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The Sleeping Situation

So the boys rolled into Placerville before I even left Davis. Another couchsurfer was staying in Davis, the one who filmed our video blog for Day 1. We went out to get Thai food for lunch before I left. It was so completely delicious. Really fresh ingredients and sauce that was really light and delicious. I might actually manage to eat healthy on this trip.

When we got back our host was cleaning her house and offered a bike tour of UC Davis. Now that was really interesting. First of all, it turns out that UC Davis allows communes to exist on their campus. As in kids living in domes or old houses with land to grow vegetables and to raise chickens. Second of all even without the hippie commune people, UC Davis grows its own olives and makes its own olive oil, which you can buy and third of all there are frozen yogurt places all over which we needed after biking in the heat in Davis. I'm not entirely sure how the boys are not passing out on their bikes, but I suppose that is why I am their support car driver and they are the cyclists.

I nearly crashed the bike that our hosts let me borrow anyway. It didn't have grips, so after putting on suntan lotion holding on was a problem and it barely had breaks, which in traffic was a problem, and it made this really interesting continuous squeaking noise, which wasn't anything but worrisome. Also, I was way way too short for that bike. Talk about immediate bruising. Soooo basically I'm a big sissy and should stay away from biking. It's a good thing I'm on a trip called BAAM. Turns out in Davis I am also exceptionally clumsy. I managed to knock over bikes and drop things and bang into things. I mean I'm uncoordinated, but I'm not normally that bad.

Also, I had to attempt to parallel park. I have not parallel parked since i took my drivers test. The other couchsurfer was laughing pretty hard while he watched me try to do it. Not only was it parallel parking, but it was parallel parking with spikes sticking off the back of the car.

Davis is pretty much the biking capital of the world. Everyone there bikes. They told me that they have more bikes per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. and they were beaten only by one foeign country and I forget which. I could actually believe it. The place we stayed had at least 8 bikes. Driving around there were bike racks everywhere and bike shops. The city's symbol was a bike with a huge wheel. There are bike lanes and traffic signals and paths. It was all very pretty.

I called this post the sleeping situation because sleeping is funny. We show up at a place we don't know and have never seen and get some sort of sleeping arrangement. At our other place we had two couches a floor and a backyard, no air conditioning. At this place we had a big community room floor to put our sleeping bags on, air conditioning and free reign in the kitchen (church kitchens always seem to be well stocked).

At this place, which has treated us so so well, they didn't want me to sleep on the same floor as the boys. Every place we go to will have new accommodations and expectations, you have to be very flexible when you are living off the kindness of strangers. This one was exceptionally funny to me because... well... they're stinky so it's not like I'm going near them anyway. Also they biked all day and are probably sore all over, so we get to the new place the boys eat all the food they can mooch (OK, I do too) or that we can make, and then they wander around blearily in bikers shorts until they pass out on a sleeping mat sometimes still stinky.

Then they wake up in the morning and go go go. You would think this would be boring for me, but I get to hang around the places we've been with our exceptionally nice hosts and I eat food that Mike German didn't buy and I sleep in til 10 am. So far, I am definitely very relaxed. Soon I shall rustle up a dinosaur museum to visit.

So in conclusion... sleeping at churches means that you are well fed and treated very nicely in air conditioning in clean locations. Also really funny things come up like the issue of girls sleeping at minimum 7 feet from very stinky boys. This is something I can live with. They've all been nothing but nice.

Signed most extravagantly,
One Shelly Kessler

Always Remember to Bring Your Towel

I might end up being the only person to update this blog; I'm going to be doing most of my driving and sight seeing alone. When you're alone for such a long period of time you want to reach out to the world. Apparently the solution is to post a blog into the abyss.

I had an amazing time in California, the first leg of my trip. Traveling without a care in the world beyond what shall I eat tonight and what wine shall I try and what place would I like to sleep is pretty nice. I wouldn't say that I am burnt out from college, but I am sick and tired. For the last week and a half I have gotten regular sleep and regular exercise. We would get up early, sight see all day and then sleep until we woke up. It is too bad that such a thing will never last. I don't know what to do with this much sleep; I feel well rested. I went to an organ concert and did not fall asleep once, this is highly unusual.

So, this blog isn't about the super awesome trip I took to California, which I highly recommend... It's about BAAM!UMBC

I missed the train to San Fran and missed meeting up with the boys. The family they had stayed with in San Fran sent someone to pick me up. He was very nice and dropped me off at the car and pointed me in the right direction.

A note about trains. Trains are awesome because you can always find another backpacker type on them. Today I ran into a couple who backpacked and couchsurfed for a year across Asia, Oceania and Eastern Europe. I aspire to be so adventurous. I love running into such people. They are always excited about what you're doing and they always have the most interesting stories to tell and excellent advice for your own adventure.

This trip is about being fearless. It is about adventure. It is about living passionately without regret and without hesitation. Namely this trip is about driving in places I never would have been able to drive in a week ago.

I got in the car and drove off into San Francisco. Now let me tell you why this is novel; I am terrified of driving in Baltimore City. Probably because every time I do, I get lost or perhaps it's from the one and only time I got into a car accident. Now imagine driving in a city where not only could you not possibly know where you are within the city because you have never been there and add hills. Did you know that San Fran has a lot of hills? I missed that memo in grade school.

The point I am making is this: Fearless. I'm in a state of Zen that as of yet I have been unable to obtain. It was a fantastic drive out to Davis... and a fantastic drive back when I had to drive an hour and a half back to pick up the bag of electronics that the boys left in San Fran.

I do believe the very nice woman who handed me the bag of electronics was mildly concerned when I told her I was off to another place I did not know to try to find Jesse whose bike had broken down. It's not like they left him in the middle of the desert. He had a bike shop and a restaurant to keep him company while he waited for me to show up. This is really a lesson in the kindness of people.

The drivers in San Fran actually slow down for bikers... and stop for pedestrians at cross walks! They will slow down and stop having been going 50 mph. This is a novel idea. I'm pretty convinced that all that sun has gone to their heads.

Not only that but the people we stayed with picked us up, called us when we left very expensive things in their home and were nothing but gracious to us as we ran here and there about California. Oh! I have to give a shout out to Fang. This man was an absolutely brilliant host in San Jose. He drove us to train stations and lent his car. He opened up his entire kitchen to us and took us out to eat (by us I mean Jon, Ellen and Anna... my previous travel companions). Perhaps he's reading this, in which case I say thank you so so so so much.

Jesse had a lady take him and his bike into town and a bike shop stay open late so that he could fix his bike in time for tomorrow.

When we finally arrived in Davis for real, it was to find that we had lost our housing for the night to a graduation party. However, as we all know Mike German is Mike German, so here we are staying in a place with half a dozen college students and one other couch surfer sleeping on their floor.

So today started out late, had a backtrack to San Fran middle and one break down. I did lots of supporting and driving, but all in all I think this is an extremely promising start to what looks like a most excellent adventure.

So, in conclusion to this whole rambling mess, I'm sorry mother but I am going to La Dee Da across the whole country.

Love,

Shelly

Day -1: To the Horizon by Mike G

States driven through: Nebraska, Colorado (whoops!), Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada (half)

Driving time: ~16 hr

Where to start when talking about yesterday?  During the day, each driver ended up doing 4-6 hr chunks of driving- Jesse, German, and Pacella.  Jesse had some pretty boring driving through west Nebraska, accidentally going through Colorado because we missed an exit, and then half of Wyoming.  The terrain was progressively more interesting, then there was Wyoming.  If there’s going to be lots of slowly rolling hills, that’s fine if there is agriculture to observe.  But, my word Wyoming you are flat, dry, and continuous (at least along I-80).  There was some nice elevation changes, with us getting to ~9000 ft.  And I guess the people were friendly enough, although they should have given Pacella some advice on not toasting his Chicken Salad sub at Subway, and the girl behind us who just ordered a piece of flat bread- that’s a bit weird.  Ladies, if you are interested in losing weight eat a well-balanced diet and exercise, don’t just eat scant quantities of nutrition lacking substances.  Anything else on Jesse’s leg?  I read some papers on nano-zero valent iron (NZVI) which will likely be something I work with at Lehigh- I’m so pumped for grad school!  Pacella slept in the morning- he’s doing that right now too, he’s prob got like a +2 in sleeping in cars in the morning.

Then I got in to drive somewhere after Subway.  My goodness was Wyoming boring, luckily I had two chapters of a book on tape from PJ O’Rourke called Driving Like Crazy, on some of his ridiculous driving episodes- those were pretty interesting.  I learned that a ’56 Chevy is not reliable 20 years after purchase, unlike common perception amongst others, and that motorcycles might be one of the most phallic symbols of manliness.  But I will desperately need more books on tape, so if you could pleas go to your local library, rip some books on tape, and send me the links for the files and they will be on my ipod like white on rice!  I don’t care what you send me, choose something you like!  The same goes with music.  After the trip I will delete, it’ll be like I checked it out and then renewed the item!  Right?

In the middle of the elevation changes of Wyoming, it started to rain.  It started to spit, it began to rain, and then it started to hale.  No worries, the Subaru is an all-wheel drive champ..  But when I can barely see the front edge of the hood of my own car, let alone the car’s who don’t turn their lights on with their wipers, things get exciting!  This lasted for what felt too long at 60 mph with cars ahead and behind you going the same speeds (or at least that’s what you pray.  I slowed down at one point, realized I shouldn’t, and sped up.  Thankfully I found a pair of tail lights to get behind and follow out of the horrible.  In the end everyone was still intact and I was happy.  The pounds of dead bugs on the hood and grill were washed away! Sadly, there was a casualty: the large BAAM! sticker on the passenger side lost a bit of its’ corner.  It was debated whether or not the windshield was cracked but upon checking the outside we realized it was bird poop or ice that fused to our window!  Continuing through Wyoming, there were many road horizons to pass over where you are then met with another road horizon.  This repeats, many times.  To encourage the driver or cyclist you can tell them:

Passenger: To the horizon!

Driver: Bring me that horizon.

Passenger: Aye, aye Captain!

This helps immensely?

I continued until “Little America” and a gas stop immediately after.  Little America had random signs at least 290 miles along I-80 before arriving.  I guess the place felt suburban enough, the urinals and water seemed adequate?  Laying on the grass, it was found to be well manicured and soft, although likely covered in dog pee.  There was a friendly lady from CA who had a small American Eskimo dog named Rocky (?).  He was fluffy and she seemed nice enough.  At the next gas station I was a bit confused as to the happs.  I went inside to pay and the family that ran the place was sitting at a booth eating lunch, I started at them confused, they laughed, and told me I could pay at the pump.  Well, of course!  That’s why there’re credit card machines at the pumps.  Then Pacella takes over driving.

Northern Utah is beautiful.  Just, wow.  It reminded of Sedona but green and wet, or maybe Scotland, or the Lord of the Rings/Jurassic Park.  Whatever, the place was, it was wonderful.  Sadly we didn’t have time to stop anywhere because we were late for arriving at our host in Elko, NV, apparently they indicated 8:30PM (their time-pacific time) via couchsurfing.  Salt Lake City seemed alright, there were cool ski towns to the east.  But Salt Lake, oh my!  That lake is beautiful and large.  We went to the marina and got same pics/vids while it was misting.  And I took a leak in the marshes.  The temperature was ~50F and that was a slight surprise.  We eventually got to Bonneville Salt Flats as the sun was setting over the mountains, gourgeous.  Sadly the video’s a bit shaky here because it was 56F with 20+ mph winds, but it ‘s still lovely.  Imagine, what you think the arctic looks like?  Okay, now make that flat with some dark mountains to the northwest and you have the salt flats.  It’s very hard-packed and as sticky as asphalt.  Crossing the border of Nevada leads brings the onslaught of neon lights and casinos, quickly followed by pitch black scruff-covered land.  Pacella gpt us to Elko and then to Spring Creek.  Along the way we saw signs informing us “Prison Area.  Hitchhiking Prohibited.” Nevada is classy. 

Leaving the main streets of Elko, we head out to the hills of Spring Creek.  Our host lived out on a dirt road where we maxed at 15 mph at night, so that our weighed down work horse with minimal travel would be happy.  Through two cattle gates designed to keep the cows in and out, we arrive at our desert mansion.  We call and wake up our hosts, find our places to sleep, gawk around the house, and sleep.  Jesse gets a queen bed, Mike gets a 3 section couch, I take a monster bean bag named “Love Sac” and switch to a love seat midway through the night.  Upon waking up at 6am to use the bathrooms we are wide-awake because of the magnificent view of the Ruby Mountains (11,500 ft at the highest) and nearby recreational reservoir.  We break out the oatmeal and scrounge some bowels from their house, sit down, and eventually our hosts wake up and we get a chance to talk.  They are warm, interesting people.

We got a rundown on their self-designed, self-built, energy efficient house.  They had evacuated tubes on the roof for hot water generation that would then heat the floors via a heat exchanger with propylene glycol-water blend and hot water streams- Pacella and I geeked a bit when hearing about the heat exchangers.  The excess heat is removed via natural convection with copper water pipes below the porch overhang.  We will be staying with their son in Carson City, NV.  Thankfully they reminded me because currently I had someone else (maybe?) written down as our host.  We eventually headed out around 8:45AM for our last day of driving!!

Tonight we should enjoy biking around San Fran like nuts, get some sweet climbs and descents.  We’ll see how my knees and left shoulders (knotted wreck) will be this trip.  I’m praying that once regular working out, plus some yoga, pushups, and abs starts for the first time in forever my body will become happy again.  I hate getting so out of the shape it makes me feel like crap physically and psychologically/emotionally.  I can definitely understand why exercise is recommended to those in depression.

So, all you lazy butts!  Get up, go outside, sweat, jump, make music, dance, play team sports, and get the endorphins pumpingJ

Our first blog post on the road! By Mike G

Timespan: 8PM June 9^th- 9AM June 11th

Last night around 8:30PM, Pacella and German met up and loaded up the car a bit haphzaradly as we have now  found.  With access only from the back sseat, most items are burie d and inaccessible until we remove the bikes on Sat/Sun.  Oh well, no big  deal because for no we ar driving machines!  Between all our lovely photos taken by the Northeast Booster and German being horribly organized it wasn’t till ~2:00AM that we arrived at Jesse’s place.  There we realized a 5^th bike was not going to fit and that a roof rack would be lovely.  By the time adjustments were made and more bags packed.the Subaru had about 5 in of clearance between rear tire fender and ground.  I meant to get stronger shocks put in the rear tires too, but oh well the car will survive- it’s a Subaru!  More goodbyes were said and our journey had officially begun.  I immediately try to sleep after lack of sleep and general low-level stress for the last forever.  Upon waking up, I can’t see out the window and Pacella is beasting up the Appalachia fog along 70.  My goodness it was thick, we felt like we were skiing through gates with the markers and shiny road patches being our only knowledge that a road existed below us.  I was too tired for this non-sense and slept on and off till the morning.  Yeah back-seat piles of stuff!  But it was a little “yeah… hair raising.”  The rest of the day we rotated sleeping, driving, and purchasing gas- Pacella, Crow, German, repeat. 

Where did we eat?  Around 6am at Panera in Ohio, somewhere.  I entered a $2000 giveaway, hopefully we win!  They didn’t have leftovers to give us because they give them away at night :(  We ate PB&J for lunch in the hometown of Mark Twain alongside the Mississippi river.  That was peaceful.  But the PB was hot, and as we realized PB’s viscosity is a strong function of temperature.  So, maybe it was peanut syrup and not peanut butter?  Oh well, it was still delicious.  On the roa we went and eventually we ate some dinner at Arby’s in Nebraska, definitely get the market fresh sandwiches and nothing else, Pacella’s sandwich totally trumped  our sandwiches.  About an hour later we arrived at our first couchsurf in the wonderful town of Kearney, NE- it’s much larger than you would imagine.  I was being a big momma sissy pants and figured we would all just want to sleep after driving for 22 hr.  But that’s stupid, we were in the middle of Nebraska!  We gotta go do it up at the Palm garden Lounge!  The “sleaziest” bar in town… yeah it wasn’t.  They got us a pitcher of Coors Light… mmm funny tasting water.  Pacella got some Jack and Coke so he’d be up for some karaoke.  Katie and Katie, our host and roommate, typically sing (or yell) and sometimes get pulled off stage.  I did Hound Dog with them by Elvis, but couldn’t hear the music or pitch over their screaming so whatever.  For my first time at karaoke, it was meh.  Then our lot got up and did Bad Romance by Lady Gaga- sadly not recorded.  That was fun, we killed  sometime in the beginning and told some jokes.  Then we did our number and I had fun, there was a regular karaoke lady next to me who had a decent voice, and so I could follow her in a song I’ve only heard once on youtube and partially a handful of other times.  We came back and crashed for almost 8 hr- so lovely.

Got up and headed out, I nearly left my electronics bag, whoops!  We got some cereal at the local Apple Market and afterwards I told our cash register woman bout our ride, and gave her aposter.  She said she had already heard about us.  Que?!  I don’t know if I had spammed one of her relatives via couchsurfing for a place, or she saw our ridiculously beautiful car or it was from us hooligans singing Lady gaga last night.  But, my goodness word travels fast in small towns.  Well ,that’s cool I’m in support of people knowing about us and hopefully donating some money on line!  Or giving us some food or lodgings.

Fun note, we saw many wind turbines on the backs of big rigs, so that’s a great sign!  Although, there was a report about raptors being the bird killed predominantly by windwills spinning fast.  But I don’t think that would be such an issue in the Midwest (?) because it’s just plains, but I don’t know anything about birds.

Good day!

Pre-Trip Thoughts by Mike G

The day has finally come for us to depart on BAAM! I have been dreaming and planning this trip since Urbana, which ended New Year’s Day. Some of my great ideas pre-trip totally fell through because of lack of time and last minute everything. That’s okay I guess I knew something like that would happen.

I pride myself on being confident and comfortable in any situation. In my mind, I can go anywhere and talk to anybody about what I want. I’m a pretty carefree and laid back person, and this is pretty much true. This likely was kindled by student council staff training, leadership workshops, etc. Even though I left with a bad feeling from unethical practices and minimal, tangible results outside the organization (exceptions being SMOBs, volunteer work, and legislative days), these were very important formative years for myself (and probably many others involved). But, I still overanalyze many things and think too much on trivial matters.

Last week, I got real nervous about this trip. I had to buy a million things, we didn’t have housing planned out for ~50 nights, I didn’t have directions printed, I hadn’t advertised much, I had no idea what we were going to do when we went to speak at different churches, etc. I still don’t have half of these things done! Some I’ll finish today, others not a chance. Heck, my original plan was to visit a bunch of VBS camp kids and do planned activities with them on water, to educate the children, who would educate the parents, who would give us money. HA I haven’t even come close to that level of organization. Now, I don’t even know how to raise money. But, I’ve found that by virtue of stating we care enough about international water issues and individuals who need clean water in Zambia to bike across the country that people will give us money along the way. We’ll also talk with them a bit and show them the documentary FLOW.

But, that’s okay, I have peace in God’s plan for this Summer.

The main problem in trip planning was me being frugal. I thought I could design up a route myself using Google Maps. You can get directions no problem, just plug in location A, B, C, etc, click no highway and no tolls, and BAAM! you might be on your way. But that idea was stupid, Rt 40 isn’t a highway, but I don’t want to bike on that road! So I caved and dropped $160 on maps. But that was ~1 month ago. Without a route you ain’t got nothing, no places to stay, no people to talk to, no sites to see, etc. So, note to self: DON’T BE FRUGAL/LAZY DURING EARLY STAGES OF PLANNING BIG STUFF. Also, thank you Adventure Cycling Association for making really sweet maps and routes, I highly recommend them for any long distance touring plans.

I think that’s all for now, I guess this is a decent first blog post. If you find yourself for any reason feeling bored this Summer, well I have about 10 things I can give you to do :P. Call me at any point this summer, for the sanity of BAAM! and yourself! 443-255-5103

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