decompressing

i've waited long enough to check in so i can avoid talking all sappy like, about how sad it was to say goodbye to bliss, and how weird if felt to not have theshow pop up on monday.

it's been four days since returning home. my trip was uneventful. i flew on virtually empty planes. i got home in four hours. too good to be true, right?

a strange thing DID happen while i was away; someone stole the front license plate off my volv'. weird.

with all said and done, i still feel a sense of awe surrounding this adventure.

"the dance" was one of my favorite moments from the weekend.



thanks to RachelC for the group pic from Saturday night.



to view more pictures of our trip to NYC and other sportsracer meetups from all over, check out the little duckies flickr pool.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/littleduckies/pool/

homeward bound

have you seen the movie, "planes, trains, and automobiles"? if so, you can imagine how my trip home turned out. it took me about 31 hours to get from jfk back to my home in santa barbara, and on the final leg of the trip, just when i thought i was home free, the alternator on my amtrak train shit the bed about 40 minutes outside of santa barbara. the rescue train was slated to arrive by noon, but that train also shit the bed, just about 30 minutes before reaching the train i was on. i ended up sitting in an unmoving train for 5 hours. while others in my car were drunk and rioting, i was numb from the voyage, and just sat staring blankly ahead at the seat in front of me. i had not eaten real food in over a day, nor had i brushed my teeth. my hair was greasy, my body was smelly, and i just wanted to get home.

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i got home around 3pm. i don't think i'm ever going to leave again.

viva las blahblahblah

1:12 am.
vegas.
i've written a haiku for you:

3:19 am
departure for san luis
obispo. i'm tired.

i have a video of me being tired, but i'm too tired to find the uplink cable and post it.

i was originally going to drive 5 hours to sb, but that was before my flight to SLO was delayed by 3+ hours. i originally had an 11 pm ish flight from vegas to SLO, which would put me into SLO at 1:14 am. the airport would close shortly after that, and i would have nowhere to go while i waited for the 6 am train or the rental car places to open. as of now, i will get into SLO a bit before 5 am, which means the airport will remain open (i think), and i can chill there while i figure out how to finish my voyage.

the whole time i was in nyc, i kept talking about how life is all about the voyage, and not the destination, but shit. . . right about now i would REALLY like it to be about the destination. i'm exhausted, none of the food places in the airport are open, and my meals over the last 24 hours were as follows:

3/4 of a can of ginger ale
1/2 of a red gatorade (confiscated at security before i could finish it)
20 oz orange ka-boom smoothie
large mcdonald's french fries
1/2 of a diet coke

i've never wanted to be back in santa barbara so badly.

john f schmennedy

hi. if you watched the last video then you know that i missed my flight out of new york due to a gnarly case of food poisoning. i love that the ONE TIME i decide to eat semi-fancy food in nyc i get sick. ugh. i should have stuck to bagels and pizza.

anyhow, i am now sitting in a cove at jfk waiting for 4pm to come around so that i can check-in as a stand-by on an 8pm flight to vegas. if i make it to vegas, i am confirmed on a flight to san luis obispo. from san luis obispo i will rent a car and drive back to santa barbara. exhausting. i was one of the only sportsracers to make it to nyc without any hitches, and now i'm probably one of the only ones who can't leave. i think this might be a sign.

emily just got on her flight back to maine (lucky duck), so at least one half of us is going to make it home as scheduled. i cried when i got into my cab and drove away. it was sad. i miss my mainer friend already. this whole weekend was amazing. i want to extend a huge thank you to our donors, our hosts, our new friends, and every person in nyc except the one who gave me food poisoning.

parting is such great sorrow

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deep in the tube

ahhh. . . the nyc subway. as emily is a pirate, and only enjoys navigating the opens seas, i (the landlubber) have been serving as our designated map reader and route planner. the only tricky things about this arrangement are that (1) i have no innate sense of direction, and (2) mastery of the nyc subway system apparently requires a pHd.

we spent our first 2 nights off of the one line in the upper west side. we were managing pretty well until the night of the brooklyn party when we had to leave our little one line and hop onto the L train into brooklyn. here are some snippits:

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theDANCE_forTapanuli

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