texas. It was pretty cool- Chauntelle recognized them and they caught up a little bit before Mute Math.

Mute Math. Daaaang. After Eisley's set, it was like someone said they were passing out 100 dollar bills, but the catch was you had to walk up as close to the stage as possible, bring 5 friends and not let anyone in edgeways. The crows was pretty big I thought for Eisley, but seemingly out of nowhere it just about looked like it doubled. I have never been in a indoor crowd so packed. But its no wonder why. They started off with their amazing intro like they always do, but this time their was a new element- video. Completely synchronized behind them for most every song was a mostly abstract concoction of video goodness that went along with the lighting, crazy antics and mood set by the band. And as usual, their performances were amazing. They know how to build up energy in a room. There is just such an air of excitement when they play, its amazing. It makes you just overflow with emotion.

The drummer, Darren King, looked very exhausted though, even after only a few songs. Like, really exausted- as in might be dehydrated and fall over any minute. I watched him for a little while, concerned- he wasn't missing any beats, but I could tell he was struggling. I've not ever seen him look so tired. I watched him for awhile through a whole in the crowd and made eye contact. I just nodded my head and smiled, like "You can do it dude; you've got this". It looked like he met my gaze and it was like he just pushed himself through it- picked up his head, pushed it up a notch. It was pretty impressive. Those guys really do give everything they have in those shows. Its one of the reasons I love them so much. Oh, and they do crazy things- like at this one, Darren crowd surfed- standing up! - on his drum. They are just straight up entertaining.

And that my friend, is my story more or less. We went home after that- mom swapping out for me on the road back to NH (thanks mom!) so I could get a bit of rest. We stopped in a sleepy stupor over at McDonald's and had much food and laughter (everything is funny at 3am over French fries). When we got home, it was almost 7am. I crashed and woke up at 1. Ate something, showered and went to work.

Ahh, my life. Tis good.

Most disappointing picture ever? YOU decide!

Lost and found (repost)

Most of you have heard at least something about our recent and infamous hiking trip in the white mountains. Here is the story from my point of view. If others post, I'll edit this and link them up top. Edit: Pictures added.

Leah, Abi, Rachel and myself pause for EVER on this bridge. If memory serves me correct, Leah explained to us that she couldn't pass this bridge because of an enchantment.

Our youth group had planned a short hiking trip for Sunday the 23rd, right after church. We were going to climb the trail for Lonesome lake, an easy 2.7 mile hike that lazily twisted and turned around beautiful rivers and waterfalls. The weather couldn't have been more perfect- with Autumn fast approaching, it was the most warm and sunny day you could ask for. Some of our company had even brought gear to go swimming in.

Some of the ample areas where one could go for a swim. Waterfalls abound in this trail; its quite beautiful.

A friend of my sister's and myself had unexpectedly dropped by our church and to our delighted surprise was even able to go hiking with us. But since she had not come prepared for a hike, so she came as she was: A long skirt and sandals. But its not like we were scaling a mountain vertically, or even hiking Lafayette, so she was fine in what she had.

Our group got started up the hill pretty soon after we landed at the parking lot. Shortly after setting out, our group split into smaller groups based on the pace that people wanted to take up the mountain (as usually happens on hike). I decided to stay with my sister and our friend Rachel for the most part, bringing up the rear at a nice leisurely pace. Mrs. L, Nicole and some others went up faster, and my father and LittleMan were somewhere in between. Ethan, Noah and Jay took the riverbed and quickly made good time ahead of us. We thought.

If you've ever hiked around the basin before, you know that the rivers beds running down the mountain are very wide but the rivers themselves generally only take up a narrow strip of it of the rocky bed, so following the river as a trail is very easy thing to do. Its a beautiful walk.

Part of the river bed. The dry big rocks in the picture goes on for quite awhile behind the camera (its where I was standing).

The hike up the mountain was pretty pleasant for me and my group. 2/3rds up we over took Leah, who was resting contemplatively on one of the big rocks in the stream. She joined our group, and informed us that as per parental orders, we were to turn back by 5:00. Apparently this had been announced shortly after everyone got on the trail, but I had missed it (probably because I was off to the side on the rocks myself at that time). So at 5:00, we turned back, making good time down the hill though stopping for some photo opportunities along the way and arrived back at around 6.


Other little groups followed soon after. It wasn't long before we were waiting for the last group to get back: Ethan, Noah and Jay. We were hoping they would show up soon. By 6:30, we were concerned. Fish and game were alerted and my dad and Mr. L. shot back up the trails calling out for them as they looked. They had decided to turn back at 7:00, because of the diminishing daylight and it was a good call- according to my dad, the latter half of his return hike was to dark for him to make out trail markings reliably. We've hiked this trail at least 5 other times, but even he had to walk back slow to make sure he didn't slip or get off course. Both him and Tim L. returned, neither one finding the kids. Night had fully set in by 7:10- it was dark and chilly.

I spent most of this time waiting in the van, being the "responsible adult" with most of the younger kids. Leah, Nicole and Abi were in the van for a little bit, but soon grew too restless and joined Mrs. L. at the base of the trail. I was in the van for an hour or so, with the awkward charge of staying nearby and trying to make sure the kids' imaginations didn't get the best of them and put them into a panic. I've never really done this before... basically it consisted of us either being quiet for awhile or talking about unrelated things and then, someone would start to say how worried they were and what might happen to them out there on the trail. Then I'd try to offer a calming dismissing of the fear, assuring them that all would be fine and that we had experts on the case: It wasn't a big mountain, they couldn't get THAT far, it wasn't THAT cold, etc. I don't know if I was doing it right or not. It was a bit of a difficult job when the only updates that would come to us would essentially be that there was no update, except for that Mrs. L and Leah were occasionally in tears now.

Around 8:40 I heard my dad's voice coming up to the van. I hoped that he was coming to tell me they had been found, but instead he just moved the vehicle down to the part of the parking lot where the ranger and everyone else was. Mounting tension was palpable... a few people in the group were upset at the ranger for sitting in his vehicle seeming to take forever about things, not realizing he was coordinating the effort, not actually executing it. He was in radio contact with the top of the hut and working out stuff on the map.

After pulling the van up to the closer parking lot, my dad gave me some money and told me to go get everyone something to eat. Even though most were very hungry and more were badly in need of a bathroom break, no one really wanted to leave the site. I can't blame them. Dad got some directions from a ranger on the nearest place to get a bite to eat. The van was loaded up with silent and somber patronage. I drove us out.

To get back south towards civilization, you have to head north for 5 minutes or so till you get to exit 34A where you can turn around and go south. I left the site nervous but very purposeful- I have never navigated this area before, and I had a van full of kids who were already distraught... This was my one charge; to get them to a warm place to sit down and get a bite to eat. It wasn't much, but it was important and I did NOT want to fumble it.

I made the 34A turn around fine and rocketed back south. I passed the basin. Pretty soon, I was coming up with exit 34B. The ranger told me that the closest food was on exit 34, and to stay left. I realized that this had to be 34B, because the other one was going the wrong way. I took the exit, and noticed it too split. The sign said services were to the right...but the ranger told me left. I took it slowly, realizing further with each foot I rolled that I was going BACK 93 North. But I couldn't turn around, I was commited now. I was frustrated with myself- now I had to PASS our groups turn off, hit the turn around AGAIN and come back. Meanwhile there were people who were going to explode if they didn't get to the bathroom and grieving siblings in the back. Great. Good call, Zeke.

I sheepishly explained that I had to loop back AGAIN. One person might have acknowledged me but mostly, it was just quiet. When I hit the loop was when most people realized it- "Weren't we JUST here?" "Yes...."

We did get back to 34B and this time I took the right. We got into civilization- but it was mostly closed breakfast shacks, hotels and lodges. We went a bit of a ways before we got into a little towny strip that had two family restaurants open. We had intended to get food at a fast food joint, as people wanted to get back as soon as possible. But after I passed this strip it began to look like we were quick leaving civilization. I decided that we needed to stop at one of those places, at least to use the bathroom.

We all rushed into a little geek family restaurant and I went up to the counter.

"I need to ask something of you that I know is a really big favor, and if you want me to pay for a drink or something, I will. I have a van full of kids here who desperately need to use the bathroom, is it okay if they use yours?" The lady gave me a smile and said "Go ahead." I thanked her and bought a coffee, while trying to get ahold of my dad to ask him where the Macdonalds he knew of was. I couldn't get ahold of him. It wasn't a big surprise though- everyone's phone was blowing up.

Word had apparently spread very fast. Anders tried to get ahold of me (thinking that our whole party had been lost), and Jay's older brother called me as well. Leah's phone was receiving call after call and even more text messages. I think she actually received 5 messages over the course of a few minute long conversation at one point. Abi's was ringing too.

After how nice they were to us, we decided to have a sit down meal at the greek place after all. I tried to lift the mood a bit, pulling out and treasuring a few reluctant smiles from the group. I contemplated a lot of my mixed feelings over that pizza- I wanted to be strong and comforting to the group... logically, it was a very short trail and I was pretty confident they would be found. The only real concern I had was if someone was injured. But I didn't want to sound like I didn't care about it. I didn't want to run off my mouth about how they would be fine. But I felt like some people might be looking to me, so I wanted to keep things calm. I felt like it made me almost distant sometimes... I wanted to comfort the group, especially Leah who was missing a brother up there. But I didn't know how to. I wanted to embrace them, to give them a hug and tell them it would be allright, but I was afraid of appearing like I was making advances. It frustrated me. All I could do was drive them and take care of the food. Thats it; thats basically all I had. It felt inadequate.

After we finnished, we loaded back into the van and took off. Abi's phone had died from receiving one to many calls from concerned people, but Leah's phone still had a good charge. She talked on it off and on. I could feel the fear and concern in every word. It broke my heart and made me wish I could do something more. I think all of us wished there was something we could do... friends and family called in to ask if they wanted a volunteer search team. Jay's whole family was coming down. Everyone on the prayer chain at our church knew about it and so did most of the homeschool co-op.

In the last stretch of highway towards the basin, I overheard Leah next to me saying into the phone the words that I wanted so badly to be true-

"They found them?"

I held my breath for a second, hoping that those in the back might not have heard it just in case it was a false alarm. But of course they had- it was like everyone's ears were straining to hear those words, and a collective sound of exclamations and questions erupted behind me. It was true. Just as Leah was confirming it, we pulled into the place where we had parked and got out. Details remained sketchy- they found them up the trail, .3 miles out, or they found them off the trail, .3 miles out. How did they get lost? Didn't know yet. Were they okay? Yes- as one rescue worker said "They are more scared of their parents right now then anything else."

They would be coming down into the parking lot on the other side, the rescue workers informed us. After waiting for Jay's family to arrive (which didn't take but a few minutes) we all loaded into the van and went to the exit 34 turn around so we could get to the other side. When we arrived, their was a small crowd. Rescue workers, family and other church members- and the boys. They were all there. Everyone jumped out. I grabbed the pizzas I had got from the greek place (we had ordered more to feed them when they got down) and headed over. They were in good spirits, laughing and joking around with us. Apparently they never got the word to turn back at 5. Not that it mattered- none of them had a watch. Or a cell phone.

They had shot up the trail, following the rocky riverbed. The river split a few times though, and eventually they got further and further away from the trails. They didn't turn back till "right before it got dark" which would be just about 7:00. How fast it got dark caught them by surprise. They had attempted to rejoin the trail several times, thinking they had found it only to see it dead end or loose it in the moonlinght. Each time, they'd back track and follow the riverbed down further, slipping a few times and misstepping in the dim light.

I bounced back and forth between the different ex-lost boys getting as much info as I could and carrying around pizza. Delivering the pizza was probably the best part for me, everyone was really happy to have food, and finally it felt like I was doing something to help.

We had to stick around there for a bit, while the rescue workers got the story nine ways to heaven from each of the kids. We left for home around 10:30, thoroughly enjoying the ride back- talking and laughing with everyone over the night's drama.

A lot of things went wrong for this to happen, and everyone involved in authority is still troubleshooting it. It just seems such a stupid thing to happen to us- Everyone on that trip had been hiking before. The youth group had been up part of those trails once before last month, and my family have been up it a lot- I've probably hiked the basin at least 5 times within the last 4 years.

We'll get everything worked out, and we'll all be better for it. Meanwhile, I have to work on some promotional material for our youth group. Nicole and I had discussed possible ways of spinning this whole thing into a new tagline. After brainstorming with my Brandon, I'm thinking of going with the following one:

New Testament Hikers club:
Looking for direction in your life? Join the club!

This fall: LittleMan IS the rock ninja!

I broke the internet.

Hello everybody.

Heres a small update of whats gone down since the last post. Sorry its taken so long, things have been crazy busy and fun over here.

So, on the 31st I left on the plane (on time- early, even!) and successfully landed and was picked up by 10:22 local time. Much better.

Mrs. F narrated the drive through Kansas as we went. We ended up picking up Nate, which was a blast. He still was wearing one of his awesome hats.

We got to their house and I ate some monkey bread. I go ape over that stuff. *ducks*

I spent alot of time chilling out with Nate in his room. He decided he wanted to show me a game he got called Prey, because of some crazy multi-dimensional mind bending physics engine stuff. He had recently rebuilt his computer, so he had to reinstall it. At this point, he found out he had misplaced his key. And his manual. "I just cleaned up my room..." his voice trailed off for a second. "Oh man, I hope I didn't throw it away."

Long story short, since he couldn't find it I decided to see if I could find it first online, and when that didn't work, I decided to port scan to see if I could find any hidden FTP servers that might have a key.

That, put simply, was a horrible idea. You see, port scanning is basically where, instead of using a search engine or typing in a website URL, you simply start at one part of the internet and start looking door to door till you find something. Its fun. You can find websites at random, or other things like file sites that aren't availible normally. You can find all sorts of weird network devices. You can find print servers from Itally (my friend did once). A friend of mine got me hooked on it for awhile, and we would share our findings every now and then.

Well, we told Mr. F what we were doing thinking he'd get a kick out of it and he got really upset. "DON'T PORT SCAN ON MY NETWORK! I don't want the liability..." and about that time, the scanner stopped working. And so did all of our connections outside to the internet. The whole house had lost the network. And he used IP Telephony, so... the phone died too. Yeah, smooth move Zeke. Way to make an entrance. Either we had got ourselves shut down for port scanning, (I guess it was against their Terms of service?) or we triggered hit something that freaked out the cable modem. I felt so bad.

Eventually Mr. F had to go to the Road Runner (Their ISP's) office and have them reset it. Talk about a comedy of errors...

So that was a bad start, BUT! It honestly got better... That night Mr. F himself even bought me a "George's Carmel Blast" at the coffee house half his family works at, Harbor Lights. It was really really good. Legend has it, that a guy named George would always come asking for a Carmel Macchiato with extra extra carmel. The guy REALLY liked carmel. Finally Tim started experimenting with his drink, finally stumbling upon glazing the inside of the cop with carmel, then doing the rest and putting whipped-creme and carmel drizzle on top. Word got around, and when they redid the signs, they put it up as "George's Carmel blast". Man, I want a drink named after me! So cool...

I am a day or two behind at this point in posting, but instead of sit on this post for another day, I'm going to let it go. I'm off to the wedding rehearsal now...

The all star of gate D3

Its amazing how quickly you get used to things.

Yesterday at 9 I was confused and frustrated about staying the night. By midnight I felt like I knew the airport almost completly.

I knew where the outlets were. I knew where all the internet stations were- the one that the well intentioned but mislead Continental staff told me didn't exist. I knew where the tunnels and moving sidewalks were. I knew the bathroom system. I even had a favorite urinal that I considered mine... (Thats really where I got a bit concerned that perhaps I had grown TOO comfortable...)

At first, I sat by an outlett to charge my PDA and batteries. I listened to Illinois by Sufjan Stevens and watched the airport staff scury outside through the window. I kept thinking how cool it was the way all those people and specialzed vehices were working together. I wish Abe was there to see it too- he would have loved it.

Sleeping was not so easy. I tried several things, finally slouching over in a phone booth. A guy on a cleaning machine passed me a couple times. Then one time I saw him pass me- then back up. He called once. I ignored him- I was afraid he was going to tell me I couldn't sleep here. He called a second time. I looked up groggily, doing the "who, me?" gesture. He asked if I was staying the night. I told him I was. He said "Let me see if I can get you a cot." and sped off. I was ever so thankful.

Long story short, he wasn't able to find one in this half of the airport. But he assured me there was some through the tunnel. I thanked him and ran off- by this point I allready had a pretty good grasp of the geography of the Airport- which, if you know me is pretty suprising.

The only one I found was behind a continental service desk. After passing it a few times looking for others, I finally bit the bullet and jumped the gate to retreive it. Okay, so the gate was open. I took it back set it up by gate D3.

That actually helped only mildly, since, well..... Its a cot. My arms didn't know where to go and proved a perpetual problem. But I did get some sleep- dont ask how much, I have no idea.

I went over today to a place that said it served- PROUDLY served- Phoneix Cofee. I had taken Brad's wisdom of getting cofee while here to heart. I decided it had to be local. I got a mocha phoneix something something. It was flipp'n GOOD. I could taste the chololate, yes- but the coffee was certainly there, strong and not acidic. Just how I liked it. I got a breakfast sandwhich there as well. The people behind the counter were the nicest people I've met in any store in awhile. But everyone sees nice here.

Okay, over my time again.

Everyone, thanks for the comments. It made logging on worth while. Anon, MHT is Manchester Airport. Oh, I see someone said this already. Quick, you are. Hannah- you crackedme up with the Kevin Max thing. You do realize he's getting on nowadays, right? In years and in girth? ;)

Later e'ry body.

dot dot dot

So... for those of you who didn't know, I'm going to see my friend get married in KS this week.

Well. I won't pontificate around the bush, because I am on a airport computer and being charged by the minute. I am stranded in Cleavland. I'll update more later perhaps, but here is a brief recap of today:

Got up at 8:00ish.

Ate, hung out with Mo and then Jen.

Packed.

Washed nice wedding clothes.

Packed.

Packed.

(So far so good)

Learned something about a friend of mine that made me very sad and a bit angry.

Got to MHT with my sister. Aparently- the time on the e-ticket is the time the plane LEAVES. Not the time you BOARD... I think I knew that but...still. Missed 2:10 flight. Got resheduled to the 6:00 o'clock flight.

Called mom. Told her that we needed to call my friend's mom so we could tell her not to pick me up. She kept looking for the number then said someting like "oh! Grandma Streeter fell and broke her-" *pause* "I gotta go, I'll call you back."

Then-

My sister got a call. One of my cousin's friend has been missing for over 24 hours.

Then we finally got ahold of Mum. She says she is having trouble finding the number. Grandma fell and broke her arm.

Oh, and Chris- our OTHER cousin- was hit by a drunk driver. Head on.

Miracuously, he's alive. I am not sure, but I think the girl is too...

So. That was a sort of sucky few hours.

Then our plane got held in the air for like, 25+ minutes because of the weather and volume of traffic.

But hey! This is some adventure. I've stopped reeling enough now to laugh at the bizarre amount of stress that just landed on me. Funny stuff.

Despite all this, I still can't wait to go and see my friend and his bride get maried.

Later er'y body.

World view

Hey everyone, I'm off to World View academy. Should be fun- I'll be sentient enough to talk sometime saturday morningish. Until then, here, have some random pictures!


Here is us setting up ourselves to leave from the Kittery Trading post.... last minute checks, etc.




dX getting trying to fight insanity from the bugs while I tell him to stop so I can take a picture...


This is about where I discovered my wheel wasn't in that hott of shape...


Some mandatory down time, courtesy of dX's ankle...

Proof that we did indeed go Kayaking... (M. Fam, you are seriously the best!)

"Four Winds", the RV we stayed in...
(The camera is weird and distorted the image; it wasn't really bent like that...)

...aaand last but not least, dX (who henceforth wants to be called "ghost") sitting in the front seat of CJ's car shortly before deciding to chuck the directions.

Thats all folks, have a good week!

Night 4 and day 5- Concert and church

Greetings everyone, from Londondenderry NH! The trip is complete; we have returned to our respective drop off points and I for one miss it allready.

I posted Day 4 a bit early since I didn't know what was going to happen that night. Well, enough happend to warrant disclosure on this here blog. Note: I still don't have my USB cable, so I will have to upload pictures later. Possibly tonight, when I can put my SD card into my Dad's camera.

Shortly after posting the last blog, dX got off of the phone with his friend CJ. He said CJ was going to a show in Epping, and he could take us. Epping... we drove through there on the first day of our trip! Since biking was out of the question, the hudson home was kind enough to let us leave our bikes with them and pick them up later.

After waiting a long long time, CJ finally found us and picked us up. We threw our packs in the back seat and drove off... CJ and dX go back along way and were talking about the old days while I sorta chilled in the back seat. It was funny just to listen to their conversation. Eventually dX told CJ to take a left at exit seven, meaning to take a left after pulling off the highway. But CJ interperted it as "exit 7 will be on the left". So we missed that road. He decided to get off on the next exit, but it wasn't the right highway. They puzzled over the map just a bit and then CJ looked at dX and said

"Dude, do you want to find this the like we used to back in the day?"
"I'm game."

With that, CJ took the directions and crumpled them up into a ball, then threw them into the backseat.

"You must swear to not open and offer advice from those directions."

"Upon my honor." I replied.

We pulled out in the general direction of the concert laughing and having a good time, deciding that getting unlost could be just as much fun as the concert, but actually we found it very fast. We had pulled over to get gas and CJ chanced to ask where the venue was. The girl gave him a weird look and pointed out the window and said "Right across the street." We got there in time to still see 3 or 4 opening bands, though one of the bands that CJ had freinds in had allready played.

I was going to try and describe what the concert was like, but it was so huge, I think I will save it for another post. I'll just go into a little detail this time:

Okay, the music. I will be honest- Hardcore can be somewhat of an aquried taste, and even for me, I am not always in the mood for it. Its got alot of energy though and there really is alot of talent to be heard in it. The first band that played was "Our last night". They were a 5 peice band- drummer, guitarist, a singer who I think played guitar as well, a screamer and bass player. The unusual thing was that the screamer was 13. But he was incredible.

Trevor, the lead screamer of Our Last Night, in all his adolesent glory

He was having so much fun, jumping around, interacting with the crowd- the band was AWESOME. He got the crowd going, too. The other band that I thought was really good was Sparks the Rescue- they had two guitarists and a bass player and an amazing drummer. They played what I've heard reffered to as "fantasy guitar" though I'm not sure if that is the proper name- its the kind of almost cheesy sounding guitar sound used alot in the 80s. But it really sounds cool with these guys, and they are REALLY REALLY tallented. They kept doing call and answer stuff back and forth with the guitars really fast- playing a riff partly on one guitar, then on the other, then back on the first one all within a second or two, then playing the chords together in perferct sync- very technical and really impressive sounding. They did this all while jumping around and dancing all over the stage, just short of hitting eachother. I'm not sure if this does the music justice, I suppose you just would have to be there.

The dancing was inSANE.... but I will leave that and my analyztion of it for another post.

After the show we went back to CJ's house in Wilton and crashed there. His room was so crowded with music stuff- guitars, drum kits and cymbol peices everywhere, a keyboard, a piano, sheet music- it was ridiculous. The room was small too- there were two futons, but both were full of stuff. They basically just started grabbing stuff off of it and throwing it in corners and under the beds- wherever they would fit. I got the floor, but I had to twist my self into unatural shapes even to fit on that. It was cool though.

The next morning was Sunday, and we went to dX's old church. He suprised alot of people by showing up, and it was neat to see so many people thrilled to see him. He caught up with alot of people briefly and then we left since CJ had to drive us back to Hudson to pick up our bikes before he went to work. We had accepted an offer for Lunch at someone's hosue in Merrimack but we called back to cancel since it would have meant putting at least 20 more miles into our trip and by this time we were needing to get home.

We arrived back in Hudson got our bikes out, thanked the family again for their awesomeness, and headed off. We made good time, though we got sore quicker then usual and took a breather. I had a peice of jerky and a crumbled poptart, but it occured to me that dX hadn't had any breakfast at all. He was feeling it I think. We got back on our bikes though, and I even pushed mine to 25 to say that I did it.

Somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00 we rolled back into our home turf and let oursleves in. It was a good feeling, though no one else was back from Church yet.

So thats it- the trip is over! It was alot of fun and yet it seemed shorter then expected. We learned alot. The tone of the trip was totally different then we had thought orginally. At first, we thought there was going to be alot more camping, but it turned out to feel only like a bike trip when we were on the road- we had so much fun with everyone at our host homes that when we were off the road it only felt like hanging out with our friends- which is fine, I assure you. dX kept mentioning how amazed he was at how nice all my friends were that we stopped at.

Though sometimes it seemed taxing while we were on the trip, we know we didn't ride nearly as much as we could have. Next time I do this I plan on doing something bigger.

All in all, we traveled 99.6 miles or so according to my calculations. I might as well say that we biked 100 because I'm sure some of the unrecorded stuff totals .4 miles easy.

100 miles in 4.5 days. Not bad at all. But it has only wet my appetite- I know I can do more. I mean, we didn't even get to make our smores or light a fire outside for crying out loud- we went house to house so quick there was no camping needed. Next time I think, I want to use the tent or loose the tent- poor dX carried that and a blanket- I only carried a blanket- that we ended up never using. We ate the ramen only at our host homes. Same with the hersheys. It was really fun, but in retrospect it seems a pity we packed that much stuff we didn't need. Of course, on a longer trip with out such cool friends we would need it... but I am rambling. In the end, it was an amazing experience and I got to have fun not only with dX but with everyone that I hung out with- I really feel blessed that I got to get to know so many awesome people better.

To everyone who helped us out on the trip: Thank you so much!! You made our trip go waaayyy better then either of us planned for. You were all so wonderfully nice, and I think I got to know all of you better. Sharing your home with someone you know for a day is awesome enough, but sharing it for two vegabonds is incredible. I dedicate this trip (is that possible?) to you guys.

Until next post everyone... thanks for reading.

Day 4- Best coffee EVER

Greetings all- this is an early post for me, as the day isn't really over yet and I'm still in Hudson. But I don't know exactly when I will get to a computer next, so I figured it would be good to post the happenings of the day here.

Last night we slept in an awesome camper- very very comfortable. The family was going to a party from 11 to 1ish, but they said if we wanted to come back after that we could go Kayaking (sp?) with them in a local pond. We of course, agreed to the arrangment.

Before we went down to the water though, we had some time to kill. So we decided to head over to Nashua to check out some trails that our hosts told us about. After making a short stop at Showtime computers, we ended up at Mines Falls. It was pretty neat- a few nice wide easy going trails and alot of water. After that we decided to just sort of chill and talk by the river for a while.

Then came one of the coolest discoveries to come out of this trip: Riverwalk Cakery & Coffee House. They are in Nashua- 35 Railroad Square, to be exact. dX saw the words coffee shop and he suggested we check it out. I was game, so we locked up our bikes and went in.

The second we got through the doors, everything screamed CLASS at us. The colors, the chairs and tables- imported, the lot of it as we later learned, from all across Europe. dX got a chia latte and I got a Irish cream iced latte. The coffee was unbelivable. It was strong, but not acidic. It was bloody perfect- the only words I can think of to describe it. I also got a expresso brownie and we sat down and talked for a bit in the shop. I noticed that it had its own blends, and that there was a large obscure and expensive looking machine in the far end of the room. I asked him about it-

"Oh, that is the roasting machine."

So yeah- he roasts his own coffee. This got me interested, and I started talking with the owner who was the only person on staff at that hour. The shop has been here only 5 months and he says he allready has regulars. Its not hard to see why- he knows coffee. He buys his own beans still 'green'-and he buys them straight from importers he knows in New York and Boston. He makes his own blends by knowing the crop they came from and using different beans to counteract eachothers weaknesses and compliment their strength. He's from Germany and hes awesome. I now know an awesome place to go for coffee- and if I ever have to impress some girl by buying a 5 dollar 59 cent peice of cake I know where to do that to.

After that we went Kayaking- wow, sooo much fun. It was dX, Lyndsi and I in occean Kayak vessels across the lake. When dX heard that they we could go Kayaking he said "dude, you'll love it. Kayaks are like the moter cycles of cannoes." Boy, we he right. We went so much faster then in our big cannoe and we had a ton of fun- though apparently biking endurance does nothing for the upper body strength it takes to Kayak. Lyndsi pWnd! us- and she said she only went once, bah! All in all it was a great day.

Right now I am waiting for dX to see if he has enough money to cover us going to a show. If he does, were going to the show then going home. If not, we'll just be going home.

I'd post some pictures of the mobile homes and of the Kayaks but sadly I seemed to have misplace my USB cable.

Well, thank you all for reading. Have a great one!

Day 3- Just chillaxin

Greetings from Hudson everybody!

We woke up today around 9:00. When I got out of the couch I was sleeping on I went over to the room dX had crashed at.

"Dude-" he said, "we have a problem."

The problem was his ankle. He had hurt it last night while flipping off of his bike, but it didn't look like it was going to be that big of a deal. When he woke up on it though, he could barely limp with it.

This, to say the least, complicated our plans- eventually we decided to get some ice on it, and he wanted to rap it in a bandage- but oh wait! The bandages we bought were in his backpack. Where was his backpack? In Jakes car. Well thats fine, but- wheres Jakes car? Not at his home. You see, dX had left his pack in the trunk of the car, which should have been fine- but as it turned out, the van one of the family members was using broke down, so they had to use his car. And that put us with out bandages.

So, after a little bit of griping and a lot of good strong coffee (they make the best coffee over there, seriously) I biked off to shaws, which was really just a stones throw away from the house I was at. I got an Ace bandage there for a ridiculous 5 dollars and 59 cents. Talk about a rip off...

Anyway, we got back and he applied it to his poor aching foot. By this time it was probably 11 or so. He could barely walk on it still, but I was trying to convice him that biking would be different. Renee said that she thought it wouldn't be good to work much on it. There was a slight back and forth, but we did in the end relent to chilling out there for a bit. dX could still work on computers, and thats what he did:

This picture very much sums up the tone of the day. We chilled, we watched some videos, we talked. And thanks be to Renee and their family for letting us- we don't know what we would have done otherwise. Thanks again guys for your generosity and everything, your flipping amazing!

About 3ish or so, dX was walking around on his foot LIGHTLY. I had convinced him to try riding his bike earlier to see what it was like, and he concluded that it was possible and as I suspected, it was actually better then walking. So at 3 or so in the afternoon, we decide to try and visit some of his friends in the area. We found out Renee had a bike, so she got to come too since it was so close. We headed up the road about a mile or 2 really fast since dX and I were not wearing those huge backpacks we were used to. Renee was actually keeping up pretty well. We got to the place where we suprised a few of dX's old friends and then we decided to move on for a good trip down memory lane. After catching her breath and downing some water, Renee went all hardcore and said she was down with it too. We biked over to dX's old house, all the way to amherst where we stopped at a cafe for food. It was really nice, and I played a pretty evenly matched game of checkers with Renee (but I won in the end). Then we biked back- About 20 miles in all.

When we got back, it was allready 5ish. We were trying to figure out what our next move was... we wanted to camp, but we didn't know what place we could camp at that was near enough. In the end, we decided to stay over at our lovely stop at Hudson- as it turned out, we were just 10 miles out anyway. We biked down through Nashua, only stopping once- there was a concert going on in some park for free. The musicans playing were all in their middle to late ages, but they were playing some funky music and they were good. dX and I stayed there for just as much as we could afford, then we got back riding. We arrived at our new destination at about 7.

This host home is awesome- They gave us cold cuts to go along with our ramen, they gave us icecream, and we've got to just talk with them and have a ball. They are into everything cool here... I don't know how specific I can get with names and things since it is 1:26 and they are all in bed. I got to watch The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe with two people who haven't seen it yet. It was an interesting experience- they watched movies with captions on, and I actually got little bits of dialouge and background chatter that I never quite got before.

Well, thats about it for me- I am devilish sleepy and I must be off to bed. Today was pretty much just a chill, relaxing day. We, once again, don't really have tomarrow very much planned out but I'm sure it will be great.

Till next post- farewell.

Day 2- Blowouts and bruises

Greetings friends and fiends, from lovely East merrimack!

We got up today at Mr. and Mrs. C's home welcomed by the smell of blueberry pancakses, ham and coffee. Thanks again, Mrs. C!

dX packing up at Mrs. C's house- beginning of day 1

I read more of "Out of the silent Planet" and ended up calling the bike shop in Derry to make sure they would be there- a good thing, as "the number you have dialed is not in service at this time". We talked it over very briefly, and Mrs. C gave us the number to a place she recomended on Kelly st- Jakes Bike shop, 25 miles away. We took off at about 9 o'clock.

It was tough going with the wheel- even though I had unlatched the rear brakes, it was still lightly touching the side once every revolution. We were on our way to route 28, but we only got about 4 miles out:


I was riding down a slight hill when suddenly there was a loud bang- for a split second I wondered what it was, then for a split second I thought I blew out the tire and should try to slowdown, and the last few second I felt myself riding increasingly on the rim. But suprisingly, I didn't loose control. I yelled up ahead at dX "BLOWOUT, MAN BLOOWOUT!!!" It took him a little while to get the idea and slow down, but in the end I pulled over and we took a look. On the plus side, I didn't have to use my bike kit to to take the tire off or the innertube out- I don't know how it stayed on the wheel at all. When I pulled over, they were off.

We ponder our prediciment. The verdict is unanamouse: cRaZy!

We discussed shortly putting on my spare and inflating it, but we decided rather quickly that it was crazy-talk. The wheel was in BAD shape- I knew that, and putting another one would be tirecide (you know like homocide...). So we went up to a nearby house and bummed a phone to call Mrs. C with. Thankfully, she had offered to pick us up in the case of an emergency. We sat around and wait for a while. I read more of my book.

Eventually Mrs. C came to the rescue and after taking the wheels off our vehicles, we put it into her minivan. She took us to the Jakes shop, which is now one of my favorite bike places- the guy there was really nice and knew what he was talking about.



It was in bad shape- spokes that were stripped, spokes that were broken- it was a bloody mess. In the end I had to replace the wheel, the innertube AND the tire- for the tire had a gash in it from the blow out as well. All in all I dropped $75 on it- alot of money, yes- but actually a VERY good deal.

From there, we biked to our first real destination of the day: Barns and nobooks.

I would tell you how many miles it was, but I sort of broke my bike computer- I sent it back into configure mode and I don't have the instructions that tell the computer what wheel size I have. Anyway, we got to the store early so I read the rest (more or less) and met up with my group. It was great to see the people again, though of course Brad and Kiaya were missing, which was too bad. :(

After the book meeting was over, me and dX were pretty much playing it by ear. We had the vauge notion of entering Merrimack because we knew several people there- we just couldn't get ahold of any of them. But we headed out anyway, having to back track a couple miles to hit the right rode, and the storm started coming up. We put on our ponchos this time, but the wind was much worse then the rain- and pedalling against it wasn't as bad, probably, as the stupid flapping sound it made right in your ear. Also, dX almost got ran over by an absent minded moterist. But at least we were mostly dry.

Eventually we got on route 3. dX wanted to pull over at a dunkin d. You see, he's been away so long in Kansas (Where allegedly there is only 1 dunkin donuts and its an 1 hr 45 minutes away at that) that whenever he sees a Dunkin Donuts, he gets impullsive. We pulled in, I situated my backpack differently (the straps are killing me) and we went inside for a second. dX goes up to the counter and comes back a minute later. Dramatically, he throws a box of a dozen donuts down upon the table with a loud thud. I look up at him-

"Dude..."

"I hope you don't have anything against maple or choclate."

With this he flips open the lid- the box is split evenlyh between the two flavours, six each.

All I can think is that there is no way we can eat this many donuts quickly and not get cramps while riding. I had maybe 3, I think he had 5. We gave one to a person I knew from co-op that happend to walk in and we squished the rest into my backpack while dX made some calls on a payphone. When I had got my backpack back on (a difficult and painful ordeal) I went out to meet him again. He was smiling "Dude, I talked to Jake and Renee- they can meet us at the library in about half an hour. Lets get going!"

We started back up. It was tiring work- the weight of the packpack was heavy and it seemed to bounce up and down more then usual, which really irritated me because it made the pain in my arms more noticable. We climbed two large hills- they were murder. Finally we came upon the library, and for some reasons we had beat our companions there, which gave me a chance to get online and work on the blog a bit. It was really open there and nice- just give the receptionist your first name and BAM!! full xp box with adminstrative rights- even a USB port! Very nice indeed.

Jake and Renee made it but we we were talking too loud for the library, so they took us down to this place called King Cone. We each got a small, which was huge- more then I could eat before it melted and made a mess of me.

Renee and Jake in waiting in line at the King Cone

After hanging out there for a good 45 minutes, they drove us back to our bikes and took our packs with them to their house. With all that weight off of us, we flew down to their home in double time- it felt really really great. And thats where we are now.

Tim and I are having a blast over here- and to pay to pay for it we've been trying to work on their PCs and cook them Ramen. I got one of there boxes in substantially better shape then when I found it, and I unloaded 4 packs of the ramen here for part of our meal. I'm excited because that means my backpack will be that much less bulky. Rock rock on!!

Tomarrow, we don't have totally planned out. We are basically a day or two ahead of schedule and a little bit off of the planned route. We will probably bum around Milford for tomarrow, visiting a bunch of dX's old friends and hang outs. Should be a nice easy going day I think maybe. Then perhaps tomarrow we can find a place to actually "camp out" at and use some of this ramen and alcholioc fire starter!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and comments they really are apprecited.

Mrs. C: Thank you so much for the emergency services and hospitality. dX was really blown away by the pampering we got there; it made his day.
Lyndsi: Oi, it is looking like possibly saturday for your place. Hopefully I can call you tomarrow to let you know for sure- it might change. Don't know how much time we will take with Milford, and Hudson is a large journey and we have two days left.
Mum: Thanks for the ponchos, they work pretty good when applied to the body. Who would have thunk it?
To ladyofnarnia: Thanks so much for letting me take the book so I could read it. You rock.
Jake and Rennee- dude you people are awesome. Thanks for everything! And Renee, sorry about not getting all of your face in that picture.
Bander: Dude, sorry I didn't come over today. It just didn't work out- our plans were shifting all over the place and it would have meant backtracking and loosing preacious time. Sorry though!
Kiaya: Thank you for trying to solve our weather problem. Actually, it might be working. Today didn't rain much at all, and when it did, it only rained breifly. Whatever you did over there seemed to mess with the forcast, so keep it up next time you see rain in our future.

More tomarrow, guys! Thanks for reading.


Update: dX flipped/flew/jumped off of his bike last night (end of day 2), and hurt his ankle. Apparently worse then I thought- he sort of limps with it now and its in to much pain to walk on much. We've got ice on it but dX's backpack is in a car that got taken to work unexpectedly since another vehicle died.... so the bandages aren't here. I'll be biking down to shaws for some emergency supplies. We'll try to fix him up here and see what he can do. Okay, that will be all- as you were.

Day 1

Update: Library found, pictures fixed. :)

More at eleven.

"It would rain, wouldn't it?"

Hello, it is I and dX here- reporting live from Fremont at host home 1. To get a few things out of the way: Yes, were not dead and yes we are dry (it took a while though). Also, for those of you trying to get ahold of us via dX's cell- don't. We'll call you, somehow. The phone situation is that we don't have one, basically- only for fire or medical emrgencies. Which is nice. And lastly- ignore the dates on the pictures below. The camera has amnesia.

Okay- I think a picture is in order to start this post off proper: here is us, just heading out from the Kittery Trading post:

You know, looking at this picture, it looks like its a nice day in Maine. That goes to show you just how crummy my camera is. Or perhaps, it means that this was taken during a break in the storm- we had a few of those that gave us false hope our journey would be a boring one. But don't worry; it wasn't.

Shortly after this was taken, we began on route 1 heading south. This was really fun- we were going about 16 to 18 miles an hour over a road that was just shy of an interstate, with water spraying up in our face and everywhere else. We were totally soaked within 5 minutes, and I mean TOTALLY soaked. But we weren't bummed- we were almost giddy even-we finally had left. We made great speed to Portsmouth and went on to fnd the next turn we needed to make. I was happy; we hadn't become lost yet.

Somewhere along route 33, we were going up a hill and we one of those awesome red bull trucks went past us. Just as dX started to mutter a "sweet" it started slowing down and pulling over in front of us.

"What?"

"Dude" we both said at the same time. The vehicle stopped and the doors opened. Out of them came bounding some young woman.

"Where you guys headed?" one of them asked.

"Towards newfields- trying to hit some trails up there"

"You guys camping or something?"

"Nah, were doing this bike thing- four days, starting today in Kittery, going around the state.

"Dude, you guys are ANIMALS!"

Me and dX smiled. It was a compliment of the obsucure variety- but we enjoyed it.

"Well how about we give you guys some red bulls for the ride out?"

We responded with exclamations that of "sure", "thank you", "sweet", "heck yes!" or some such. They sped off and our morale was boosted. Now dX doesn't have a water bottle mount, but I do. It was being used though, and I hadn't enough room in my backpack to take it out. So we started off chugging half the red bull cans at first, then we got back on our way down 33 driving with one hand and drinking with the other. Hmm... maybe I should have brought the tiki mug, Brad.

The trip went on pretty well and uneventful for a while. I have so far been pleasently suprised with my navigation skills- I am not geographically inclined like my father, and when traveling at high way speeds or in a moter vehicle for that matter, I tend to have to turn around and miss roads twice and some such nonsence. But I didn't lead us wrong at all today, for which I am stupidly proud. Because, eventually, it wasn't easy.

You see, I had a map of my estimated route that I printed off. I put it in my pocket for safekeeping and quicktaking. Dad wanted me to spray it with some waterproofing material or something like that- but COME ON dad, it will be in my pocket- how could it get wet there?

Well I'll tell you how it can get wet there- very very easily when its raining and the tires are spitting up water into your face, lap and everywhere else. So the map slowly became unusable- I took it out a few times on the way to and in portsmouth, but each time I realized that it was getting in worse condition. By the time we really started to need it, I could tell it was falling apart. Eventually, the papers resembled a large wad of cheap gum that has been chewed for 5 hours to long. From there, I had to go by memory of what I knew while planning out the trip and by verification of passers-by. It actually worked out very well. Everyone was really nice.

Okay, back to the main story. We got on a bike trail that goes all the way from newfields to Manchester. Its pretty impressive- mostly well packed dirty gravel- almost like a highway for bikes, I commented. We rode that thing at about 16 miles an hour sometimes, just about the same as we would a road.

These pictures are of us stopping for a little jerky and water break. Good stuff.

So this road was impressive, but we had to get to fremont, and my plan was to follow another trail that goes down a good ten miles or so from this one into the general area of fremont.

Thats where stuff started getting interesting:

Again, the camera is really not doing reality justice here. Everythings over exposed- let me fill in for you what the camera can't. You see those puddles of muddy water? Thats all there is for several miles- I'd say probably 4 at least, but I was to busy swatting flies and trying not to fall in to count them. This was easily the worst part of this day- we started off by riding through them but I stopped trying that when I sank almost up to the top of my wheels and almost fell in head first. It was like quick-sand mud in some places. We had to get off our bikes and walk around 4 our of 5 of the holes. There was also some rough terrain around here; when I got back on the road I eventually noticed my wheel was out of true- in other words, it was bent up.

Not much else to report of the trip that would be too exciting to you: we stopped at a school for another breather:

I got a rock out of my shoe there. That was good.

And then we finally made it to our host home! Mr and Mrs. C are so cool; they gave us an awesome homeade meal that filled us up much better then beef jerky, they let us have showers and they let us exist in an air conditioned house, all while making us laugh. Thank you!

Tomarrow we go for manchester, but we make a little detour through Derry to get my wheel taken care of. You see, I tried to true it but I made it worse- as usual. And its bent up bad- keeps hitting the breaks, and you can even see visibly where the wheel is bent just by looking at it. Soo... how am I going to get there? Well, on my bike of course. The work around I finally settled on was to unhook my rear brakes. Now before you all freak out, don't worry don't worry- I stop mostly with my front brakes anyway- my rears had some trouble to begin with. And actually not having rear brakes is no where as dangerous as my rear wheel anyway, so don't worry. But if you do want to pray for our saftey, as I know there are alot of awesome people who are reading this that do, pray specifically that my wheel does not collapse and that it does not cause me to break my axle. I'll be babying it the whole way to the shop, so I don't see why it should but its still a kind of big deal. I've never seen what its like to drive a wheel to destruction; on the one hand I'm curious what it would look like and on the other hand I'm really not wanting to find out just yet.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a book to read for tomarrow's lit class- if all goes as planned, I should still show up via bike.

Till the next entry,

---Us

The journey begins

Chances are, by the time you read this dX and I will have left for the beginning of our trip. Yes, that's right- for the few of you who didn't know, we did not get to leave Monday as expected.

This was probably better though, as we got to have more time for packing and bike tuning, etc.

And boy, did we need it- check it out:



We ended up leaving a little bit of the stuff we bought behind- we only took something like 18 packs of ramen instead of the whole 24. For shame- thats 78 cents just wasted! But you should see the ramen I have managed to cram into that pack already- I have practically created a super structure for the pack by bracing it horizontally and vertically, using exclusively ramen noodles. We also have a lot of jerky and these other preserved tasty meat products.

Oh, and somewhat impulsively, we decided to get smore supplies... we were walking down the aisle and saw the marshmallows and hersheys and sort of made a dash for it- reason be darned.
I don't know how it will work out, but I tried to pack the breakable stuff- pop tarts and gram crackers- surrounded by marshmallows. My idea is that it serve as a sort of edible shock absorber. We shall see.

Speaking of impulse buys, I also got a bike computer! It was only 8 bucks at walmart but it was so cool- has a speedometer and a odometer function, as well as some other stuff. We also decided to kill two birds with one stone- instead of getting kindling or lighter fluid, we just got an extra big pack of isobrupo-something... thats nasty stuff you put into your cuts to clean them. Its 91 percent alcohol, so it should serve as fire starter just fine. Actually, its already been tested. Trust me- it works like a charm. ;)

I know its hard to tell from this picture, but this backpack is totally crammed:

...and I haven't even been able to fit my Bible in there. I know the blanket can go on the outside, but I'll have to see what I can do about getting a pocket Bible for the trip... I dunno. Really wanted to bring one.

Oh, and here is our method of contact with the outside world:

Great, eh? Except this bring us to our mandatory "last-minute-crisis"- we left the charger in Fitchburg, MA. So yeah, hopefully we shall pick one up early in the first leg of the trip.

Well thats it for now... like I said, by the time you read this we should on our way!

See you on the road everybody!

(dX performs an unsolicited display of pyro-technics at an undisclosed location while bored last night)