takin' in the sights in the US of A

2012-01-18T21:21:00.000-08:00

i was driving the other day, listening to tchaikovsky's violin concerto (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATK_pj2iMqg)

and as soon as the violin solo started playing

i had a very strange reaction

i felt very overwhelmed

like i knew how powerful this sound was

and i couldn't do anything about it

(it is going to go on; it is its own being)

this feeling manifested itself as follows:

my fingers needed to be tight, as if trying to create a void

but the wheel was on the way

it was as if i was trying to get rid of this overwhelming feeling

so my arms tightened, my grip tightened around the wheel

and i was pushing my body with my arms away from the wheel

and i closed my eyes

until i could breathe again

(once the violin could breathe as well)

and i kept driving

but my fingers were dancing on my leg, on the wheel, on my face

and when i got to the place i was going

and the music stopped

i sat back and let my body melt with the silence for a while

Annabel Lee- lyrics to the song cycle and explanation

2012-01-08T10:35:00.001-08:00

Dear Josh,

If you're reading this.... thanks!!!!

Annabel Lee (this is Edgar Allan Poe's poem lyrics put to the piano piece, Un Sospiro, by Franz Liszt. I thought Un Sospiro sounded like the "sounding sea".)

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Another New World (you probably recognize this)
The leading lights of the age all wondered amongst
themselves what I would do next
After all that I'd found in my travels around
the world was there anything else left?
"Gentlemen", I said, "I've studied the maps"
"And if what I'm thinking is right"
"There's another new world at the top of the world"
"For whoever can break through the ice"

I looked round the room in that way I once had
and I saw that they wanted belief
So I said "All I've got are my guts and my God"
then I paused,"and the Annabelle Lee"
Oh the Annabelle Lee, I saw their eyes shine
the most beautiful ship in the sea
My Nina, My Pinta, My Santa Maria
My beautiful Annabelle Lee

That spring we set sail as the crowds waved from shore
and on board the crew waved their hats
But I never had family just the Annabelle Lee
so I didn't have cause to look back
I just set the course north and I studied the charts
and toward dark I drifted toward sleep
and I dreamed of the fine deep harbor I'd find
past the ice for my Annabelle Lee

After that it got colder the world got quiet
it was never quite day or quite night
And the sea turned the color of sky turned the color
of sea turned the color of ice
'Til at last all around us was fastness
one vast glassy desert of arsenic white
And the waves that once lifted us
sifted instead into drifts against Annabelle's sides

The crew gathered closer at first for the comfort
but each morning would bring a new set
of the tracks in the snow leading over the edge
of the world 'til I was the only one left
After that it gets cloudy but it feels like I lay there
for days maybe for months
But Annabelle held me the two of us happy
just to think back on all we had done

We talked of the other worlds we'd discover
as she gave up her body to me
And as I chopped up her mainsail for timber
I told her of all that we still had to see
As the frost turned her moorings to nine-tail
and the wind lashed her sides in the cold
I burned her to keep me alive every night
in the loving embrace of her hold

I won't call it rescue what brought me here back to
the old world to drink and decline
And to pretend that the search for another new world
was well-worth the burning of mine
But sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing
of some unknown tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep thinking Annabelle Lee
has finally made it to another new world

Be Here Now by Mason Jennings

Be here now
No other place to be
Or just sit there dreaming
Of how life would be
If we were somewhere better
Somewhere far
Away from all our worries
Well here we are
You, are the love, of my life
Be here now
No other place to be
All the doubts that linger
Just set them free
And let good things happen
And let the future come
Into each moment
Like a rising sun
You, are the love, of my life
You, are the love, of my life
Yea you know you are
Sun comes up and we start again (x 6)
And it's all new today
All we have to say
Is be here now
Be here now
No other place to be
This whole world keeps changing
Come change with me
Everything that's happened
All that's yet to come
Is here inside this moment
Its the only one
You, are the love, of my life
You, are the love, of my life
Yeah you know you are
Sun comes up and we start again (x 6)
Its all new today
All we have to say
Is be here now

My Response to all of these lyrics- using your music from Another New World and keeping some of the lyrics too! So it is kind of an extension of your song =0)

The leading lights of the age all wondered amongst
Themselves what I would do next
After all that I'd found in my travels around
The World was there anything left?
Gentlemen I said, I've studied the maps
And if what I'm thinking is right
In any part of this great big circular world
We can always break through the ice

I looked round the room in that way I once had
And I saw that they wanted belief
So I said "All I've got is one simple idea, in order to bring us relief"
Well I looked for a sparkle or shine in their eye
To help me begin to speak
But I didn't find it, so I closed my eyes and remembered the Annabelle Lee

Here I sit with you all right here at my side
In this Old World of drink and decline
Pretending the search for Another New World
Is well worth the burning of mine
But this Old World we're in, wouldn't look quite so dim
If we took a good look around
And smiled for the light flooding down on us bright
That we cover with troubles we've found

The crew gathered closer at first in confusion
But each passing moment would bring
A new recollection of moments right here
In this Old World that still made them sing
Why should we ignore the crowd waving from shore
They don't have to be waving good bye
For its sheer good fortune to miss those you love
Every day that you're sharing alive
The ice started melting

Oh Annabel Lee may have died by the sea
But at such cost doesn't it seem
We'd all better take this Old World we know
And break through the ice and just be

Oh Annabel Lee may have died by the sea
But at such cost doesn't it seem
We'd all better take this Old World we know
And break through the ice and just be

2011-12-30T06:10:00.001-08:00

www.smallfarm.org

05 - This is an 80-acre organic for-profit farm located in a beautiful area of Long Island’s East End (called the North Fork). We are about 2 hours from NYC in a great area of beaches, ponds, forests, farms, and great summer weather. We cultivate approximately 30 acres of mixed vegetables and 3 acres of cut flowers, focusing on great-tasting heirloom varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, potatoes, etc. We also have a flock of 1000 laying hens, and a few cows, sheep, and goats for milk, meat, and fun. We sell produce to approximately 700 CSA members at ten locations in NYC and on Long Island, to local residents from a busy farm stand on the farm, and at Greenmarket in Brooklyn and farmers markets on Long Island.

If you are interested in learning how to develop and run your own diverse sustainable farm to sustain you and your family someday financially as well as spiritually, you will find working with us very interesting. If you are just looking to learn how to grow your own food and relax in the country for a summer, you may not find it as enjoyable. We hustle.

Experience preferred but not necessarily required. We are looking for apprentices who are self-directed and enjoy “attacking” the challenges that arise throughout the farm season, and who are interested in helping us improve the way we do things on the farm by sharing with us lessons from their experience on other farms and by taking responsibility for the parts of our operation that interest them. Drivers license and the ability to drive a truck, particularly in New York City, is highly desired. Sense of humor, independence, initiative, a good attitude, and a large dose of common sense are also desired. Mechanical experience, driving or fixing tractors and machinery is also highly desired.

Approximately 55 hrs per week will be expected (i.e. 8 am – 5 pm 6 days per week), with one full day off, and some schedule flexibility upon advance request.

Education is mainly hands-on, learning-by-doing. We have a weekly meeting where the farmers answer questions in-depth, and many lunches turn into spur-of-the-moment lessons on everything from marketing plans to cultivating implements. We lend books from our sustainable agriculture collection and will make limited reading and writing assignments. We facilitate monthly exchanges with other area farms, including vineyards, tree farms, etc. and other organic farm apprentices, as well as social events with neighbors and friends. Enjoy our area's natural attractions on days off including kayaking, canoeing, hiking, and swimming. Special projects can include opportunities to make additional income through entrepreneurship, such as growing and marketing your own crops on unused farmland, pastured poultry, and production of pickles, cookies, jams, and farm arts and crafts for sale at farm stand. Other projects to improve the sustainability of our farm are welcomed including establishing educational gardens, teaching on-farm classes, and experimentation with alternative fuels (straight vegetable oil, bio diesel), etc.

PERIOD OF INTERNSHIP: Farm Manager: April 1 - end of Nov. Other positions: begin between April 1 and June 1 – end Nov. Novice Farmer: 1 or 2 month period during growing season. Please make the dates you are available clear in your letter of interest. Possibility to extend position through the winter for 1-2 exceptional individuals, based on performance during the regular season.

We will provide housing at a farmhouse on the farm property which is fully furnished and includes bathroom and kitchen. Within walking distance of beach, 5 mins drive from town (also bikeable).

Vegetables, eggs, and other farm produce are provided free of charge. Apprentices take turns cooking lunch for the group, and Garden of Eve provides some free staples for these meals (beans, rice, pasta, etc.). Condiments, dairy, snacks, and many other foods are available for purchase at our farm store at wholesale prices.

MATERIALS TO BE SUBMITTED: All interested applicants should submit a resume, three references (of which two should be former employers), and a letter of interest explaining previous experience and skills, and reasons for interest in this position via email.

FARM APPRENTICE

- Will participate in all aspects of vegetable farming including seeding, transplanting, weeding, and harvesting vegetables;

- Specific areas of responsibility for different apprentices will include: Greenhouse Management; Livestock Management; Flower Farm Management, and Market Management of different markets.

- If qualified, driving and accompanying box truck into NYC for CSA deliveries, as well as driving to, setting up, and managing farmers market stand.

- Working at the farmstand and at farmers markets;

- Help pack and load truck;

- Presentation and marketing of vegetables;

- Basic livestock care of goats, sheep and chickens at the farmstand;

- Participating in all other crop-related tasks

Qualities desired:

- Ability to lift 40 pounds

- Serious Interest in the biological and entrepreneurial aspects of farming

- basic Spanish language skills helpful but not required

STIPEND: $1000/month plus housing on-site, & income from entrepreneurial farm project including growing your own crops to sell at the market or farmstand, or other activities such as preserving, baking, drying herbs, etc.

FARM MANAGER

Duties include:

- Communicating daily with Chris regarding tasks for the day;

- Holding brief daily meeting with other apprentices to outline daily/weekly schedule;

- Directing daily activities including planting, cultivating, harvesting, processing;

- Driving tractor for most transplanting in the spring, and helping do tractor-mounted cultivating through the summer and fall;

- Maintaining all harvest data and records;

- Managing and working with farm crew and other apprentices;

- Helping harvesting, washing, packing, and loading produce with farm crew;

- Maintaining crew productivity data and time sheets.

- Monitoring packing room and inventory of harvesting supplies;

- Organizing and cleaning packing room, coolers and storage facilities;

- Analyzing and refining harvesting and packing room methods and efficiencies;

- Loading truck for delivery;

- Driving box truck into NYC for CSA deliveries (if qualified and necessary).

QUALITIES DESIRED

- Tractor and cultivating experience highly desired

- Minimum one season's farm experience

- Some managerial experience and aptitude required

- Disciplined, Organized, Responsible, Independent and Positive.

- Basic Spanish language skills, or willingness to learn

- A valid driver's license and ability to lift 40 pounds is required.

- This is an excellent position for someone planning to start their own farm in the next year or two, as the Farm Manager carries significant responsibility and decisionmaking independence.

STIPEND: $25K approximately depending upon experience, with a 3 year requested committment.

　CHILDREN'S PROGRAM INSTRUCTOR and part-time childcare provider

If you like to spend time with kids and have a background instructing at a camp, environmental education, or other outdoor education experience, this could be a good opportunity for you.

The Children's Program Instructor will plan, promote, implement and teach classes at our farm markets on topics including organic gardening, cooking, preserving the harvest, etc. Our farmstand products and programming are oriented towards families with children and each year we look for someone with experience and interest in creating, scheduling, and teaching activities with preschool aged kids (i.e. 2-7) and their families (i.e. Bug walks, berry picking, seed planting, cooking projects, etc.) about 2-3 days/week. You may also plan, implement, recruit staff, promote and teach a small farm day camp on the farm during the summer months.

We are looking for someone who is highly self-motivated and independent, with prior experience as an instructor. The successful candidate will also have an entrepreneurial bent, with experience in creating and marketing programs successfully.

In addition, the person hired will care for Eve and Chris's 3 and 5 year old kids 2-3 days a week on the farm. Activities will include farm walks, going to the library or the beach, visiting friends, etc. Drivers liscence required.

Duties include:

20% : farm work with the other apprentices

40% : childcare for two farm kids (ages 3 and 5) on the farm i.e. walking around farm, in the house, etc);

40% : independently develop and teach weekly events for kids and families including playgroup, farm tours, cooking demonstrations, etc.

Qualities desired:

- Enjoyment of small children and previous work experience i.e. babysitting, camp counselor, educator

-Experience in creating and marketing programs successfully

- Ability/interest in independently developing educational activities for kids to offer on the farm

-Self-motivated and independent, with an entrepreneurial bent

STIPEND: $1000-$1500/month plus housing on-site

NOVICE FARMER

We are willing to fill one position each month with people who have a positive attitude and interest in exploring farming as a vocation, but who have had little prior experience. The period of the “Novice” position will be 1-2 months (i.e. you can select April-May, Sept-Oct, etc.). Email us with your interest and the months you are interested in.

Qualities desired: Ability to do physical manual work of farming, and interest in learning about farming & food

STIPEND: $600/month plus housing on-site, vegetables, & income from entrepreneurial activities.

06 - Enterprises: Now operating in our 25^th year, we are a certified organic produce farm located in Orange County, NY. We grow 12 acres of vegetables and herbs on an old dairy farm that is 88 acres in size. The balance of the land is either fallow, wooded or used for pasturing cows. We have a small flock of chickens. In 2007, a conservation easement was placed on our farm.

Work to be done: Interns are involved in greenhouse work, field planting, growing, tending, harvesting and marketing of more than 100 different vegetables and herbs. Our produce is sold at the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan from late May to December.

We are seeking interns to fill eight positions. We have a long history of working with interns. More than 140 people have worked on our farm over the past 22 years, most staying for a full season, some for two or three seasons. We prefer people with outdoor and physical work experience who can stay for six to eight months (April/May to Nov./Dec.) and who have a strong interest in learning about and practicing sustainable agriculture. Many of those who live and work on the farm stay in touch long after the season is over and return to visit. Learning is mostly hands-on and interns are expected to take responsibility for many tasks and individual projects (greenhouse management, irrigation, record keeping, etc.).

We offer good housing with private rooms, bathrooms and kitchen facilities, plus a $300 per week stipend, increasing to $350 per week after eight weeks, and late season bonuses. Those returning for a second year receive a larger stipend. Meals are not provided but interns can cook and eat anything we grow. A long-term, year-round, co-management position is also available, with salary and benefits increasing substantially over time. There is plenty of discussion of organic methods and philosophy. Reading material is available for those who are interested.

The farm is an appealing place, set well back off the road and buffered by woods. It has varied terrain and topography. It is rich in animal and bird life. It has a creek and three ponds, one of which is good for swimming. We are a short distance from the Appalachian Trail and the Delaware River, and about two hours from New York City. To learn more about this farm and read what ten former interns had to say about their experiences here, check out the book, It’s a Long Road to a Tomato, by Keith Stewart.

2011-12-30T05:01:00.000-08:00

New York City A.R.E. Center

241 W. 30th Street, 2nd floor

http://www.edgarcaycenyc.org/areofnyc/groups.htm

The Lion King

200 West 45th Street

New Cats Cafe

2027 Emmons Ave Brooklyn

Monday night karaoke

http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/locations/bushwick

Brooklyn Botanical Garden
Free admission on Tuesdays (Admission is free every weekday from mid-November through February)
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Phone: 718-623-7200

Brooklyn Botanical Garden
Free admission from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. on Saturdays
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Phone: 718-623-7200

PAPAS PAPAS PAPAS

2011-11-14T14:57:00.000-08:00

1.) stream of consciousness

Flying saucers donuts

south congress street wish i could just walk there more

homophobes suuuuuure?

armadillos oh nice shell

Chris Lukas aiii cristobal (hand thing)

oatmeal crunchy

Mexico sad

New York a phase

Honey Ohs o ho ho ho hoho ho hohoho

The Outdoor School silence

How is your brain different from August?

before the outdoor school i think i was very much about collecting knowledge somehow, like having a box inside my head about all the stuff i could know about/stuff i couldn't understand/i thought had no explanation... i still thought that i could have an explanation in my head. but being here i realized that its better to just feel it out instead of trying to understand it, cuz when you try to understand it, its a different idea in and of itself, and when you're feeling it out, you're actually seeing it as it is. i dont know what it means, but, it.

Do you think you can use this newfound mentality to learn piano?

I think so, because when i was looking at the pieces today, at the music sheets, i was not really trying to understand them, because my brain was being a little lazy, but i was still able to (belch) read something by just looking at it, and it was like an overall reading and something i could still understand in a different way then if i had spent hours figuring out the notes.

What is your greatest weakness right now?

Umm... being lazy.

What is your greatest strength right now?

Being open to just doing whatever whenever.

How do you think that you have changed my mind in the time we've known each other?

Well, I think you've been able to watch me grow more than I've been able to watch myself grow, so I think maybe my tendency to abstract things and to put them in a different place in the world while still being able to feel out stuff and not box it up all the time... that may have showed you that you can have both worlds kind of.... im trying to be able to intertwine them... annnndddd... im actually not sure of anything i just said.

a look into the mind of Papita

2011-11-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

Don't give too much thought to these questions; just let words fall out of your mouth. This is a first instinct, intuitive type of thing going on here. If you don't like a question then just skip it.

1.) What do you think about the concept of "healing"? When someone is healing, what is actually happening?

a lot of those conflicts that happen in somebody's life pertain to the self, and constant interactions with everything around them. interactions with the external world are continuous; there's never a separation of the self from the environment. divisions are only there to make things easier to explain. when the interactions are not smooth or harmonious or soothing. when somebody is sick or distraught, it's because the interactions are like shocks. (arms flailing in peripheral vision)

When somebody's healing, those shocks smooth out. Your body is receiving everything better.

when not in the mindset of it, i get really separated from my environment. in order to have a good session with the kids, you have to be there in their own little bubble. i get their attention by being in their place. sometimes when not in the mood of it i go in my own little world and then there is separation, but that's all in your head. divisions are definitely created by yourself.

In yoga you are moving your body through space. muscles relax and contract at the same time. a synergy in the physical world that lets you see beyond the separation of things.

2.) Describe the goodness of Tecate to someone who has never had it before.

It's kind of bold, but it's.... so smooth. Its just...flavor with character.

4.) Have you thought more about what your ex-boyfriend said about you thinking you'll miss him, but not really? Is that even possible? If you think you miss him is that the same thing as missing him?

5.) Give a short autobiography of your life and invent the future if you like.

6.) If you were elected President of a community about the size of TOS, only without the actual job part of TOS, and you had to come up with a constitution, what would be in the constitution?

7.) Do you believe that our souls exist over more than one lifetime? Reincarnation?

I don't think that life is that linear or that easily put into segments. It's easy for us to imagine "oh yeah in the past life I was this being" but I'm sure it's way more complex than that. To me it's more absolute, existing versus not existing. When you're not existing I'm not sure what the fuck is going on, but I know something is.

8.) Do you ever believe that things are so important and so unimportant at the exact same time?

It happens a lot with people. Humanity is one of the things that I am truly in love with, but at the same time I have this.... I feel like humanity focuses on the wrong things a lot of the time. I have this love for every human being, but then sometimes I can't respect their decisions or their actions.

9.) What's something that you want to figure out that you haven't figured out yet.

I sometimes have trouble with self control. In my head I'm very aware of stuff but actually implementing it is a different story sometimes. When I start living in my head a lot, living through memories and photographs, I stop paying as much attention to the now and the real world that is actually happening, and I ignore cues from the now that help me out in interactions. I've been living through photographs and books a lot lately.

2011-10-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

fridalarizza

girl is all major chords

TB

2011-09-13T07:04:00.001-07:00

"Grandfather spoke again, saying, "Trying to live a spiritual life in modern society is the most difficult path one can walk. It is a path of pain, of isolation, and of shaken faith, but that is the only way that our Vision can become reality. Thus the true Quest in life is to live the philosophy of the Earth within the confines of man. There is no church or temple we need to seek peace, for ours are the temples of the wilderness. There are no spiritual leaders, for our hearts and the Creator are our only leaders. Our numbers are scattered; few speak our language or understand the things that we live. Thus we walk this path alone, for each Vision, each Quest, is unique unto the individual. But we must walk within society or our Vision dies, for a man not living his Vision is living death."

-- The Quest

TB and CG

2011-09-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Tom Brown:
Whatever happens, happens, and if learn from it... I see life as a great banquet at which I am the honored guest... my world has no time, except the seasons and the perspectives of youth and old age. In my world, life is a gift to be accepted, and returned. Life is a celebration... given to us to enjoy.
It has just been recently that I have found, even during my teaching, that I should just be myself and do what I want to do. Every day, I get off by myself in the woods to reorient myself and sort of reaffirm who I am.
If I can have a young person with me in the woods for a weekend and can show him/her that there is another way to look at life, the chances are that person will stay off drugs from that time on. You can get high on nature, high on your own surroundings- more up than you've ever been. Like John Muir said, "There is no upness like the mountains" Kids say to me all the time, "I thought you could only get this way when you're high!" I try to redirect them toward the wonders of nature. Our young people have little to believe in. They look around them, and everything is polluted and dirty. There's crime in the streets. There's embezzlement... They have gone a long time without respect for anything, and now they can see something to respect, and it gives them hope and that all-important self respect they need.

Claudine:
telepathy
light and warmth
altered vision
physical contact
"miracles"
empathy

tom brown jr

2011-08-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

there is a world beyond that of our everyday physical, mental, and emotional experiences. It is a world beyond the five senses, and different than the realm of the imagination. It is the world of the unseen and eternal, the world of spirit and vision. It is a dimension of life that very few people of today seek, or perhaps care to know. The demands of modern life often mean that there's little time to slow down long enough to take a good, long look at life and its motivating forces, to contemplate one's current path or foreseeable destiny.
For me, the spiritual world is truly the stuff of life. Once rooted on a spiritual path, I found that life loosened its shallow fleshiness, that I was able to transcend time and place, and enter a new, fuller dimension of life. The path of a spiritual seeker is one of the most difficult paths a man or woman can walk in life, and I urge it on no one unwilling to devote the time or take the risks involved. It takes a lifetime to understand and a zealous dedication to reach this higher plane of existence. The spiritual world is a world to which the seeker comes slowly- first with the faith of a child and then with the patience and dedication of a sage. It requires one to let go of all beliefs, all prejudices, and all need for modern scientific methods of verification. One must abandon logical thinking and learn to deal in the abstract, learn to accept that each moment is an eternity and that each entity becomes, at once, a physical and spiritual teacher. It is here that I started, with the faith, openness, and curiosity of a child, that magical time of life when anything and everything was possible, where reality and fantasy mix, and where dream and flesh are fused into the eternity of mind.

Wind, Sand and Stars

2011-07-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

No man can draw a free breath who does not share with other men a common and disinterested ideal. Life has taught us that love odes not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through union in the same high effort. Even in our age of material well-being this must be so, else how should we explain the happiness we feel in sharing our last crust with others in the desert? No sociologist's textbook can prevail against this fact. Every pilot who has flown to the rescue of a comrade in distress knows that all joys are vain in comparison with this one. And this, it may be, is the reason why the world today is tumbling about our ears. It is precisely because this sort of fulfilment is promised each of us by his religion, that men are inflamed today. All of us, in words that contradict each other, express at bottom the same exalted impulse. What sets us against one another is not our aims- they all come to the same thing- but our methods, which are the fruit of our varied reasoning.
Let us, then, refrain from astonishment at what men do. One man finds that his essential manhood comes alive at the sight of self-sacrifice, cooperative effort, a rigorous vision of justice, manifested in an anarchists' cellar in Barcelona. For that man there will henceforth be but one truth- the truth of the anarchists. Another, having once mounted guard over a flock of terrified little nuns kneeling in a Spanish nunnery, will thereafter know a different truth- that it is sweet to die for the Church. If, when Mermoz plunged into the Chilean Andes with victory in his heart, you had protested to him that no merchant's letter could possibly be worth risking one's life for, Mermoz would have laughed in your face. Truth is the man that was born in Mermoz when he slipped through the Andean passes.
What all of us want is to be set free. The man who sinks his pickaxe into the ground wants that stroke to mean something. The convict's stroke is not the same as the prospector's, for the obvious reason that the prospector's stroke has meaning and the convict's stroke has none.
It is using a pickaxe to no purpose that makes a prison; the horror resides in the failure to enlist all those who swing the pick in the community of mankind.
We all yearn to escape from prison.

2011-05-17T05:56:00.000-07:00

ohhh the layers, she called it
and she took them from inside her mind
and made them real, and handed them to me
i didn't look too carefully
now im looking much more closely
and what do i see?
still the mind, open the heart
thats the only way i can do my part
try to understand why you share your history
if your end goal is to let everything be
we are looking for pure love to fill up pure hearts
advertising in size 6 font somewhere 2/3 of the way through the Sunday paper
expecting the advertisement to go unnoticed by almost everyone
but still there lingers a hope
for that some one
if you followed your heart, where would you go?and if i followed mine?

2011-05-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

Ning started running a 100 mile race about 31 hours ago.... I cannot even imagine what that boy is feeling right now. So much respect.

Empathy is the ability to read and understand people and be in-tune with or resonate with others, voluntarily or involuntarily of one's empath capacity. Empaths have the ability to scan another's psyche for thoughts and feelings or for past, present, and future life occurrences.
Empathy is a feeling of another's true emotions to a point where an empath can relate to that person by sensing true feelings that run deeper than those portrayed on the surface. People commonly put on a show of expression. This is a learned trait of hiding authentic expression in an increasingly demanding society. An empath can sense the truth behind the cover and will act compassionately to help that person express him/herself, thus making them feel at ease and not so desperately alone.
Empathy is not held by time or space. Thus, an empath can feel the emotions of people and things at a distance. Empathy is genetic, inherent in our DNA, and passed from generation to generation.

An Empath is someone who can feel other people’s emotions as their own: you litterally feel what other people feel.

Notice that this definition does not assume that you are aware of it nor that you know what to do with it. It simply describes that can experience someone else’s emotion, even if they are not in your physical presence.

Empaths find themselves in the tricky situation of being overwhelmed by the quantity of emotional information they receive. I can sense the emotions of everyone around me, even my next door neighbors. It comes to me like a scrambled radio station where I get bits and pieces from all those people. In its raw form, this emotional information is incoherent and even painful as we feel all the negative emotions from everyone around us.

The most problematic aspect of being an Empath is that most of us have no idea how to manage it. We don’t know how to turn it off. We don’t know how to use it effectively to accomplish something productive. Some of us don’t even know that we have it. We just think we’re weird and have random mood swings and tired spells.

Emotional Intelligence is defined as “the ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, of others, and of groups” (Salovey and Mayer). Developing your Emotional Intelligence means that you know what to do with the emotional information you receive and it’s not just a burden you must bear anymore.

2011-04-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

If you know how to trust your true nature, you will lose your fear and sorrow. A wave in her ignorance is subject to the fear of birth, death, high, low, more or less beautiful, and the jealousy of others. But if a wave is able to touch her true nature, the nature of water, and know that she is water, then all her fear and jealousy will vanish. Water doesn't undergo birth and death, high and low.
When we look at the flower we see the same thing. The gardener is only one of the causes. There must be the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the compost, the seed and many, many other things. If you look deeply, you will see that the whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower to manifest.
If we continue to look deeply, we see that a cause is at the same time an effect. We find that every cause is at the same time an effect. There are many things we can discover with the practice of looking deeply, and if we are not bound to any dogma or concept we will be free to make our discoveries.

music is the language of the soul

2011-03-29T16:47:00.001-07:00

i tell you i walked into that room and everything felt all wrong. heart beating too fast, muscles too tense, stomach all jumbly, wishing i could squirm out of my own skin. but like goethe knew, you can't run away from yourself. but room 5266 isn't just a room anymore. there is a powerful memory there that i can call up and set everything straight. the final memory before the wheels were set in motion. whether i consciously call it up or not, the same effect will happen. i will channel the music that is in my soul, my soul that i was mercifully able to empty out to get filled up again, and it got filled up by You. You, the Universe, the infinite beauty and knowledge and wisdom of the Universe. If able to stay empty, you are always able to be filled. Breathe out and let the wind blow away everything that is simply taking up space, making you miss out. You are free, you are free, you are free to be.

2011-02-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

late one afternoon i carried myself on down a grayish road. the trees had want for leaves, the potholes for loose gravel. i saw many a passerby, but we did not look each other in the eye. we were lost inside ourselves, the mindless dialogue on autopilot in our heads. the gray matter of my brain was extra soft and squishy. it was sleepy, so without an ounce of prevention on its own part, it simply went into hibernation.
on and on down Hibernation Road did I meander, stopping to observe the scenery on a few rare instances. in the end, though, i saw almost nothing.
Hibernation Road has an intersection, or maybe it has many; i wouldn't know if i missed em or not. but one morning i did find myself at a crossroads and i heard some voices laughing just a little ways down. i followed the voices and began a travel through time, through the seasons and the colors they came a whirlin and a swirlin and i started twirlin, i took some more turns and started to get lost, i knew i didnt have a map but i didnt care. now i've been lost for a time but the road's getting more colorful and gaining more scenery day by day. ive joined up with those voices and put faces to them. now we're a skippin and a jumpin hand in hand and there's no turning back.

from Walden

2011-02-03T14:01:00.000-08:00

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality... the true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Austin is a magical place! things that have me buzzing bzzzzzzzz:
--> getting to play with really cool musicians at the pita pit and the hideout, nearly every day!!! and realizing that work can be a party... the employees at the pita pit have such a good time together!
-->getting to play with Acoustalyn, just by chance... this band has shows booked in central TX every weekend throughout the spring and i get to be the alternate violin player at a lot of them =0)
-->getting to play for the gilbert and sullivan society
-->getting to play at school
-->hopefully traveling to nearby state parks with Kevin to create a biker's dream guide
-->Erik. Especially when he plays jokes on me.
-->THE PEOPLE! i feel so excited and blessed to be alive in this place and spend time with these wonderful folks. I am surrounded by role models, all the time... whaaaaaaaat.

Lao Tzu will let ya know what to do, uh

2011-01-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

heaven and earth are enduring. the reason why heaven and earth can be enduring is that they do not give themselves life. hence they are able to be long-lived.therefore the sage puts his person last and it comes first,treats it as extraneous to himself and it is preserved.is it not because he is without thought of self that he is able to accomplish his private ends?
highest good is like water. because water excels in benefitting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes close to the way.in a home it is the site that matters;in quality of mind it is depth that matters;in an ally it is benevolence that matters;in speech it is good faith that matters;in govt it is order that matters;in affairs it is ability that matters;in action it is timeliness that matters.it is because it does not contend that it is never at fault.
to use words but rarelyis to be natural.hence a gusty wind cannot last all morning, and a sudden downpour cannot last all day. who is it that produces these? heaven and earth. if even heaven and earth cannot go on for ever, much less can man. that is why one follows the way.a man of the way conforms to the way; a man of virtue conforms to virtue; a man of loss conforms to loss. he who conforms to virtue is gladly accepted by virtue; he who conforms to loss is gladly accepted by loss.when there is not enough faith, there is lack of good faith.

Our thoughts on pure love and invincibility

2011-01-25T11:46:00.001-08:00

Hey kids, Laura here. I’ve been doing some surveying on unassuming innocent folk such as yourselves and others who happen to be in my path. Here are some results I’ve come up with. I’m keeping them anonymous cuz it’s more fun that way. If I didn’t harangle you yet and you’d like to add your own you can anonymously or not anonymously please do so =0)

What is pure love or the purest form of love?

I’ll start by saying that this question popped into my head while I was gazing into my friend’s dog’s eyes and felt what I believed to be unadulterated love. Some survey results reflect similar feelings, as you shall see.

1. Person to animal

2. The love that comes from helping another person.

3. Joy that makes you feel that what you’re doing is good and complete. Like a dog licking its crotch. (The example is to prove that the answer is not necessarily a deep and spiritual one) (I’ll just go ahead and say this one is from my dad)

4. Love that does not expect love back.

5. Acceptance

6. Bailey! (The dog who started this whole thing in the first place, but that’s not my answer!)

7. Peace and understanding

8. God

9. Absolute comfort

10. The love between good friends. Not the love between mother and child or romantic love; those are too complexly intertwined.

11. Trust, passion, certainty that you don’t want anything else, laughter, among other things.

12. When two people can look each other in the eyes and know the other’s innermost feelings and still be extremely happy, all without saying a word

13. Love without thought or action.

14. Disney. Especially Enchanted. Child to mother. What you make it.

What is invincibility?

1. It doesn’t exist- it’s absolute freedom with no constraints, but we constrain ourselves.

2. Dean Cain, aka Superman

3. Having such a strong sense of yourself and your purpose that nothing/no one can ever get you down.

4. Can’t be beaten or hurt. Superman. I like to keep it simple.

5. Giving and receiving enough love that nothign can compare to this love network.

6. Being all forgiving. When one considers invincibility one may think of being unbeatable, but in order to be beaten, there needs to be an objective, and how one defines purpose is open to infinite variability. Therefore to be truly invincible, one needs to transcend a single system and recognize the multiple objectives and humbly accept the friction that pertains to the overlappings of purpose by recognizing one human’s plea of coming from a good place, and being all-forgiving or invincible. It seems impossible for one to be all forgiving if one is human… but maybe to lead a good life, one’s goal is to perpetually fail in the uphill struggle rather than indulge in flat debauchery.

The Cathy Winter Layer Cake Amino Acid Theory of a Complete Love

2011-01-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

This is a scientific research article, composed only of logic and of carefully documented case studies by a completely rational human being.

Okay, let's take the final line of the final verse of Cathy Winter's song, "Long Time Friends". Here she is in all her glory: I'm not so sure that I can find/Just one heart to blend with mine/So I'm looking for some long time friends. Now, what are some possible implications of this line? There is this concept of having a "soul mate", that you can go out into the world and find a single other soul to complete yours. Cathy is not so sure she agrees. There are a lot of layers to life, a lot of subtle complexities that we can begin to become privy to if we are open and observant enough, if we are truly good listeners. Every person, place, and being you interact with adds layers to the cake of life, and let me tell you, this is a rich ass cake. Each layer is sweet and satisfying on its own, but when you're able to enjoy all the layers is when life becomes unbearably good.
This gives me a certain sensation that the long time friends Cathy is looking for, are in some ways comparable to amino acids forming a complete protein. There are several essential amino acids that our bodies need as building blocks, and you must combine these to form a complete protein. Long time friends are the amino acids. A complete love is the complete protein.
Experiencing love, pure love at its finest, might best be achieved by devoting your time to baking the richest layer cake, to building the best complete protein.

Survey results so far: What is the purest form of love?
-> Person to animal
-> The love that comes from helping another person
-> Love that does not expect love back
-> Acceptance
-> Joy that makes you feel that what you're doing is good and complete. Let's not get too spiritual here, though. Dogs may get this joy from licking their crotch.
More survey results to come.

While we're waxing philosophical... Here are Father Rick's three important pillars for inner health.
1) Feeling secure and that life is overall predictable
2) Feeling important and that life overall has a purpose
3) Feeling worthy and that overall life is welcoming

Father Rick is pretty smart. Here's another particularly excellent idea of his:
"Of interest to humanists and anthropologists, to philosophers and theologians, is the instinct, in the face of adversity, not just to survive, but to thrive with passion and flair"
Let's harness this instinct in the non face of adversity as well =0)

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds

2010-12-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

Okay so this is totally a pipedream. But that's how good times start sometimes, right? So I'm asking for input from y'all on this idea I've been formulating for a bit now. It has the potential to take no shape at all, and it has the potential to become reality... so we'll see what happens =0)

I know some of us have more intense jobs than others and that this is not necessarily feasible for everyone. But I've been thinking: I want to find a group of people who are willing to meet up at the beginning of the summer (June-ish?) and just jam, jam, jam, really start gelling together and creating some beautiful music. Then when we feel ready, our little impromptu jam band goes on a roadtrip of sorts, just playing little local gigs, and/or just playing in the park or on the sidewalk, or trying to set up a few actual gigs through any connections we may have already. This is what I daydream about sometimes. So I wanted to share the idea with all you musical adventurers and see if anyone has similar daydreams. Beautiful music with beautiful people in beautiful places, okay maybe i'm waxing poetic to the point of utter cheesiness but i just want to make sure y'all catch my drift here. So let me know your thoughts =0) I love you all, happy holidays.

Roadtrip with Jordan part 2

2010-12-17T04:42:00.000-08:00

Jordan's relatives, Dick and Marian, spoiled us rotten and gave us a really good tour of Sedona. we hiked, went to the farmer's market, got "real new york bagels", and got to see how varied the landscape of the area really is. the southwest is really enchanting. new mexico calls itself the land of enchantment and i think someone chose the perfect title.
so we stayed with Dick and Marian for a couple of days before heading out for san diego. this 10 hour drive from sedona to san diego is breathtaking. if you take the local roads heading southwest out of sedona to connect to highway 10 west of phoenix, i promise you you will not be sorry. landscapes such as you have never seen.
in san diego we stayed with Danielle, who is jordan's friend from counseling at a summer camp in alaska this past summer. we stayed at her grandpa's house in alpine, which is about 45 minutes east of san diego and a totally different world. highlights of hanging out with danielle include but are not limited to:
bouncing on the trampoline
playing king of the hill on the sand dunes
DISC!
going in the pacific at ocean beach
danielle getting her first guitar
going to a dueling piano bar called the shout house and meeting phil's brother henry and my friend from montana and her fiancee
and oh yeah, skydiving hahahahaha
hanging out as the 3 of us kind of felt like hanging out as the 3 of us on the bike trip... a motley crew just out to have a good time. i was really sad to leave jordan and danielle but the next leg of my trip quickly took a turn. instead of switching roadtrips and driving back to the east coast, i decided to get off my greyhound bus in los angeles and catch a plane home, for a couple of different reasons. so now i have been up all night, meeting lots of people in la, including one named kenny who thinks we're going to get married someday hahaha (he just got back from his year long around the world trip and is in the us for the first time since he left!). it's about 5am, and i'll be back in boston at 8pm. although this whole roadtrip lasted less than 2 weeks, they were some of the best 2 weeks of my whole year, and i have the opposite of regrets about going on the trip =0) what a good year! austin, idaho, home, austin, bike trip, austin, israel, home, roadtrip... aieee. austin beckons me back and i will run towards its open arms... after spending a lot of quality time with the fam and friends of Westborough, the Motherland.
i am really grateful to have spent time with so many awesome people on the roadtrip- jordan, danielle, peter, marian, dick, anna, joel, jacob, the rangers, kenny, shalain, todd, erin and james, henry, joey, tyrone, and so many other people we got to meet and talk to. we were shown so much generosity, as always seems to happen on these trips, and now my main goal is to spread it at least as much as it already has been spread.

Roadtrip with Jordan!

2010-12-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

The past week of life has been quite good! Here's a little recaperoo...
So on Saturday I got to see my cousin Julia perform in the Nutcracker ballet in New Jersey. Now this kid has been dancing for a looooong time, and I would say it's her second nature, but maybe actually it's her first. So it is really cool to get to see her in her element. Even though she's just about to turn 16, I really feel like she has a really good child-like sense of humor and fun, but emotionally/mentally she is pretty far beyond a 16-year-old, and I think you can see it in her dancing, too. Although she stayed in great rhythm with the other dancers, her movements seemed more intentional and slow and peaceful than the movements of some of the other dancers.
Sunday morning hopped on a plane and went straight through the clouds. The people who sat across from me on the plane had unusually raucous laughs, and lately I've been appreciating those more and more, so that was all I needed to have a good time on the plane. They also gave out frosted animal crackers, probably the most exciting plane snack I've ever been offered.
Jordan picked me up from the airport and we went to Maya's new house for Sean's birthday brunch. Seeing everyone I'd just said good bye to two weeks ago was reallllllly awesome. Everything felt just like Austin always feels, which has really started in some ways to feel like home.
Monday we left at 7am for Santa Fe! Where we stayed with a couchsurfing host named Peter Weiss. Now I could write for hours about this guy. He is a human encyclopedia and we talked the first night from like 8pm-1am, then the next morning from like 7am-3pm, and then we came back two nights later for some more. You're thinking... isn't talking that much exhausting, and shouldn't you be out exploring Santa Fe while you're there? That's a double "no". I've never met anyone quite like Peter, he really makes your imagination and your aspirations take off.
Oh goodness, I'm feeling antisocial at Jordan's relatives' house going on and on on the dang ol computer. Let's move faster...
In Santa Fe we hung out with a homeless man and traded drawings with him, stayed with another couple and stayed up late playing catchphrase as a drinking game/some people played video games til 6am (definitely not me). Met a gypsy traveler at Peter's house who just sailed from Hawaii to Seattle and is now slowly making her way home to Florida to help her sister who isn't doing too well. Then we drove to Flagstaff for some karaoke and dancing (which Jordan rules at so it was super fun), Jordan made someone's 40th birthday by accidentally singing the song they wanted, and I got to two-step with my favorite man in the place, Tyrone. Then we had a jam session in the parking lot from all the musical inspiration, in the 20 degree weather at midnight. Drove to Kaibab Nat'l Forest and car camped in the Hotel Hyundai, aka the front seat of Jordan's car, cuz there was snow on the ground and we didn't feel like sleeping in it.
Got up at 6 and I drove Jordan's stick shift Hotel Hyundai to the entrance of the Grand Canyon under his able instruction (usually I even have trouble driving automatic, not one of my strong points). Used the parks pass we got at Petrified National Forest (which we were initally going to camp at but the campsite was actually creepy as hell so we left) and went straight to the backcountry office to get a permit to camp at the bottom. Well, the next 24 hours were unbelievable. We met so many cool people, some of who we made plans to meet up with again, and since we brought a guitar down to the bottom of the canyon (which none of the rangers had ever seen before!), a lot of impromptu serenadings and jams went down. Plus the canyon is unbelievably beautiful =0)
Now we're at Jordan's relative's in Sedona so I'm gonna go. Hasta la vista!

RAMMMMMBLINGZZZZZ

2010-11-29T19:05:00.000-08:00

Half dreaming, half thinking? Imagination?
Me and Paul are walking in Austin, but the sky is a lot of fall colors, kind of like my sleeping bag, even though I can't see the sun anywhere. We are talking about something and I keep saying a word that starts with an "f", maybe "fake", but Paul keeps thinking I'm saying "pack"... like what happens in refugee class every day. Regina Spektor's voice keeps singing in my head in such a way that I feel like her voice is actually coming out of me, but it's just that one stupid line... "He's a wounded animal!"
In a semi conscious state I remember thinking, "after talking to Joe, I always feel like my thought process is more clear, focused, and on the right track"... so my mind went into "manic mode" (like how I felt when I took percocet) and started thinking through nearly everything I thought about throughout the day yesterday, only now i felt like it was from a much better perspective, more rational and less egotistical.
Then I felt these blue pulsations from the center of my mind traveling outward, and I imagined that it really was this energy flowing out of my body and into our room. So I decided to try to focus it and this kind of felt like lucid dreaming. I decided to try to fill our room with a peaceful, calming presence. But I don't know if I really felt like that happened or not.

Sherri says:
"Spiritually evolved people are experiencing many lifetimes in one, going through sweeping changes"
"We are coming to the end of a cycle of complete corruption and suffering. The physical plane will no longer be the dominant reality. The energy plane will be dominant"

One of the finest arts to master is listening. Listening and observing- these are the things that lead to understanding. And I'm talking about this with regards to literally everything- what other people are saying, what they're feeling... what species of plants and animals are around you and why, and how they interact with each other and with you, and listening to/observing your own place in your little niche in the world. If you try, you realize that at any given moment there are multiple things going on around you that you were completely unaware of. but the more i feel like i'm taking in what's going on around me, the more I feel myself forming unique connections to my surroundings. And you can always dig deeper and deeper layers. You start to become hypersensitive to things that didn't seem terribly significant before. How much noise there is in the city! How the earth is rattled beneath the surface by all of our hustle and bustle. Lie down in the grass anywhere downtown, spread out and press your ear against the earth. You can feel the vibrations, feel the disruptions we are causing without a thought or care. Flying is always so baffling because you can really see just how much we've altered the earth's surface and even its atmosphere (smog over all the cities). And what else is baffling is how easy it is for us to get so wrapped up in our own worlds.

If you are Jewish, you should do Israel by Foot

2010-11-11T19:02:00.000-08:00

Just landed back in the United States after spending 10 days in Israel, with an organization called Taglit Birthright Israel. The trip I signed up for is called Israel by Foot. 40 Jewish Americans meet up with 6-8 Israeli soldiers and students and travel all around the country (which is about the size of New Jersey) on a bus, in some of the most intense 10 days of my life. This trip is completely paid for, and Israel welcomes you with open arms. People actually say to you, "Welcome home". Sleep = no. Taking in more ideas and information than you thought you could absorb while becoming really close to a lot of peopel = yes. I haven't felt such an adventurous spirit in.. well... I guess a few weeks hahaha, but it sure does feel good. I'd love to be a trip leader in the future...
If you're between 22-26 years old and have even a tiny bit of Jewish heritage in your family, I really encourage you to go on this trip. Your perspective will magnify in ways you can't know until it happens, and you will make great friends in a land of deserts, thousands-of-years-old cities, hills, seas, kibbutzim, conflict, cemeteries. There is always a lot going on in Israel in terms of politics and religion, and it makes our lives seem very simple and safe.
All Israelis are required to join the army when they turn 18, and usually serve for 2-3 years. They are intellectually and emotionally wise beyond their years, far ahead of their American peers I would have to say. And hilarious. I never thought I'd become close friends with Israeli soldiers, but the past 10 days have allowed that to happen. I can't describe how I feel right now, the best I can do is say that I'm very grateful to have gone on this trip.

Laur Remembers 2004

2010-10-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

Laur left at 6am and naturally I couldn't sleep. The past two months DID have a lot of the same feelings as the summer of 2004. The fact that we can still identify with those feelings now that we're 23 is wonderful, and I know we will be able to identify with them time and time again, because they are the ones that make us feel really alive.
The three of us really feel like a family. It is so nice and gives me a sense of purpose and grounding in this start to some transitions in my life. It is so nice to be able to spend most of your time with/live with people you love and respect and look up to as much as we do.
Make sure every day feels like one you are fully living. If that means going against the grain, leaving your comfort zone, whatever... it is worth it. It is how you really figure things out =0)

Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time.
I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, and wrapped in time like a husk
A husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split.
(Annie Dillard)

How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth,
with its swirling vaporous atmosphere,
Its flowing and frozen climbing creatures,
The croaking things with wings that hang on rocks
And soar through fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas...
How utterly rich and wild...
Yet some of us have the nerve, the insolence, the brass, the gall to whine
About the limitations of our earthbound fate
And yearn for some more perfect world beyond the sky
We are none of us good enough
for the world we have
(Ed Abbey)

Back in Austin we are!

2010-10-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

Another journey came to its completion as we rolled into the driveway last night with a new housemate in tow. Laur will be stayin here for a couple of weeks, just hanging out while she attempts to search for jobs in the Boston area hahaha. We are actually hoping to share a room in or around Cambridge/Somerville sometime in the near future! All we need to do is: find jobs, and find a place to live. No big deal.
So after San Francisco we really only had a few days left of biking. We biked down route 1 into Big Sur, which reminds Laur of Hawaii and reminds me of nowhere else I have ever seen. The coastline is just out of this world because of the massive hills that drop off into the ocean, with a little road weaving its way alongside the hills in a series of switchbacks and hills that burn thru car's brakes and biker's legs.
Lauri and Paul stayed in Big Sur for a couple of days while I drove Maya, Sean, and RJ to LA so they could catch a train back to Austin. We stayed with Sean's Uncle Richard, who is a sustainability masta. He has his own greywater system, humanure system, permaculture, natural heating and cooling for his house, all that good stuff. He also has a sailboat that Maya and Sean slept on a bunch on their vacation, and I stayed on once on my way back up to Big Sur from LA. The sailboat is in Morrow Bay, which has a ginormous rock a bit off shore called Morrow Rock that makes you stop and hang out for awhile. It is a really peaceful place, with a lot of pelicans and sea otters to keep you company =0)
From Big Sur we began a weeklong driving journey back toward Austin. One night we camped in Death Valley. There were no other people there except for us pretty much hahaha, but it had less to do with the extreme temperatures, which aren't that extreme in late September, and more to do with its remoteness. When we woke up in the morning we hopped on our bikes while Lauri drove, because there was a 17-mile downhill into to valley that brought us from 5,000 feet to sea level. Way cool man.
Hung out a bunch in the Zion/Grand Canyon area, where amazing hiking abounds. You can see 1.5 billion years of history as you hike down 1 mile in elevation to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where it is not a blistering wasteland as you might think, but more of a green paradise flourishing around the Colorado River. It is unbelievably beautiful at the bottom of the canyon! We did some slack lining down there too and now Paul is going to set up his slackline in our yard, which he probably should have done a long time ago.
We met some people working for HawkWatch International, counting birds flying near the canyon for 8-10 hours a day! Lauri improved on her already keen bird finding abilities, and we ended up camping at their campspot in Kaibab National Forest, just a bit outside the park. It was really fun and since we hadn't done any warmshowers in awhile it was really great to hang out with people we were just meeting on the trip.
Our final stop before making it home was in Lubbock, TX, where our friend Terrence from the Outdoor School is living now. He was moving into a new apartment that very day, so we christened it with dirt (hadn't showered in a week and a half, just hiked), and ice cream and dr. pepper and pizza.
last night we went through all of our trip pictures and it took at least an hour- paul has over 1,000 and lauri has a few hundred!! so hopefully those will get posted somewhere soon =0)
when will the next bike trip be? only time will tell. you should come...

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some fog proof layers

2010-09-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

San Francisco baby!!! Got here last night across a Golden Gate Bridge that had a ten foot visibility hahaha. London fog lives here as well. It was sunny in Sausalito and then WA BAM, the clouds rolled in and you'd never know you came from such a sunny place.
Following route 1 all the way down into the city has been an adventure and a half, with steep windy switchback roads that continue around every corner, beaches that have become warm enough to swim in (!!!), beach acrobatics, unique camping spots, way too much coffee, and the formation of a team name- Scuttlebutt. Why we decided on Scuttlebutt, i must admit i can't quite remember. While eating some cheddar goldfish we picked out our identities based on the goldfish names on the box. Lauri = Extreme, Paul = Brooke, Andrea = Finn, and I am Gilbert. Again, a somewhat inexplicable occurrence hahaha.
We've been meeting a lot of really cool people too; bike tourists seem to have people magnets attached to them because we are kind of a curiosity. There are LOADS of bike tourists though, we are certainly not the only ones. Hikers and other vagabonds as well. The Pacific coast is one hoppin highway, for those with cars and without.
So we got put up for free in this really cool hostel in downtown San Francisco, called Pacific Headwinds. They play really good music all the time, Radiohead right now, and it is reminding us how much we missed listening to music haha. They have 36 people staying in a really small area right now but it is alive and buzzing with hungry foreigners who communicate with whoever else speaks their language. Besides the people who work at the hostel and therefore live here, we're pretty much the only Americans. The reason we get to stay in a room for free is because the guy who runs the hostel likes bike touring and put the hostel on the warmshowers website, only it doesn't say it's a hostel, it just says it's where he lives hahaha.
so during the day we'll explore the city and then our friend Marianne will pick us up in the afternoon and take us to her house about 30 miles south, for an outdoor school reunion with her and her husband Marcus, our friends Maya Sean and Allison, and ourselves. We just stayed with Allison in Arcata a week ago but her family lives in this area so we'll get to meet up with her again! I'm really excited for the fiesta that awaits us =0)
Reading two books right now. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard... good if you want to spend a lot of time exploring outside, it will give you lots of kooky ideas and excitement. Off the Map by Mark Jenkins, about a cycling expedition across Siberia that makes our trip seem like a life of absolute luxury.
Signing off for now, hope to talk to y'all soon,
love,
laura

watchu know about me!

2010-09-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hello all you fine friendly folk, from Fort Bragg, CA. hows that for alliteration ay?!

Here comes some memory vomit.... let's go backward in time, shall we. if you just got an avett brothers song stuck in your head, well, i did too.

so last night we stayed with a warmshowers host named Carrie. She's doing AmeriCorp in fort bragg with a nonprofit called Food Forest. They grow vegetables for local schools and teach the kids in the schools about the benefits of growing/eating local food. She just signed on for her second year of doing it cuz it's a pretty sweet job overall. She also enjoys classical piano, especially Chopin's ballade in g minor.

the past few days before that we've been camping in the forests, where some mighty tall trees have been growing for a thousand years or so. we got to run across a 200 foot tall tree that had fallen over, and crawl through a hollowed out tree that had fallen over as well. walking through the old growth pines makes you feel incredibly tiny. and seeing all the rings on the trunks makes you feel very young hahaha.

when we were biking further inland the weather turned warm and sunny and our water bottles started draining much faster. yesterday we got back to the Pacific, however, and the layers are back on and the water stops are less frequent. both have their merits =0)

before all the forest camping we stayed in Arcata, where our friend Allison is going to Humboldt State. Arcata is kind of like Ithaca in its vibe, and I would definitely like to live there for awhile. There was a contra dance going on in a couple of days but alas, we decided to move on. We will probably get to contra dance this weekend in San Francisco, though, so Lauri's month of withdrawal will finally come to a close. In the San Fran area we'll start meeting up with a bunch of friends too- maybe Marykate and Dankwan, Allison again, Maya and Sean (who drove out to San Diego with us), and Marianne, our friend from the outdoor school.

Our friend Andrea has been biking with us since Arcata and she is pumping up the hills like it ain't nobody's business. She is always super energetic and excitable, but yesterday she was flying especially high, despite the fact that it was our hilliest day in awhile. Route 1 is a little bit janky with all the steep switchbacks and lack of shoulder, but it's like you get to ride a bike rollercoaster all day long, and there's not too much traffic so it's a pretty good time.

I'm off to the beach I do believe. So long for now!

Love,

Laura, and everybody

bike trip numero dos

2010-09-02T10:38:00.001-07:00

Hellooooo universe from the house of Emma Pelton and her fine relative Pam. That would be in Portland, Oregon, land of bicycle lovers. The skies are blue and clear, the temperature settles in at 80 and makes us confuse the name portland with paradise.

So Emma has given us some Challenges for the road ahead: we must at least once busk for enough money for a meal, try to get a child on Paul's bike, with their consent and their parents. Fortunately, we well probably not actually attempt the latter challenge.

The movie MicMac gets a high recommendation from us all.

So this girl, Laurina. She doesn't think she can bike, keep up, yadda yadda yadda, "I'm so worried!" Well, guess what. Laurina has successfully left me in the dust every single day we've been riding thus far. We are arguing with head nods in opposite directions, but it is actually true. not. Not not. NOT NOT NOT. ok whatever you win.

Day one: a grand reunion at king's station in seattle. a lot of bike walking to Charlie Lane's house. an excellent warmshowers host i must say! totally laid back, enjoys basil and bumbleberry ice cream, writes all his notes and zine articles on a typewriter. he left on his own bike tour down the coast just yesterday, and i imagine he'll pass us rather quickly. see you in a few days, charlie lane.

Day two: we met up with our old roommate Josh and walked with him to the space needle. he just moved to seattle to go to cornish college of the arts for musical theater. he's totally going to rock it, cuz the kid is fearless and has some pretty solid musical aptitude. we also walked around the big martketplace called pike's place, where the music is fine and the apple cinnamon rolls make you salivate a little too much. i met a 29-year-old man named Elisah there and we talked for a long time about things you don't usually get to talk about. he has terminal brain cancer but he's pretty much never been happier/freer to do whatever he wants with absolutely no worries or inhibitions.
we meant to leave Seattle early in the afternoon but finally got around to it as the clock chimed four bells. We followed Rainier Avenue for a long time to get out of the city, but ended up making a big circle in a town called Renton as we looked for the next road. Luckily, this circle led us directly to the route that a man named Val was taking home. if you want to learn more about Val, check out rollingjackass.com. he is the man, with the most amped up bike i've seen in awhile, complete with a car horn. he led us to a bike path that quelled any of our navigational woes, and we followed it until dark, stopping to pick (or horde if you're Paul) some wild blackberries growing along the sides of the path. if you want to see paul in a state of no self control, lead him to some blackberry bushes and presto.
after the cedar creek bike trail ended we got on a road that led us to black diamond, and saw a shooting asteroid on this very road. really it was just a shooting star. but it looked like it just might make it to the ground.
after a quick little 11 hour nap in black diamond, paul woke us up with blackberry pancakes, praise richard. then we hopped on route 169 down to enumclaw, which is where the "chill" section of the ride ended for, umm, a few days. hello mountains. hello 20 mile uphills. hello numb hands and delirium. whoops, didn't foresee that one, despite knowing that we were headed toward Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens? hope to use the old noggin a bit more next time.
there were a lot of bikers cruisin this terrain, though, so hey i guess the whole world's crazy. they were actually planning on taking on the mountains, however, whereas we just ended up with no choice. we basically biked till we dropped every day for a few days. but the neverending old growth forests, quiet roads, and starry skies at night made it all quite worth it in my opinion. we're definitely in shape for the rest of the ride now, too.
near a campground called white river, we met a guy we'd seen in austin under the congress street bridge when we tried to see the bats with our friend. he and another man have been traveling for 15 years and plan on doing so for the rest of their lives. I wish i could travel around for awhile with them because i know they have so much to teach. i guess they're pretty much just out looking to make sure they see the world as it is and live simply and humbly without any expectations. as we biked away from them up a hill, i saw two dollars bills in the grass, all fresh and crisp like they just plopped down there. so i biked back down the hill and gave one to each of them. wonder if we'll see them again?
i named my bike arlinda. it means beautiful air in spanish. but that's not why i named it arlinda. i guess i don't really know why i did, but we did meet someone named arlinda in seattle and she was pretty neat. lauri doesn't think she'd appreciate knowing i named my bike after her. maybe it has something to do with naming my cadaver tissue arlo, i just like names that roll off my tongue like that?
ok so now we're in portland staying with emma, she is amazing, she and her friend Catherine have been showing us around and i feel kind of spoiled and warm and fuzzy staying here. we'll leave pretty soon, we just don't know when. so until next time, hasta pronto, sayonara.

love,
laurs and paul

maybe?

2010-06-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

work at the nature center and be in austin till the end of august. bike till the end of september. go back to austin until thanksgiving... go home from thanksgiving to christmas and visit everyone in new england... go to the dominican over dana's winter break... then see what happens? woofing? austin? missoula? grad school?

takin in the sights in good ol MA

2010-06-03T23:48:00.001-07:00

back home in westborough for a couple of days, still awake at 3am for the first time in probably years because im a partying maniac like that.
traveling to a different place always gives you a different perspective on things. even if you're just traveling back and forth between what feels like your two homes. and memory is so fickle. every time you revisit an old memory your brain reconsolidates and warps the information. so where does that leave you?

lord my body
has been a good friend
but i won't need it
when i reach the end

even though i don't really have anything to say in this post, it feels good to at least be recording something.

i want to learn how to tune and fix up Genie's piano. i want to talk to erik and maybe even somehow play something with him sometime. i want to start writing down more of the music in my head.

in terms of the further ahead future, id like to go back to the outdoor school. go on bike tours in the us and in other countries. teach at the taktse school in the himalayas. go to grad school to study music therapy for people with autism. add some music therapy to the wrfi curriculum?

in terms of the nearer to now future, long bike rides every weekend. a long fast to prove to myself i can do it.

what id like most of all is to keep focusing on listening more!!! if the best listening effort you give is to your own thoughts, you're just missing out. keepin the tunnel vision operating in full force. there are way more interesting thoughts floating around amongst your friends and acquaintances, than merely your own.

in westborough i love how funny everything is, how goofy everyone is.
in texas i love how unique everyone is, how many things i still want to do there, how i feel like things are maybe only just beginning, despite the fact that it's been about 4 months.

i like to think about the ways i relate to a person im close to that are completely unique to that one relationship. i like to rely on intuition as much as possible, and seem to relate best to other people who do the same.

i miss playing music for the refugees at school. these are some thoughts from a month ago...

Song for the Refugees

Where are they, which I am seeking most of all

The pair of eyes that will hold my gaze

Warmly, slowly, breaking into a smile

I would not feel like such a stranger here

If I could only find this.

I can feel the flame within my own pair of eyes

Growing dimmer, growing quiet

I want to fight the waning light

But I don't know for how much longer.

Look at me, we are the same

We need each other

More than you or I understand.

So stay with me a minute

Hold my gaze

Learn my face

When we meet on the street again

Do not judge me by my race.

Look past your watch, your answering machine

Understand what I have seen

Do not hide behind that facade

I need you now, I need you now.

And Response

Look into my eyes

I will hold your gaze and share

Your fear, your pain

Let me help you with your load

Mine is none so great to bear

I marvel at the fire you have left

Hold fast to it, let's make it grow again

All things heal with time

Your fire will not die

Though with words we cannot share

There is something much deeper here

Today we understand each other

I do not see your race, I see You, my brother

wear your helmet!

2010-04-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

says the person who cared the least about helmet wearing two weeks ago! a $3 child's helmet with flames on it from the thrift store is the reason i'm not a vegetable, along with the solid advice of our friend Maya! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! umm... more on this later!

austin

2010-03-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Watching the movie Memento last night was the final thing to convince me to start recording my thoughts again. Memory surely does get distorted and fragmented over time, and it's nice to have some living proof of the past instead of just some vague ideas. Since my typing speed is more on par with my thinking speed than my handwriting speed is, I'm going to use this blog as my warehouse of ideas. Although I plan to live in Austin for at least several more months, through the end of the summer, I do still kind of feel like I'm out on the open road, takin in the sights in the US of A.
Coming to Austin has been a new breath of fresh air. Everything seems full of life and warmth. The wildflowers are already starting to bloom and our seeds are already starting to sprout. We are learning new things every day, like how to make your own yogurt or ginger brew, sprout sprouts, eat beautiful vegetables for free, and think outside the box as often as possible. I have been talking with my coworker, Sherri, about how we feel like we are living in a dream state a lot of the time. If you stay calm and centered and look at everything as an adventure waiting to happen, life can easily slip into a sort of fantasy world that feels like a waking dream. So while I have been having a lot of trouble remembering my sleeping dreams, I still feel like a lucid dreamer a lot of the time, in my everyday life. Although I am awake I can ask myself the same question that a lucid dreamer might: "I am in control of my own dream right now; what is it that I want to do?" Although my possible answers are definitely more limited, it is such a cool way to approach every day.
What I want to do with my life is simply to keep it as adventurous and free spirited as I possibly can. To completely eliminate the ideas of stress and anxiety and fear. To act upon motives that are as pure and good intentioned as possible. I'm going to farm in South America, bike to Moab with Maya, instruct a WRFI course, release an album with Andrea, work at the hospital in Haiti, write a Requiem, write a soundtrack, become a Reiki practitioner and a massage therapist, study hypnotism and Daoism, research music and the mind in graduate school, run Leadville and Western States, bike across the country from farm to farm with Anna, go on a 10 day Vipassanna retreat. Or maybe I won't. The point is that I could do any of those things if I choose to. Your mind in the present, your memories of the past, your conception of what the future will be, that is all that reality is. Life is a waking dream. Reality is your illusions. So make them good ones knowing the power is all yours.
It is only too easy to stay inspired when you are constantly seeing the good in everything around you.

Finale

2009-08-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Oh lordie, the longest stretch of non-blogging to reminisce about yet. luckily my grandpa already asked me to cover the final week and a half so my memory has already been jogged.. thanks Gramps.
first off let me tell you, EVERYONE should go on a long bike tour at some point in your life... at least if you enjoy biking. i still can't believe how amazing this summer has been. i would love to just keep biking and biking and biking. i can't even explain how happy i am that i was able to spend the past 80 days like this.

so i believe the day after we left missoula we made it to a campsite called Colgate Licks. En route we crossed into Idaho and stopped at the visitors center which has free hot chocolate =0) I also realized near the end of the day that I left my raincoat at Brandt's house. Luckily my mom convinced me to bring a "deluxe" rain poncho that ended up coming in very handy only one day after the raincoat was lost.
idaho is not completely covered in potatoes. if you're on route 12 you will see lots of old growth cedars, which mature at 400-500 years old but then live up to 3,000 years. i felt like we were about 12 inches tall when we were walking amongst them. there are also wild blackberries growing all along the side of the highway, and some other fruits too! good times for a biker!
at Colgate Licks we met a man named Chris who was headed back to Portland after a rock climbing trip in montana. we sat around a fire together and had some good conversation. the next morning we went over to chris's campsite for coffee, and he also gave us some cinnamon rolls and a chocolate bar. before he drove away he left us with some fine words of wisdom: "do not open the chocolate bar in the wind".
huh? why not? phil's hypothesis was that smell is very important for taste, so we wouldn't enjoy the chocolate bar fully with the wind ruining our sense of smell. i thought that sounded pretty reasonable. but in fact, when we opened the chocolate bar that night, we discovered that Chris had slipped a $20 bill inside the wrapper for us. that was one of the nicest things anyone has done for us on this trip... if you're reading this Chris, thank you so much, that was amazing.
From Colgate Licks we continued among the cedars and reached a trail to Weir hot springs, where we soaked in the 106 degree water on a fairly cool morning. we met up with Mo from The Lab in Missoula, taking her family who were visiting her from texas to the hot springs. as we left the hot springs the weather went downhill and before long it was raining raining raining. my poncho came in handy, and so did a historic ranger station that we stopped at and warmed up by their wood stove. we stopped at a picnic site off the road outside kooskia to camp for the night.
from kooskia we got to the twin cities of the west, on the idaho/washington border, Lewiston and Clarkston, but not without a little help. we hitched a ride for about 35 of the 75 miles due to a late start and the first of many headwinds, which can gust up to 25mph. the ride actually felt amazing! we got to skip a lot of highway riding, too. we got dropped off at the lewiston city park along the snake river. lots of people asked us about our trip there, and no one seemed to mind that we had picked a not-quite-real camping spot for the night.
from lewiston/clarkston we stayed in washington, and rode about 60 or 70 miles to dayton. the winds and the hills abounded and we realized that the last few days of our ride were going to be a little more difficult than ya might think.
in dayton we were inspired to leave by sprinklers turning on at our campsite, which you might recall would not be the first time we were awakened in this manner. but it was good that we got an early start because phil was able to make a connection with a couple in Hermiston, OR, so we had to make 80 miles to get there that night. we followed the columbia river for several very warm hours, and our warmshowers hosts Ken and Nancy met us on their bikes a few miles from their home to make sure we wouldn't get lost. while we were showering nancy finished cooking up one of the best meals we had on the whole trip... fajitas with the most amazing ingredients. Nancy is all about good food: http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=Articles&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=9CBC5AFD93494603A3695421A2E0CC7F or if that doesn't work you can just google Nancy Gummer. she and her husband do a lot of bike touring and they use a Burley trailer like Phil, only they use it for their dog Toby, who has his own sleeping bag to relax in for the ride.
Nancy took us to a bike shop on her way to work and Phil got some new tires and 8 more patches because we had pretty much used up our supply. we went to a bakery and ate/purchased way too many pastries on our way out of hermiston, and another windy hilly day got us into roosevelt. roosevelt is the site of a landfill where seattle's trash gets sent, and luckily we decided to pitch our tent right at an intersection where all the trucks drive between the trains that deliver the trash and the landfill that receives it. 100s of semis later we were happy to leave that campsite behind. phil, of course, slept thru them all passing, much to the surprise of the truckers themselves. roosevelt has hundreds of wind towers and it and its surrounding areas are getting a lot more installed as well! we got to talk to a man who delivers the wind turbine parts to their sites.. it is a job and a half cuz those things are MASSIVE! the most wind power we had seen throughout the whole country was right here in the roosevelt area.
from roosevelt we made it to the Dalles via the freeway, which is towered over by mt. hood. the freeway is getting a bike lane painted in and we were possibly the first two riders to use it! the sunset stopped us in our tracks on this night, but eventually we made it to a good camping spot near a comfort inn, and possibly went swimming and hot tubbing to clean up a bit.
waking up after the Dalles we realized we had only one night of camping together left. we ended up at Ainsworth State park where we cooked pasta with onions and peppers and also had salad, bread, and a bottle of wine. we over-pressurized the stove to a fairly dangerous degree but it was still a completely successful dinner, the perfect one for the last night of camping.
the last day was a rough one for me. it was hard to be happy to be heading into portland because i definitely did not want this trip to be over. but we had a pretty sweet day following the old highway past several waterfalls, including Multnomah Falls, which is over 600 feet high! we decided to risk taking a road that was closed to thru traffic, but after a 6 mile climb we discovered that it was closed due to a landslide and that we would not be allowed thru. so we had a little 12 mile detour on the day of my flight, making the day 47 miles instead of 35. we still got into portland with plenty of time though, and phil helped me box up my bike to ship to my friend Maya so she can go on a bikeride. we got chinese food for dinner and bought 16 postcards at the marriott hotel to send to all our warmshowers hosts. after taking the light rail a pretty good distance to the airport, we spent our last couple of hours writing the postcards to everyone and just sitting there reminiscing and saying goodbye. eventually my flight was scheduled to leave in only 25 minutes and i could not put off leaving any longer. let me tell you, it was not an easy time. i had been thinking about it for awhile but it was still really hard for me to climb up those stairs to security and admit to myself that this adventure had definitely come to its conclusion. it took me about 15 minutes to check my saddle bags and go thru security, so i got to the gate with 10 minutes left before departure. i was definitely the last person to board.
so that's that! the best summer i could have dreamed of. thanks for readin' y'all =0)
my family wants their input:

Uncle Andy: "The last day was great because I knew I was seeing my family again."
Dana: "I really like your head." "You didn't smell that bad when we picked you up, until you picked up your arm."
Ryan: "Ryan did some special interpretive dances and talked in the third person."
David and Gloria: "I think it's amazing that you spent $0 on lodging. It must say something about the humanity and friendliness of the United States."

Back in Missoula!!!!

2009-08-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Phil and I have spent the past few days back in Missoula, which is where we met on our "montana afoot and afloat" course last september. missoula definitely seems like the place to be around in montana, especially if you are of our generation. you can meet almost every type of person you can imagine here. it almost feels like a mini-utopia i would even venture to say. for example, if you forget to lock up your bike for a few hours while you go swimming and hiking, and it even has saddle bags full of stuff on it, you may just be lucky enough to come back and find your bike completely unharmed. if you are a traveler passing thru town and you need a place to stay, you may just run across The Lab, which is one of the coolest houses I've ever stayed at. There are 7 or 8 residents but several more people have been passing thru in the past 3 nights that we've camped in their yard. They have an absolutely beautiful and bountiful garden that reminded me of K.K. and Ira's biodynamic farm back in Long Island (PS if you want to learn more about KK you can type KK Haspel into youtube's search engine and there's a 6 minute video segment about her and her garden). They also keep chickens for eggs. There's a treehouse bed you can stay in if you're passing through, and there's also a cargo net and some hammocks hanging from the porch ceiling. These along with several couches are occupied all the time by people just hangin' out, talking or making food or watching movies outside on the projector or whatever. Their fridge is covered in thank you notes of the people who have passed thru just in the past few days; Phil and I will add one soon as well.
While in Missoula we got to meet up with 2 of our past WRFI instructors as well as a major WRFI coordinator. First we went to their office, where we traded news and got some long overdue WRFI mugs that were supposed to be given out on course. Then we met another on the University's campus and looked around at an exhibit of Pulitzer-prize winning photos... they were all very depressing and kind of a slap-in-the-face reality check for ya. The instructor we met at the exhibit, whom we call Fancy because of his fancy snowpants, offered to take us floating on the Clark Fork River and then end up back at his house for dinner and drinks. So we ended up spending most of the day with Fancy! Phil got to test out his class II whitewater skills in a single person kayak, while Fancy and I shared a big blow-up "ducky" kayak, where I did practically no paddling whatsoever. When we pulled out I took my bike (which we'd dropped off) back up the river to where we'd left the car, and then brought both back down to the pull-out site. It was a really, really good time =0)
I think we're leaving today, but maybe tomorrow. We've got a week's worth of riding left! I think I am off to get a dollar slice of pizza at Pizza Pipeline. praise richard.

bighorns to helena, mt

2009-07-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

hello from helena ladies and gentlemen
so we left john's house having to bike up up up through powder river pass in the bighorn mountains, which reaches an elevation of 9,666 feet over about 40 miles of ups and downs that includes a lot more ups. luckily, for the first 25 of those 40 miles, john offered to carry all our gear in his truck and then meet us for lunch! so that is exactly what we did. it was a great ending to a great stay with one of the coolest people i've ever met. john helped us out more than i think we still realize.
the climb actually did not feel too terribly bad; the weather was perfect, we were well rested, we had help with our gear, and we even had a tailwind! the wildflowers were beautiful and the trees and the hills and the everything. and at the top of the pass we were rewarded with a sign warning of a steep downhill grade for the next 18 miles. beautiful! we stopped on the way down to look at the huge canyon before us, eat some pop tarts, and talk with a family traveling from missouri who we would actually meet up with again in a couple of days.
we rode about 70 miles on this trek thru the bighorns and camped on nowood road, which was beautifully empty and almost too beautiful to behold. our goal for the following day was to make it to cody, wyoming but we were feelin' the climb a little too much for that to happen. the headwinds caused our progress to slow even further and we ended up having to call it a day about 15 miles outside of cody. close enough i say.
into cody we went the next morning, where some food shopping resulted in a lot of gorging ourselves and where the holiday inn pool called my name a little too loudly so i took a dip while phil caught up on the old blog. it started to rain a bit as we started the gradual climb from cody to the entrance to yellowstone, but the ride still felt really good. the landscape kept getting more and more beautiful as we neared the park. we got to go thru the only real tunnel of the trip so far as well, which was pretty exciting. thought about swimming but the water was cold enough so that i only went in to my waist. i also found a large bag of unopened lays potato chips on the shoulder and ate its entire contents within minutes.
we camped at a developed campground about 20 miles from the park entrance, which you have to do because of grizzly bears (camp in develop campgrounds that is). we were right on a creek in front of a bluff and we got a fire going that allowed us to cook up some rice pilaf that id been carrying from westborough, as well as some mac and cheese. we did our first bear hang and promptly fell asleep.
right as we got to the east entrance into yellowstone, hail came down upon us! this was actually great timing because we could hide under the entrance into the park until the hail passed. it was still quite cold and rainy as we climbed into the park, but all the uphill allowed us to create enough body heat not to mind.
the wildflowers in yellowstone are AMAZINGGGGG. there is also a lot of wildlife everywhere. prairie dogs, bison, pelicans, bald eagles, elk, black bears, and grizzly bears were some of the crazier ones. the bison walk in the road all the time and so we would be biking just a couple of feet away which was pretty nerve wracking!
all the campgrounds were full in yellowstone except for one that was in the wrong direction, but phil figured out a solution to this problem. he helped a french family retrieve a ball that they had lodged in a tree, and with that earned us a place to stay at their campsite as well as a pasta dinner with beer and homemade vodka, and then eggs and bacon in the morning, and plenty of good conversation in between. amazing.
biking out of the park was crazy because you lose about 5000 feet in elevation going from canyon out to the north entrance on the montana border. we had a 100+ mile day ahead of us so the downhill helped a lot! we still didn't make it to our destination, livingston montana, until 11pm. there we met katie kelly, a fellow WRFI-alum and a fellow biker for the next portion of the trip! she is traveling with us from her family's house in livingston, mt to the house she's moving into in missoula, mt, which is a 4 day ride. it is awesome to have another person along and she is totally kicking ass; we biked the 130 miles from livingston to helena in 2 days and though she hadn't done any biking recently she kept up with no problems and no complaints. now we're at her friend's house in helena kickin' back for a bit before we head on for two more days to missoula. good times everywhere. i can't believe there are only a couple weeks left to this trip.

sioux falls to the bighorns

2009-07-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

i definitely don't have the memory to cover this amount of days, but luckily every night i have been writing down about 1-5 words to help keep things in order hahaha.
back in sioux falls i met a Lakota native named Leon Bird Horse. He showed me around a little bit and we just compared pasts. He grew up on a nearby reservation and is the only person from his family to leave. he didn't like all the alcohol and what it did to everyone. so he came to sioux falls and is working for a landscaping company. sioux falls is the only city he's ever been to, but now he's thinking of moving to minneapolis for another job. crazy! in rapid city i talked to a couple of other natives and they let me try some of the food that they get from the government. it's good that they're able to get it, but when i was eating some cheese i definitely had to use my imagination to believe that it was actually cheese.
in sioux falls we got to see harry potter at midnight on opening night! this caused us levels of excitement too great to convey, as we had only been talking about it for the entire trip and even making up trivia questions for each other while biking. unfortunately, we dragged our host, travis along, and he did get a lot of good popcorn courtesy of phil, but im pretty sure it wasn't his choice activity. we didn't get back till after 3am and he ended up calling in sick from work because he was supposed to go in at 6am. well travis, all i can say is thank you for your sacrifice, it was not lost on us. you were one of the most amazing hosts ever! our route out of sioux falls was perfect and it was all thanks to you.
the word "sioux" is actually a french word used to talk about the Lakota people.
so for the first time, biking on the interstate is sometimes necessary, often the best and most direct route, and is actually quite pleasant because there is so little traffic going thru states with so few people.
after sioux falls we made it about 70 miles to mitchell where we stayed with Dave Stevens, a warmshowers host who had just joined the site a week before. he is a ref in the famed corn palace, which i guess is pretty cool but also could be seen as a big waste of corn in my opinion. Dave filled us in on the tour de france and took us out to a really nice dinner! a deluxe breakfast the morning after left us more full that we'd felt in awhile.
there are lots of pheasants in south dakota; it's the state bird but sd is one of five states where you're allowed to shoot the state bird hahaha.
so the nite after mitchell we did some guerilla camping and were awakened to a tour of 50 international, senior-citizen-aged cyclists heading in the other direction. they were supported and had fancy bikes and jerseys, but were also leaving at 5:30am and doing up to 120 miles per day! pretty bad ass for old timers. we met people from new zealand, trinidad, and the uk.
the landscape switched from corn to prairie and the sky seemed to somehow get even bigger, the sun even stronger, the sunsets even more magnificent, the winds stronger, and the stars even brighter even in towns with lots of light pollution. in short, the world is getting crazier day by day. people keep getting nicer too if that's possible; you know you can get help in south dakota and wyoming if you need it just by all the people who willingly stop of their own accord to see if you're okay when you're stopped.
we made it out to the badlands and used some borrowed motorcycle passes to cruise into the park for free, woot! we have sinced passed on those passes to other xc cyclists going the other direction, and they gave us their yellowstone passes.
the badlands seem to spring out of nowhere and are very expansive and beautiful. there were less tourists than i thought but we were biking thru late in the day and got to catch a wicked sunset from the top of one of the passes, it was absolutely ridiculous. we also saw a lot of prairie dogs, who didn't really appreciate our presence but if you're gonna choose to live on the side of the road in the badlands you should probably get used to people.
the town on the other side of the badlands is called Wall and is infamous for Wall Drug, a drugstore that's more like a mini mall and a huge tourist trap. it has delicious and dense donuts and the town served as a really good camping area for us. there are literally about 80 signs on the interstate for wall drug, it is quite bewildering and reminds me of howe caverns, shout out to lauri kaity and peg hahaha.
from wall we went on to rapid city and stayed with a family of 4- Dan and Mary are the husband and wife, remy is the 8 month old son, and tig is the dog. mary took us food shopping in a van which was kind of a novelty, and we all kind of made dinner together and talked about twins and buddhist monks. the next day i picked up a letter that my friend paul sent general delivery to the rapid city post office and it is one of the best letters i've ever gotten, i'll definitely be rereading it lots on the rest of the ride. it even came in a braille envelope, i mean come on now. i also went to the bike store to get a new chain and new brake pads, and to have my derailleur bent back into its nearly original shape, whoops. bike feels great now hahaha im glad to have my lower gears back cuz climbing climbing climbing is our future.
the black hills are what greets you leaving rapid city and there are more pine trees than you've seen on the whole rest of the trip combined. we saw mt. rushmore and the crazy horse monument, which is still a work in progress and should be absolutely crazy (harharhar) when it's completed! then we cruised downhill a bit into Custer, where we warmed up with coffee, soup, and chili, and then went back to our old guerilla camping habits. we went to bed early and got up at 7 for the toughest ride of the trip- 115 miles from custer to gillette, think hills and headwinds thrown into the mix, yikes! i wouldn't have made it without phil, i just didn't think i had the energy, but phil's constant good mood and energy plus the beautiful landscape plus a major stop and subway kept me going somehow. i thought i was going to break down and cry for the last 30 miles but at the end of the night i could just laugh it off. gillette is the energy capital of america, supposedly, and has the country's largest air-cooled power plant or something like that, and it is both ridiculously large and ridiculously bright.
gilette to buffalo (can u tell i don't know how to spell gillette) was beautiful and mostly downhill on interstate 90. and only 70 miles! it felt like nothing. we met those two other tourers who were going the other direction, they are exactly our age and their names are nico and caleb i think haha. we talked for awhile and were able to exchange good advice and stories since we had all just completed the journey that the other party was about to embark on.
buffalo is where we are now. it sits at the base of the bighorn mountains, where i am seeing snow for the first time in many moons. we are about to climb them, 10,000 feet in one day but we have heard stories and seen photos suggesting it is more than worth it. plus there is an 18 mile downhill on the other side! so we're about to leave, phil's just getting a bit of work done at the bike shop and then i think we're off!
for dinner we had hamburgers last night, but that would actually be about my 4th time eating meat on this trip. i have been dreaming about it and so for the first time in 8 or so years i am stopping being a vegetarian for the remainder of the bike trip.
john is one of the coolest people i've ever met. he is a great pianist and composer and let me try to play some of his music and gave me some to take on the trip and practice in my brain. it has been so much fun to stay at his house, definitely good times!
i just bought a plane ticket home for august 14th from portland to boston! crazy! only 3 weeks left.... hope we make it =0P

we's in sioux falls waHAHhhhh

2009-07-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

there is a honeylocust tree right outside the window and it is making me wonder. nearly every town we bike thru has a Locust St. why would you want to name a street that, unless maybe there are lots of honeylocusts on it. or u want to remember the plagues?
so the twin cities are superrrrrrr wicked awesome. it is a land of co-ops, especially food ones, they are where everyone shops. they're definitely invested in the future of the environment on both smaller and larger scales, from community gardens and a small college that runs entirely on wind power, to a 110,000 square foot green roof on the target center. the mississippi river goes ramblin on thru and trails follow it the whole way. so many people commute by bike and are usually significantly faster than us hahaha. there are a lot of really nice neighborhoods but there is still also a lot of theft.
we met a really sweet person named carol while we were biking to andrew's house and she works at the science museum, so we were able to get free passes and learn a lot about our bodies and the titanic. we learned that if you stare up at the sky on a bright and sunny day, and you start to see those little spots runnin' around everywhere, those are actually your red blood cells traveling thru the capillaries in your eyes. if you can follow the paths they seem to be traveling on, you can see the outlines of the capillaries too. crazy right!!!
andrew helped us get our bikes into shape again, helping phil with his bucking headset and me with my recurring broken spokes. his daughter madeline is such a good kid, it totally blew my mind and made me hope that if i ever have a kid we'll develop a parent-kid relationship like theirs.
we stayed at a second house in minneapolis just a few blocks away, the amazing house of tim and tara. they're both about 30 and also have another roommate sarah; they made us feel so welcome right away and spoiled us with good food and beer, a shower and a guesthouse to ourselves with a loft that has a claim to the most comfortable bed in the world, i slept until 10am for like the 3rd time in my life. sarah is in the process of writing a book about one of her bike tours with the two other girls she toured with so we shared our experiences for awhile. on the morning we were supposed to leave we still stayed with them for breakfast and a 4:00 lunch and helped them spread dirt around their yard; their yard used to be completely concrete but they're turning it into almost completely garden. also at their house i discovered stuffwhitepeoplelike.com for the first time, you should check it out if you haven't because it's hilarious!
so leaving minneapolis after 4pm we didn't make it all too far. we were trying to follow bike trails for 60 miles west out to hutchinson but we couldn't quite put it all together and made it about 20 miles out to waconia after being on and off the trail a few times hahaha. the enormous steeple of a church lured us its way and we camped at the bottom of a hill behind the church. phil cooked some tempeh for dinner that tim and tara gave us in preparation for a 115 mile day to marshall, mn.
the 115-mile day began at 10:30am and would last for the next 12 hours as we passed thru fields and small towns with populations between 61 and a couple of thousand. though there were some headwinds, the lack of topography made for smooth sailing and the day actually passed pretty quickly; we are getting good at talking on the bikes and also at kind of falling into quiet meditation or observation. we ate loads of food and are learning to be always more and more thankful that we are able to sustain our insatiable appetites. also we got 9 free slices of pizza from a gas station attendant who was about to throw them away! pizza and beer for dinner, woohoo!
we have learned that schools are great places to camp this summer and figured that Marshall High School would be no exception. in the end, it was an exception. we were unaware of the automatic sprinklers that drench the entire yard at in the middle of the night with sprinklers that seemingly have the power of fire hoses. it was a hilarious site with us scrambling out of the tent and attempting to haul all of our stuff out of their before it got too soaked. we found a new sprinkler free spot to put our stuff, much of which were filled with puddles at this point. but due to the level of our tiredness we were soon fast asleep again, enjoying the fragrant comfort of our wet sleeping bags, wet clothes, and wet tent. there was also a quaking aspen tree right next to our new site and the blowing leaves sounded exactly like water, just to torture us.
90 miles southwest would get us to sioux falls, but first a trip to the laundromat with our sleeping bags was in order. i could barely ride my bike with the weight of the two wet sleeping bags throwing me off balance, it was hilarious. while i did that phil sun-dried the rest of our stuff and packed up camp. the pizza was finished off at this point as well, thank you again gas station attendant.
traffic is sparse and shoulders are wide in much of this area; the headwinds were not too strong and the weather was once again perfect as we journeyed onward. we made good time, averaging 10 mph throughout the day even with stops, which is something we don't usually do over a long period of time. fields of corn are pretty much permanently imbedded in our minds at this point, and a lot of soy too. tons of trucks passed us today, pulling us up the rolling hills and cancelling out the headwind for awhile, never thought id appreciate trucks so much. thunderstorms were starting up a little ways away as we rolled into sioux falls and the sky looked crazy. we are now staying in the apartment of a guy named travis, who is a bit older than us, also loves to ride, and is a corrections facility officer but is super laid back and nice, it seems like a funny fit. he hooked us up with harry potter tickets for the midnite showing tonight and is even coming along with us despite the fact that he has work at 6am, aka three hours after the movie ends hahahaha. two guys on a cross country motorcycle trip were also staying with travis so we got to hang out with them and learn about their trip as well.
today is dedicated to exploring sioux falls and rereading harry potter for me, while phil catches up on his blog. then tomorrow we set off on about 4 more days of riding until the next big city, rapid city. in between we will probably go through the badlands; the motorcycle guys (keith and richard) gave us their passes which last for a week so we might just make it in time to use them, woot!
happy birthday to phil's mom and happy travels to my own maaaam!

catching up!

2009-07-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

well it's been a few days, let's test the good ole memory. first of all bob dylan' s song "blind willie mctell" is so good it has been slowly killing me. as my friend maya once said, i have been strummed into righteousness.
so on the 4th we left madison at dinner time after meeting alan and erin's landlady, who climbs mountains all over the world and hires guides and all that crazy business. i dunno if i already mentioned but alan and erin are embarking in may on a 2-year bike trip from the arctic circle to the tip of south america... bluh!
so we biked only a few miles before we were already in rural land outside madison. as it got dark we came into a town called Black Earth where the fields were full of fireflies. it looked unreal as it got dark, they all just seemed to be floating around serenely and there were hundreds of them, it was actually a little bit cooler than the fireworks hahaha. we saw some fireworks starting up ahead of us as we biked so we sped up toward them. we got to a public school where we could see them pretty well even though we were a couple miles away, so we watched them there. they made me unexpectedly homesick, but some ridiculous mad libs involving hippopotamous schlongs cheered me up. we camped in the schoolyard since we knew no one was around; the population of the town was like 100.
the next morning began with me picking some wild berries and then getting chased away by a very intimidating bird. i believe we were going to viroqua on this day hahaha i mite miss a day in this entry. it was still flat at this point and sunny and perfect, as it had been for many days. we passed Dylan and Clementine, two people doing a 6-month bike tour of the US who came from Switzerland! we had learned about their tour from talking to someone on warmshowers, so phil saw them and yelled their names but they had no idea who we were so they were super surprised hahaha. we talked with them for about an hour tho it only felt like 15 minutes, that's what always happens when you take biking breaks it seems. phil hopes to visit them in lasahn (no clue how to spell that), switzerland within a couple of years and it wouldn't surprise me if he did.
viroqua is a very randomly located progressive town with a really big co-op considering it's relatively small size. phil was having some trouble breathing here so he went to the doctor, they said he had acid reflux, which he doesn't, he actually had a virus (his grandma is a doctor and she was able to actually figure it out). so a couple of hours in the emergency room with blood tests and a numbing drink just led to phil picking up a prescription he didn't need, yea doctors. we camped in back of a church and phil talked to a lot of people at the food co-op while i did some bike trail research. if we took roads for about 30 miles to la crosse, a small city on the mississippi, then we could hop on the Great River Trail (i think that's what it's called haha) for about 25 miles north en route to the twin cities. so that is exactly what we did. the trail was gorgeous, there were lots of birds and swampland and a national wildlife refuge and a state park, and very nearly the whole trail was lined with wild raspberries and blackberries! phil got his 4th flat, while i've still only had one.
when we got tired we just picked a random patch of grass rite off the trail to pitch our tent. the mosquitoes attacked us with a vengeance so the tent pretty much felt like heaven. phil seemed pretty much better at this point which was excellent.
next marnin' i washed off in the silty Black River while phil was still getting up. it had been about 5 or 6 days since we showered so the grime had accumulated pretty well. i've been getting these solid black lines of dirt along my neck that look pretty hot. sometimes i clean them off, sometimes i don't.
we made it halfway from where we started to the twin cities, to a town of 121 people called Maiden Rock. we had spent almost the whole day just following the mississippi and in maiden rock we pitched our tent about 100 yards from it, and about 20 yards from a train. we seem to end up next to water and trains pretty frequently. again phil was able to sleep thru the ground-shaking trains, while i was awake most of the nite feeling really itchy, which i assumed was from being so dirty. in the morning i went in the mississippi to try to remedy this, but the itchiness didn't go away. by the end of the day phil and i both realized we had somewhere somehow mingled with some poisonous leaves that were the actual source of the itchiness, so now we spend a lot of our free time scratching. alas.
so we made it into st. paul and thru to minneapolis last nite and will be here today and tomorrow. we are staying with a couple and their 4-year-old daughter. they are super nice to us and have about a dozen instruments, plus the twin cities seem really cool, so we're pretty excited. rite now phil is on a bike route with some people who deliver fair trade organic coffee by bike. he found out they were leaving about 15 minutes in advance, so he just jumped on his bike and went, seems to be typical phil-style.
from here it's about 550 miles to rapid city in a straight line west! we'll see how long it takes us to get there! ps phil and i had a race for a couple miles yesterday and i won. though i will give credit where credit is due and say that my bike and stuff = 40 pounds and his = like 100.
when we got off the trail we met some hills, but none so bad as in western pa.

2009-07-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

madison got the best of us again! we're actually sticking around at least a few hours and we'll either just meander out of town late in the afternoon or stay one more night hahaha. as long as we're in rapid city on july 14th at midnite for harry potter all is well (it's the only major city around so we think we probably have no choice but to make sure we're there)
so those vibes. first of all, i have started to lose a lot of my concept of time. this is a pretty rare thing for people in our country to experience. i used to check my watch and know the date and the day of the week and how many hours i slept each nite, normal things of that sort. now a lot of the time im really just not sure. thats why i've given up dating these posts, it takes a lot of figuring out hahaha.
i feel sufficiently guilty that im having such a good time and relying so heavily on the kindness of strangers a lot of the time. however, guilt is not the necessary emotion to feel, so i am trying to channel it in other ways. leaving a really nice note or a little treat at the houses we stay at feels good. applying for a lot of jobs yesterday felt good. staying in touch with people feels good.
most of all its cool when people get really excited and want to know about our trip. they usually say something like, "i wish i had time, i've always wanted to do that", things along those lines, and my response is always the same.... do it, you can totally do it and the time is now. it really is all about your priorities. of course the real world comes with its restrictions and limitations. that is why i never want to own a house or a car or other expensive things of that sort that can tie you down. the more simply you live, the freer you are. i have had plenty of time to reflect on that and i have never felt it as much as i do now. i love when people comment that there's no way i have all the stuff i need just in my saddle bags, which are not full. while i should definitely give credit to phil here because he is carrying a lot of stuff that we both use, i love how on this trip i have figured out that i can live off of about 20 pounds of stuff that can fit in a backpack.
mostly on this trip i am feeling a lot of humility and gratitude. riding under the sun and the clouds and the stars and the moon with the breeze or the rain and the trees and the fields and the skyscrapers and the lakes and riding a beautiful bike alongside a beautiful person, meeting beautiful people, in perfect health, laughing and singing the day away... i know how blessed and lucky i am.
dont wait for things to work out for you in life... you can make them be working out by smiling, laughing, singing, letting go of whatever it is that you are worrying about but you know its not necessary. let other people know how you feel about them. question the motives behind what you do and let yourself be satisfied with the answers when you know they are good ones. look around at this beautiful earth, thank god it is still as beautiful as it is. learn everything you can every day and don't be afraid to feel the importance of the things that really get to you.

2009-07-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

well happy 4th y'all! phil informed me last night that the declaration of independence was actually signed on july 2nd, and then the next year they realized they might want to commemorate that but it was already july 3rd, so they just did it on the 4th and kept it that way for all time to come.
we've spent the past couple days in madison which reminds us a lot of ann arbor, which is a good thing! madison is also a huge college town. the college is right on the water. there's a bike path that runs the length of the city; the people we're staying with use it to tandem pike all the way across town to their ultimate frisbee games and its a 40 minute commute each way.
i've been talking a lot about actual events that happen to us but never really stop to reflect on kind of the vibes that we're getting from it all. i guess we're actually trying to leave pretty quickly so now's not really the time, but stay tuned fer all that.
dad, congrats on your block party performance, i bet you gave tailspin a run for their money.

2009-07-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

chicago to neil's dad's fixer-upper-house in highland park!

leaving promptly at 5pm we followed the lakefront as best we could (50% success rate mas o menos) northward-bound to a very well-off suburb called highland park, where neil's dad is fixing up a house that was well equipped for our arrival. air mattress, table, fold-out chairs, guitar, harmonica, mad-libs, the best pizza around, and 6 oz bottles of wine. neil is the man!!!! we hung out playing music and eating for a couple of hours before neil had to go home cuz he works at the ass crack of dawn. then phil and i improvised a ballad that tells the tale of everything we have seen heard and spoken from may 20th to present day.

highland park to..... whoops not milwaukee

planned on making it to milwaukee, got sidetracked by a sweet eco-justice center run by the Racine Dominican nuns about 20 miles south of the city. they are looking for a part time worker for any eco-justice interested unemployed readers. so we pitched a tent in the yard of a church right near the center, the pastor asked no questions but just offered us a spot right away as well as some dessert! we made great friends with the mosquitoes but only 3 made it inside the tent and they quickly met their fate. good-bye, and good-night.

whoops not milwaukee to milwaukee!

UMM SO TODAY WE GOT TO MILWAUKEE WHERE SUMMERFEST IS GOING ON AND GOT TICKETS TO SEE BOB DYLAN AND WILLIE NELSON!!!!!!! willie nelson is still young and chipper seeming, while bob dylan has undeniable style but is undeniably lacking in the vocal range he had of yesteryear. it was so amazing just to be there in the presence of them, i am sure its the only time i will get to do this in my life!!!!!! willie nelson did a lot of covers and was just rockin'. bob dylan i seriously cant even describe the style of him and his band. the only songs i recognized were desolation row and like a rolling stone but thats ok... my favorites are the ballads and i knew he was not really going to be letting the vocals shine. we also saw pete francis from dispatch and a fiddler with her band, ruby jane, from austin texas who is amazzzzingggggg.
the 4th is coming up.... i hope y'all are doing something spectacular with spectacular folk =0)

catchin up a few days!

2009-06-29T09:53:00.001-07:00

HEY EVERYONE I MISS ALL Y"ALL! the song hide and seek by imogen heap is taking over my life rite now i really like it.
i am really gettin' into the swing of this biking thing! we are so lucky to be able to meet so many amazing people, see all the beautiful landscapes, be able to afford enough food to keep us revving, i am so grateful and humbled and contented by everything that has been going on.

here are our past few days!

we left pete's house i believe on june 24th? or thereabouts. leaving rochester was a trafficky endeavour as we said goodbye to Big Bear (pete), Mr. Muehmel, Wrigley, and the unemployed world of the detroit area behind. soon enough, though, we were following a road called pontiac trail which is a direct shot into ann arbor, and we were back out in big open fields where green blue and white are the only colors in sight.
ann arbor is a pretty big town or maybe even a city, but the pontiac trail road was completely rural right into the town limits. when we got into town we stopped and sat down at the first bench we saw to eat some food in a motionless state, one of my favorite things to do both on this trip and during the rest of life. a gay couple walked by and informed us of their approval of us as a cute couple.
as we biked toward elissa's house from warmshowers, we saw a resale store called the treasure chest so phil stopped to talk to them while i went explorin, our usual gig. he talked to a lady named swana for like an hour about her values with regards to how we're leaving our mark on the earth, and i believe phil became teary-eyed for a brief moment in time. meanwhile i was just sippin some ginger beer and finding out that ann arbor is full of friendly ppl and cool places, it's definitely one of the more progressive places i've been.
we got to elissa's house and met her and her dog georgi, a silent lover who loves to lick and never barks. elissa just finished her masters in natural resources and works on a farm.
i biked to the hardware store where a guy helped me find the parts to adjust my bak rack, which had been slowly and steadily collapsing for some time. then i met phil at a park at the university, where there is free music every single nite for THREE WEEKS in the summer! we got to hear a cover of wagon wheel and drink 5 dollar beers, phil's first purchased beer, good times. there were so many people just hangin out, eating drinking dancing and listening to music on a beautiful summer nite. really wut more could u want =0P

Ann Arbor to Kalamazoohoohoo

100 miles today and it didn't feel too bad! flat lands are good lands for sure. we just biked our asses off and got to a fire station right outside kalamazoo around 10:30. they'd never heard of ppl camping at fire stations the way Phil has, but welcomed us anyway, even offering their tv and common area. we did some stargazing on the warm pavement with joni mitchell, neil young, bob dylan, and even great skaught serenading us. we camped under a tree with declicious berries which i helped myself to for breakfast the next morning cuz the firemen sed they never eat them. this is also where we found out that michael jackson has passed on from this world.

Kalamazoo to St. Joseph, MI

so we woke up and started singing the Kalamazoo Blues impromptu-style, you know just for fun, but in the end we did experience some real kalamazoo blues. somehow we spent approximately 4 hours in search of groceries and the start of the KalHaven bike trail, which, obviously, were both exceedingly difficult to find. but the kalhaven bike trail is beautiful- 35 miles out of kalamazoo west to the shore of lake michigan, on a shady and gravelly path.
we came out in south haven and got to spend the rest of the day biking south along the shore. we stopped at the lake for awhile and everything just looked absolutely brilliant! chicago looked a million miles away and knowing it was tomorrow's destination was just a bit mind boggling.
we camped right on the lakeshore in a town called st. joseph, about 15 feet from some railroad tracks that trains enjoy using around 3 and 4 in the morning. we split an entire loaf of garlic bread with way too much country crock at dinner. the sky and the lake were GAHHHHHH that good.

St. Joseph to Chi-town!

muffins and coffee for breakfast awwwww yea! phil got a free mug from the grandma across the street who offered us the coffee.
we made sweet tie all morning and stopped for lunch at the touristy beach town of new buffalo, mi, which is rite on the border of mi and indiana. totally a tri-state day today, michigan indiana and illinois yo. anywho, we crossed into IN and were soon greeted by a massive nuclear power plant with houses and a playground like 100 feet away, super reassuring.
soon after that we came upon mt. baldy, a massive sand dune that is moving toward the highway at a rapid pace; i wish the people there the best of luck with that. we had so much fun running, rolling, and jumping, and front-handspringing down the massive slope of the dune, it was so steep!!! i had to climb up it on all fours. and then there was the lake michigan water... warm and clear and fresh! we even drank it, which a friend later found to be utterly disgusting but oh well. we had a somersaulting conest and i won 8 to 7 even tho i kept my nose plugged with one hand.
our next stop was gary indiana, and yes, there is video footage of us singing the song rite at the welcome sign. we spent an hour trying to find michael jackson's family's house. we never found it, but we did find that gary is a very depressed, eerily empty and abandoned city. i have never really felt the way i did biking thru gary.. it was so desolate and even if you did see ppl walking together, they were seldom talking. heebeejeebees.
gary to chicago was only a couple hours' ride and we ha the time zone change in our favor. reaching chicago's lakefront was super exciting, especially for phil who most likely could not have calmed down if he had to. major beach party in chicago. we followed the lakeshore on a bike route. so many ppl out and about, some gathered around for a sweet drum circle.
around 9 we got to kelly's house, which is one of several co-ops in the area and is amazing! around 14 ppl share food and music and good times in a crazily-configured house that hasn't been remodeled since ike the 1880s. we're staying in kelly's sun porch for a couple of nights. they have a dog named bean too =0)

chicago to... chicago!
today i hopped on bus 6 downtown and met up with neil from the outdoor school!!!! we hung out all afternoon at Taste of Chicago, a huge food-frenzy where restaurants from all over the city are vendors in the same area so that you can sample food from a lot of them all in one place. we had spinach pizza, rainbow icecream, and cheesecake with strawberries... wicked good! phil met up with us in time to see the Wallflowers performing, too. then neil had to leave but phil and i went to an improv act at second city which was pretty funny. the whole area was abuzz with excitement because of the gay pride parade that took place during the day.
phil and i walked about halfway back to the co-op, maybe 4 or 5 miles, along the lakefront, splitting a pint of new york super fudge chunk en route. it was a beautiful nite! tomorrow we're biking 30 miles north to highland park to stay in neil's dad's house, neil's gonna meet up with us again woohoo!!!!

june 21-23

2009-06-23T16:32:00.000-07:00

ummm so i think today is june 23rd yes it must be. we spent the day hangin out with Pete, another kid from Montana! he lives in Rochester, MI, about 26 miles north of Detroit. he lives in a suburban subdivision but there is an absolutely beautiful park a block from his house called the Stony Creek Metro Park where i walked around this afternoon. there are tons of trails and big trees and some crazy birds makin noises i've never heard before. i tried to do some meditation but there were mosquitoes and mountain bikers up the wazoo.
pete drove us into detroit and on the way we stopped at the Chrysler World Headquarters, which is a massive complex on 300 acres of land. the auto industry is falling apart tho, and unemployment is 15% in detroit and its population has gone from like 1.2 million to 700 million in the past five years. the city looks pretty depressed in a lot of areas but there are still a lot of super rich ppl living in the area too. we drove up to the river and could see ontario just across it, which is crazy i didnt know detroit was just a skinny river's throw from canada!
yesterday we spent the day biking from perrysburg mi (near toledo) toward detroit, but we only made it to about 20 miles south and then pete picked us up in a minivan so we could just roll our bikes right into the trunk. it was his birthday so phil and i ordered a birthday cheese pizza for him right before he got to us. unfortunately we were so hungry that it was phil and i who ended up eating basically the entire birthday pizza. we biked past michigan's only nuclear power plant, which looked pretty intense and high in temperature.
the day before that we biked from vermilion to perrysburg i believe. perrysburg is the hometown of a woman named Susan who hosted us with only a few hours notice. we got to her house around 9 and she made us some pasta and salad and leftover chicken and roasted vegetables and then gave us strawberries and ice cream for dessert... dang! she loves photography and has covered all the walls in her house with hers' and other people's photos. she is also a wine aficionado. she left at 6:30am so she had said goodbye to us the night before, but she came home on her lunch break and we were still at her house hahaha. we didn't actually leave till like 2.
supposedly tomorrow we're starting a new precedent and leaving at 9am. we're only goin' about 50 miles to the college town of Ann Arbor, but we wanna be able to check it out during the day, and we also wanna prepare ourselves for the 100 mile day after that where we try to make it from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo.
i can't believe we've already gotten ourselves into michigan with only a couple short rides here and there! my body feels full of energy, like it's radiating energy, and i never feel very tired or sore or anything. i couldn't ask for better health! my body feels very alive, i think it was meant to do this type of thing.
i am trying to spend a lot more time appreciating the earth and looking at it as a living being in all aspects. every time we take a break i just love to lie in the grass and have my whole body on the earth's surface and just kind of imagine it breathing under me and around me.

June 20th

2009-06-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

after saying goodbye to Sarah and Aaron and their four cats, one of which lovingly clawed me a few hours before leaving on the bottom of my foot, we set out for the shore of Lake Erie so that we could follow the shoreline all day on Route 6. We stopped at a bike shop called Century Cycles to do some adjustments in a biker-intellectual setting, and they asked if they could take our picture and put it on their blog which is pretty sweet. i forget the blog's website tho hahaha. we got down to the lake and it was a beautiful, windy day along the shoreside. we stopped to go down to the water a couple of different times and went in once, even though there was a High Water Quality Advisory Level hahaha. the water is not very cold at all, it just felt beautiful and i couldn't tell it was gross.
we made it pretty quickly to Vermilion where we were stopping for the night at a warmshowers home. there was another bike tourer staying at their house too; her name is Gretchen and she is retired and doing a long solo ride, which is pretty sweet. the parents of the house are Sam and Susan, a coroner/bike and espresso aficionado and a track coach/former amazing runner who still runs for fun. they took us downtown at night for the fish festival, which attracts 100,000 people with tons of vendors and boat parades and music. we got to see one of the boat parades traveling thru the canals, and there were so many people out it was really cool.
Sam the coroner showed us pictures of people after the accidents that caused their deaths and it was pretty disturbing, it set phil and i off on a long conversation of whether we are living our lives exactly the way we want to, sounds morbid but it is a good thing to think about every once in awhile haha. sam cooked a special dish just for me because im a pain in the arse vegetarian. he is an amazing chef, we are seriously so spoiled on this trip its not even funny. amazing and large meals, super comfortable beds, hot showers every day, sightseeing with the people who know the area... absolutely ridiculous.
today (june 21st) we're headed 75 miles west to toledo and tomorrow we're staying with another WRFI-ite named Pete, and its his birthday tomorrow too! Yippee! He lives about 25 miles north of Detroit, in Rochester. But we were supposed to see another WRFI-ite in Ohio and it looks like that's not gonna work out =0( alas.

18-21

2009-06-19T20:19:00.001-07:00

day 18 WAS A TUESDAY. and on it we just hung out in pittsburgh, city of steel making. it has a shit ton of steel bridges and two rivers going thru it, the monongahela and the allegheny. it was a wonderful day of just exploring the city and i spent a lot of time by the allegheny river being crafty with some paper birch tree bark. michelle was really fun to be with and made me laugh really hard.

day 19 WAS A WEDNESDAY and also phil's birthday, which we celebrated at midnite but after that, sadly, kind of had to leave thoughts of it behind because of the intensity of the day. it was about 80 miles from michelle's house to youngstown, ohio, where we would be staying with a couple in their 60s named Peg and Frank from warmshowers.org. however, what made this day so crazy was that it rained about 2 inches, the most rain the area has seen in like a year. the shoulders had rivers running down them by the end of the day and lawns were flooded and all of our stuff was absolutely soaked. luckily we actually had a really good time in it, and even extended our ride on purpose a teeny bit at the end. the sky looked crazy and everything was reflecting off the clouds and the sky would not get dark!
peg and frank are super nice. peg gave me dry clothes and we got showers and a dinner of spaghetti, bread and butter, salad, and beer, phil's first legal beer. we talked with them til like 1am and Frank fixed up our bikes like whoa, including replacing my three broken spokes. so nice main. he biked the first couple miles out with us in the morning too. he is actually a bicycle safety instructor and has some very interesting philosophies, including endless reasons why wearing a helmet is dumb. if u care to hear i will gladly tell u but there's too much to say for rite now.

day 20 we went 80 miles from youngstown to cleveland, leaving at like 1pm which was a dangerous decision. we went thru cuyahoga national park which was beautiful. by the time we got to cleveland it was getting dark, so our friend Sarah from WRFI (the montana trip phil and i both went on) and her husband drove out a few miles to help us out and pick us up! they have been our wonderful hosts for the past 2 days, feeding us indian food, taking us sightseeing, helping me find a harmonica strap so i can play harmonica while biking, etc. good times good times =0) they have four cats and one slept on me/in my sleeping bag/on my pillow last nite, its name is blitz.
on the nite of day 21 aka today i got to see friends from the outdoor school!!!!! it felt so good!!!!! and 3 more of them live in chicago, where we mite b in a week or two, so im super amped =0)

days 15-17

2009-06-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

15th diawell win we lift ryder's house it was to meet ourselves up with 50 miles of hills, gee golly gee. the highest point we reached was called the tuscarora summit at about 2100 feet, but the whole day was just endless ups and downs with 1 or 2,000 feet or elevation change not being very uncommon! the fun has only just begun according to the rumors on the street too, and wen we look west all we see are hills.2nite we're sleeping under the stars in a Mennonite family's yard. They are incredibly nice and respectful, and they love to meet strangers and wish the world was still a place where being hospitable to strangers was perfectly common and acceptable. the kids were really shy but excited that we were there so they kept kind of half secretly spying on what we were doing. the dad is elijah, the mom is brenda, "the boy" (that's how they refer to him) is daniel, and he was out hunting groundhogs when we got to their house, and the girls are marinda and melody. sleeping under the stars for the first time in awhile feels beautiful.16 16 16today we were back on the bikes by 8:30.... which previous to this point was absolutely unthinkable! our goal was 100 miles across endless hills and mountains to a connection we made with someone in greensburg, pa. however, it was not to be.we started out really strong, climbin the hills like it was our job. worked up a hefty appetite and got footlong subs at subway at 10am. the lady making sandwiches told phil he was not allowed to get vegetables on his sandwich and he believed her. then, not 2 minutes later, she told him he could actually only pick out 2 vegetables, and again he fell for it. pretty hilarious.we had to climb multiple 2,000 ft. + peaks today, with zero flat stretches! at one of the summits we stopped to check out the view and talk with some members of a military convoy who were stopped there for a break. we could see 3 states- pa, md and wv. the military convoy had left D.C. the day before and it is taking a 26-day journey across the country to San Francisco. lots of people were lined up along us Route 30, the road we've been on for a large portion of PA, to wave to the convoy as it traveled by. we neglected to ask them what exactly the purpose of their journey is, tho, oops.so yea, route 30 thru western PA = masochism on a bike. at the top of a 3,000 foot summit phil's chain snapped, but with no prior experience and very little outside help (but thanks Pa!!!!) he was able to rehabilitate it and get his bike back in working order. however, the delay forced us to give up our initial plan and instead pitch a tent behind a closed store in Jennerstown, PA, still 30 miles outside Greensburg (our original destination) and 60 outside Pittsburgh. it was across the street from a burger king so needless to say we did some damage there. i told phil to write about it on his blog about our search for a green america hhahaha. his blog's url is www.agreenamerica.wordpress.com if you guys wanna check it out.day 17 aka monday aka yesterdayThe hills are alive with the sound of music! And tons of eating! and sweat and grime and burning quads! 60 miles into pittsburgh and we made it!!! our first stop was an ice cream shop called Oh Yeah! and we just sat there for awhile celebrating our arrival in a semi-delirious state. one of the highlights of the day's ride was a 3-mile downhill with a 9% grade the whole way. we were cruisin' at like 40-50mph the whole way and i was just laughing to myself while tears streamed down my face cuz of the wind.now we're couchsurfing with a girl named michelle, who just got into the phD program for chemical engineering at the university of pittsburgh and has a huge exam in a couple of weeks so she's just studying studying studying. we're just hangin' out in pittsburgh on tuesday, takin' the day off woohoo! while phil is getting his bike checked out at a bike shop im baking a cake for his birthday on wednesday... pretty sneaky if i do say so myself.

days 12-13

2009-06-16T09:49:00.002-07:00

Day 12~ WindsdeeWe stayed up til 4am hanging out with Sam's friends (Sam is the couchsurfer we're stayin' with). It was so much fun, I spent most of the time just laughing at everyone's antics. At midnite this kid Joe showed me how you can go down to the pretzel factory down the street from Sam's apt. and get 4 pretzels for a dollar cuz they're hot off the press... there were like 50 kids with bikes just hanging out outside the factory eating tons of pretzels with all kinds of good toppings. so good.in the morning, sam's younger brother jack helped us make sure our bikes were in top shape with his mechanical expertise and his love of bicycle perfection. he fit me to my bike and rewrapped my handlebars with old inner tubes, which actually works amazingly well and is super waterproof! phil's bike is newly acquired from a used bike shop called Firehouse bikes, so he got some adjustments done on it too. but it is riding great and phil is actually like twice as fast now with a road bike that was built for touring instead of a mountain bike.On our way out of Philly we checked out a fair trade market in the Reading Terminal, with a pretty suave jazz pianist tearin' up the keys. then we hopped on a bike trail that took us 20 miles west to Valley Forge, bringing our 4-day visit to Philly to its inevitable end. on the bike trail we met an old guy riding a recumbent-type bike that was only a few inches off the ground. he let me try it out and it was suuuuper comfortable, but slightly freaky cuz everything seems to happen fsater when you're closer to the ground.around 8:30 we biked into a campground, but it was pretty much abandoned and creepy as hell. so a bit further down the road we asked a lady for some yard space and she offered us a spot under her pine tree. we scared her a little but she was really nice and genuine and after looking at our ids she seemed content to trust us.Day 13 (Thursday)Today was WETTTT. we continued following this pre-mapped out bike route that leads you west across the state of PA with convenient and easy-to-follow signage.... how nice is that! some crazy hills, our first taste of Amish country, and some massive rains that pervaded all of our shit and lead us to the dryers of a Lancaster laundromat. while i dried our stuff in Lancaster, Phil was blogging at a coffee shop and while doing so he found someone on warmshowers.org who was willing to host us rite then and there. Her name is Heidi and she is super nice and reminded me of a cross between Betsy and Anna (aka amazing). we had dinner with her, her roommate, and her roommate's fiance, and then i went for a walk thru Franklin and Marshall's campus. at 9 we went a few blocks down the road to see ironman in the park for free; it's a good thing it was free cuz it's the lamest movie ever.now we're back at heidi's house where it's beautifully warm and dry, and yet again i am just marveling at the amazing amount of kindness that has been bestowed on us in the past 2 weeks, a lot of the time from complete strangers. i only hope i can pass it on.a guy named nate asked me for my number today while i was out walking. it was weird cuz we only talked for like 30 seconds but i actually felt like we were really connected somehow. hahhaa who knows, it's impossible to tell in 30 seconds.Dia CatorceWe left Heidi's house around 10 and biked a couple blocks to the Central Market, which is like Lancaster's big indoor farmer's market. on the way we met a guy nnamed mike, who has done multiple xc bike trips in obscenely short amounts of time (think 1-2 weeks), and he's also spent a whole year biking the perimeter of the US... guh!phil went into central market while i listened to this kid Dmitri play guitar rite outside. he just moved here from russia a week ago as an exchange student, and he has an amazing voice! all his songs were in russian becuase he's just learning english. he played Russia's national song, and a song about "big love between one guy and two women". then another guy who was watching, and i, busted out our harmonicas and a trio was formed... it was so much fun!!!! all these little kids came by too, and they were dancing and it was hilarious and beautiful. dmitri asked if i would show him around lancaster, but i said i was leaving, so i just gave him my email address and he sed he would write, hehehe.we made some good time thru-out the day, and realized we could get to gettysburg pretty easily. ryder only lives 8 miles outside of gettysburg, in fairfield, and we called up bets and ryder to ask if we could stay there, and just like that we were hooked up again. we hung out in gettysburg for a few hours, mostly at a coffee shop with wifi. i talked to a kid named jay for like an hour about how traveling completely alters your life every single time you live somewhere new... it was pretty cool, he had just spent a year in egypt. then i talked to another guy about how gettysburg is becoming more and more about commercial possibility than anything else.we got to ryder's house just in time for phil to watch the end of the hockey game with the musselman family. they were incredibly nice and funny and we got to hang out with the chickens and goats and have a paul simon singalong with cody, ryders sister.

days 10-11

2009-06-16T09:49:00.001-07:00

Day 10~ mondaywe spent all day in philly and it was absolutely marvelous. i had most of the day to explore on my own while phil worked on his blog in a pizza place w/free wifi and wicked good mediterranean pizza and salad.while we were still biking downtown from brian's house, we stopped for a few minutes outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art and I started talking to a middle-aged man selling water to tourists. He had a necklace with a huge bicycle and so we had something to talk about right off the bat. I told him a lot about our trip and he was really excited for us, but said he would never be invited to stay at stranger's homes the way we were, because the races don't mix like that. I realized i agreed with him and i also realized that based on my very limited time in philly it still seems super segregated b/c of socioeconomic status. you can pretty much assume that in rougher looking neighborhoods, 99% of the population is black, and that it is white people residing in the nicer areas.we went to the main branch of the philadelphia free library, which is a massive beautiful building like so many others here. we basically only went into the cafe b/c we were hungry and just looking to access the internet. the first thing the lady in the cafe said to me was something like, "I'm feeling so happy right now it shouldn't be legal". These are my favorite types of conversations to engage in. She is 50 and "romance is rekindling in her life for the first time in awhile", and she is pretty sure she is about to be accepted into grad school to become a children's librarian, which is her dream job. I just loved being around her b/c it was obvious how happy and excited she was to be alive.It felt like everywhere I went I was meeting people like this and maybe it sounds stupid but I felt like my roommate Maya's spirit was right there with me all day maybe b/c she has spent so much time in Philly. I felt as happy and liberated and invincible as I did at the OUtdoor School for the first time since the season ended. I just felt really open and receptive to giving and receiving love all day long and I'm pretty sure the feeling is here to stay.I did a very historical tour of Philly and saw places like Franklin's grave, the house where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the first US Supreme Court house, and the Liberty Bell. It is a very touristy area and I felt like a definite tourist. The Liberty Bell doesn't seem to be in its prime anymore. It is in an artificial-feeling building and it just chills right above the ground at the opportune height for people to snap photos of each other with it. Maybe this is a negative way to look at it, but I felt like a lot of its symbolism was lost amongst people who just wanted to snap lots of photos. Probably I'm generalizing just a little too much here tho.The people we're staying with are wicked nice and funny and Phil's bike got stolen but they said we could stay as long as we need to, or want to. They also offered a couple of bikes to him, gave us sympathy muffins and beer, and are just super fun and nice people, amazing people. So good.But now it is Day 11 and Phil got a new bike and we's back in biznass. THe people in this house are sick, we are at the corner of Federal Street and 6th Street. We went out to a $300 dollar dinner with Phil's relatives who are visiting the states from Jersey, and one of his relatives pulled my chair out and in and kissed my hand at the end of the night. jeezus.

days 8-9

2009-06-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

Day 8, saaaturdayToday we left all of the relatives behind for good. Phil's mom drank coffee and was feeling sentimental but she was doing pretty well considering those 2 things combined. Phil's dad continued an extended conversation about his various life philosophies... I think he chose the right major (he's going to school right now for the first time for philosophy)We left at 1 with 62 directions off of a pedestrian-friendly google maps route. we went right by scotch plains again and didn't leave that area til like 4pm, tho it was only about 20 miles south or so from cedar grove... whoooops. i thought the ride was absolutely beautiful... perfect day, good smells surrounding us from endless eateries. But the whole day it only got nicer and nicer! We went thru New Brunswick, home of Rutgers, which is a pretty hoppin' place even now when school's not in session. Got on 130 South which is a cruisin' road for sure. We decided to take a break and lie down in the grass around 7, in what seems to have been a sewage field. If we knew we were still about 25 miles away or that Phil would bike over a nail and puncture his tire, we might not have taken said break. But the night ridin' was wicked sweet as we biked into a much more rural New Jersey. Phil's roommate Paul and his girlfriend Dani met us a few miles from Paul's house on their bikes and led us the rest of the way to their house in Chesterfield, NJ, which is a beautiful beautiful beautiful place. So green and open, smells so good. I'd love to live in a place like that if my friends and family were there.Day 9, sundeeThe day started off amazingly when Paul made veggie and/or meat omelettes that we wrapped in tortillas with melted cheese on them. Add some wicked sugary coffee and some sauteed arugula from the backyard and you are in business, my friend.Paul's whole family minus his brother left their house with us around 1. We stayed on local roads for awhile and biking doesn't get any better than it does in a place like this! Paul's dad, Marty, was barefoot. His mom Martha was bringing up the rear but she kept us just fine. Two dogs chased us that Paul said chase everybody who ever passes that house. Good job owners, good job.Paul led us most of the way toward Philly with the occassional glance at a map. We decided to cross over from NJ to PA at the Palmyra bridge, because it is one of the few with a pedestrian path. NJ officially ends and PA officially begins halfway across the bridge; the states share the Delaware River.We stopped for a 3:00 or 4:00 lunch at a nature park right on the river at the bridge crossing. I went in the river... not too cold but not too clean either. Still my legs and arms came out cleaner for it.The bridge was beautiful... you could see downtown a few miles to the left, and the river below was sparkling. We got into Philly in a pretty low income area that extended for awhile and kind of reminded me of the Dominican in a lot of ways. But in about 10 or 15 minutes, as we approached downtown, we left the rougher area behind for the most part. We rode the hilly part of Philly up to Paul's girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's house (Brian), at the top of a hill on Rector St. We had just missed a 160-mile long international bike race that took place thru the city during the daytime. Everyone was outside using it as an excuse to party.We dropped off our stuff and biked back down the hill with Brian so that we could escort Paul to the bridge that would take him to the light rail that would take him back home. We followed a super nice trail along the Delaware River and got to go thru beautiful parts of the city. So many beautiful, humungous buildings, many of them very old. So much open space, so much green, trees and parks, fountains and statues, dang. Tomorrow we're exploring the city all day.We split a whole pizza at Mom's Pizza, which was back near Brian's house. There was an actual mom at the register who completely spoiled us; she kept telling us to relax and Phil even got a brief back massage. After downing a whole pie we thought it fitting to get some ice cream. I could feel my stomach expanding uncomfortably but it did not deter me in the slightest. The moon was full either yesterday or today and both nights it was big and glowing and yellowish-orange and beautiful. Phil trucked it back up the hill in the excitement of not having his trailer attached to his bike. I barely made it up the hill with my once loose-fitting fanny pack now cutting into my expanded stomach. But we made it back and that is that. Yay Philly!

cant find days 1-3, startin with 4 harharhar

2009-06-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

I took a 4-day hiatus from writing while we visited all our relatives these past few days. On Tuesday, we biked from my grandma gloria's house in seaford long island to my grandpa jack's house in queens, ny. he took us to lunch at the cross bay diner, which is the only place we ever really go, and a short burst of rain passed over while we were eating and hangin out with gramps. it stopped around 5 just as we were ready to leave... good karma. biking toward manhattan was cool because we could just watch it looming ever closer as we approached it for about 10 miles. it didn't look as intimidating as it normally does, not as imposing for some reason. we sang the 59th street bridge song while we thought we were crossing the 59th street bridge (also called the queensboro bridge). we thought we had the right to comment on how ugly the bridge was and how we couldn't understand why anyone, let alone 2 people as great as simon and garfunkel, would write a song about it. turns out we were just on a bridge that approaches the 59th street bridge, which ended up being much more legit and actually crossing over water (we seem to have forgotten about that on the other bridge hahaha).we biked over to central park and i got to travel through it for the first time, in my memory at least, which we all know is faulty. it is huge and peaceful and definitely has a totally out-of-the-city feel to it. we crossed thru it and came out on the west side, where phil's uncle marvin lives at 100th street. it is a super nice neighborhood and we decided not to even take the wheels/seat posts off our bikes overnight. phil even accidentally left a bag with a lot of his valuables on marvin's neighbor's windowsill, but it was left untouched from about 7pm to 11pm and it was even unzippered the whole time hahaha ridiculous.marvin's apt. is basically a museum sitting on top of a synagogue. he has collected more cameras, clocks, artwork, model cars, photos, etc than he can fit in the apt anymore. he loves to drink orangeade, the closest thing to orange juice without potassium (he only has one kidney and he can't have potassium). he showed us old photos and told lots of stories... let's just say he's a ladies' man who has traveled far and wide, maybe had a 2-day affair with a supermodel, you know things like that.the next marnin we biked over the George Washington bridge, which is absolutely ginormous yet still shakes and sways a bit with all the traffic and the wind. i guess that's what bridges are supposed to do but it still makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. we stopped in the middle to look around... on our left was a really good view of the cityscape, to the right the hudson river, behind us the bronx, in front of us NJ. we had to carry our bikes and all our shit up and down a lot of stairs, but i think i'm stronger for it.it started to rain as we got into nj and weaved our way across the random streets that google maps recommended pedestrians should take. it was my 1st taste of biking in the rain and it really wasn't that bad. we went to dunkin donuts for the 2nd time on the trip, which has by now led to a 3rd time since yesterday was national donut day. got to phil's house around 4.... his parents are wicked nice and it has been really good just chillin here for 3 days. i went to my cousins' house one night in scotch plains which was wicked fun and got to see julia's chorus conert, which she was wicked enthused about, and borrow her pants which fit me so comfortably that i was wicked enthused too. their dog benji is a job and a half to manage and so is their 11 year old dog Murphy nowadays because he is so sick, but they seem not to mind each other and they're both good dogs in entirely opposite ways.on friday i met phil's grandma, Omi, who used to be a pediatrician, but is now 86. she is still on top of her game though, that's for sure. now it is saturday, one week from the day i started. and we're off to philly WOOHOO!