Real Human Moments

Texas is one big mother of a state. It kept going on and on, driving on Rt. 10 we narrowly escaped some big storm that was suppose to cause all this flooding in the Dallas area. The sky opened up so hard, I literally couldn’t see anything past 10 feet in front of me. However we must have been on the very edge of the storm system because all of a sudden it stopped. We made a quick stop in El Paso, TX to get some camping food and begin our drive to Alamogordo and White Sands New Mexico. By the time we got into that area (around 9) it was already almost totally dark and still 95 degrees outside. We drove past and watched the Alamogordo fireworks and got to our Campsite at Oliver Lee State Park around 1030.

The park was so damn windy, and our tent was not made to stand up to those conditions. It was clearly a camping tent, not a hiking tent. We abandoned our attempts and just resigned to sleeping in the car, but not before taking a few photos of the moon quickly creeping up over the mountain.

In the morning we went to White Sands National Park, but not before getting harassed but a border check point guard. He said our pupils were pin point and asked us why. I said that we had woken up 15 minutes before and also just took off our sun glasses to speak to him. Being an EMT he obviously knew that your eyes don’t dilate when introduced to brighter conditions. America, land of the free, well at least your free when you prove yourself innocent.

White Sands was like walking onto the moon. Everything is white for as far as the eyes can see, except for the looming mountains in the distance. While walking on the dunes I made sure to stagger my steps as any unnatural rthym would surely attract a sand worm (who gets the the reference?). Rather than attempt to summarize with words what I saw, please check out my pictures once I post them.

To California.

Jimbo

After pulling ourselves away from New Orleans we set our sights on Houston in “The Great State of Texas”. On the way we got some more regional cuisine at Opie’s Cajun Cafe in Baton Rouge, LA. I can’t get enough of the cajun food. We made it to our friend’s place of residence around dinner time. The community where he lives was basically built because of Johnson Space center and the houses are all very nice, along with the neighborhood. We went out for some Mexican food at Mamasita’s in South Houston, and then made our way to go bowling with some of Kane’s fellow NASA nerds. I rock at bowling…sometimes.

So far into this trip I’d have to say that the most interesting things we’ve done or seen has been the people. At every place we’ve stopped so far we’ve seen some really neat sights however who’ve we met has been what we talk about during the car rides. From Ryan O’Keefe, Kane, to our fellow travelers this trip has shown us some really cool people with interesting stories.

Jimbo

What an awesome city, I need to go back. We made the 1 hour drive from Key West to New Orleans all day and most of the night, arriving at 9ish into the city. We took advantage of the early hour and found free parking in the French Quarter. Driving and walking around revealed a city still recovering from Katrina, even 2 years after the fact. The streets seemed too empty for their size, and the run down and broken houses were everywhere. Often times there would be a house that was completely restored right next to a house that probably would need to be demolished, even in the French Quarter. According to a construction worker we ended up talking to for a while, basically all the work being done is privately funded repairs, he doesn’t know anyone who has worked on a project from the Katrina fund.

Just strolled through the French Quarter and took in the sights, sounds and shops. We did stop at the Voodoo museum and learned a bit about the history behind voodoo. For 5 dollars John T Martin, a druid and Voodoo priest explained Voodoo and let us walk through his museum.

Of course we had to get some Cajun/Creole food, so we stopped at a local cafe and sampled the goods. Not a cheap en devour but it was certainly worth it. After our explorations we headed too our hostel, about a 10 minute drive with traffic away from the French Quarter. We stayed at India House a beautiful and eccentric little hostel. It consisteded of 3 buildings right next to eachother, with a fourth behind all 3 which creates a little courtyard in the middle. They have a pool and even a little turtle pond. I believe its owned or atleast managed by a group of artists who just spend their days taking care of the hostel and creating art for the hostel or other things such as a skateboard for a girl down the street.

As usual everyone was extremly friendly, we hung out with a mix of people from Pennsylvania, California, Utah, England and Australia. We picked up a bottle of wine and relaxed on the porch telling stories of our travels and getting to know each other. Eventually Sasha and I headed out to experience the French Quarter at night. Bourbon Street was like Uconn Spring weekend, if every house was actually a nice bar and or strip club. We got the obligatory hurricane or handgrande and actually then went to Frenchman’s street to hear some good jazz. This road is a little bit away from Bourbon street, but just as fun and it has a less “frat boy” feel. Every bar had a live Jazz band playing, we ended up stopping at the d.b.a and saw Honey Island Swamp Band. Really great band and awesome bar.

Later that night, back at the hostel, we bumped into our fellow travelers and hung out till the wee hours of the morning. Finishing the bottles of wine, talking about British TV, Europeans at festivals, and then just plain drunk talk about accents.

I’ll be back for Voodoo festival in October.

Jimbo

Wow, I didn’t know America had beaches like the ones we saw on the Keys. The beaches are post card worthy, with white sand that almost feels like clay. We drove US-1 from outside of Miami straight into Key West, the trip took us about 3+ hours with some traffic, but it is one of the coolest drives I’ve ever done in America. There are points on the road where you have the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Ocean both visible on your right and left sides. Of course we drove through Key Largo (Montiego, baby why dont we go to the cocomos…), and went over the 7 mile bridge while keeping a sharp eye out for any Harrier jets who might want to take us out True Lies style.

Key West it self has a very strong “Island” feel even though its attached with bridges. We ended up staying at the Key West Seashell Hostel which is at the end of Duval street, 2 blocks from “the southern most point”. We walked around Key West, took in the sites and stores. There are many famous places to eat and drink, we didn’t try them all, but then again were not millionaires. Its funny, everywhere in Key West you’ll hear this strange (well i guess for us city folk) crying noise. Theres a large wild chicken population, its neat seeing chickens walking around the bars and such.

Were are finding out that staying in hostels is the way to lodge while traveling, even in the US. After we spent the day walking around, we went back to the hostel and had dinner. We met some more travelers who of course were from Australia and New Zealand. When I spent some time traveling in Europe a few years ago I noticed that any bar you went to, if you listened long enough, eventually you’ll hear an Australian accent. I wonder why Australians are always traveling, or working abroad and its so uncommon in the US?

We left the hostel with our new Mates and hit up the Duval street bars and clubs. Needless to say its a crazy town thats open till early morning, we went to Irish Nicks and then to Sloppy Joe’s. At Sloppy Joe’s there was a rocking cover band which played great modern rock. Somehow I made it back and apparently fell asleep in the common patio/gazebo area.

We went swimming the next day and started our drive to New Orleans. Florida is a big fucking state.

~ Jimbo

Originally our plan was to get down to Key West and party 2 nights down there, however we ended up getting a late start leaving SC and decided to find a closer stop for the night.  A quick search found us http://www.jazzhostels.com/ a very nice clean hostel right down in South Beach. Its about 4 blocks from all the clubs and a block away from the beach. We ended up getting in around 10:30, we shared some cheap whiskey with some other people hanging around the hostel. There was a unique mix of people staying there, the majority of them were European or Australians seeing America. There was also some Americans just looking to get a start in Miami and were staying here while trying to find a job.

We went out to the bar street and really weren’t feeling a club so we found a nice Irish bar “The Playwright”. Its the sister bar of The Playwright in New Haven.  Good place. Anyways the moral of the night is, even if its raining and two girls offer to share a cab, they still could be prostitutes which you have to run away from.

To Key West,

Jimbo

Keeping things fresh in my mind I figured I’d make my first real post. We just got into our sleeping bags in the KOA of Charleston, South Carolina. How did we get here? Well we ended up leaving my parents around 730pm on Tuesday night after having dinner at the “Athena II” in Wallingford CT. After that we still needed to get our GPS/Laptop working so we B-lined for Comp USA in Milford. Around 8pm we began our trip for real… skip ahead 15 hours and we made it to Charleston SC.

Our reason to stop in Charleston was to visit a good fried of mine, Ryan Okeefe. He had joined the Navy and is currently in School near Charleston training to be a nuclear engineer. He’s been gone since late december when he shipped out to boot camp. His school days are from 5am to 4pm so we had to entertain ourselves for a few hours. We found some free parking at White Point Gardens and just started walking. Charleston is an interesting city it has a style very similar to what I saw in Old San Juan. Very bright colors with cement or plaster walls. It was a 91 degree day and we quickly got parched so we stopped by a local brewery, restaurant for a cool one. The beer was mediocre. We walked through an open air market that sold various crap, and then we got bored and drove out to Sullivan Island outside the city.

Sullivan Island is looks and feels like Hilton Head. Word of warning, “Wild Dunes” is an expensive resort, not a sweet place to play on sand dunes. We parked our car and went for a swim in the piss warm water (in a good way). By the time we got showered off it was time to go pick up Okeefe at his base.

In quite the coincidence, Greg Weinrod’s friend Rapple called me on Greg’s phone pretending to be Greg. Me not recognizing the number gave my phone to Ryan who pretended to be me. Two pretenders on the same phone. Any ways, we spent the evening in downtown Charleston with Okeefe. We had dinner at an Irish pub called Condon’s and visited various bars and reminisced and caught up on recent gossip. For all those who have heard from Oderf in a while, he is doing very well, really enjoying his time in the Navy and is actually number 1 in his class, which helps him avoid severe punishment for his antics. We dropped Ryan off back at his base around midnight (after another pitcher at the base bar).

Our campsite was a few minutes away, we pulled in a little after midnight and met our neighbor, “Chuck who dont give a fuck” . We had a beer and chatted with Chuck for an hour, he was an extremely nice guy and told great stories. Chuck is a modern day lumber jack who trims and cuts down trees for a living. He camps were there is work and knows how to make quite the complete campsite. Chuck even hooked us up with a roll up green turf to keep in front of our tent and to keep our shoes on. In the morning he even gave us his home made hammock which should be a sweet addition at High Sierra if we find a place to put it up.

As usual I haven’t uploaded any pictures yet but I may be able to tomorrow morning. Right now we are on I-95 just south of Daytona heading to Miami for the night. We are staying at the Jazz Hostel in South Beach.

Cheers,

Jimbo

Well the road trip has begun. Sasha and I managed to leave Wallingford around 8 pm, only 2 hours behind schedule. Of course nothing has really gone to plan. Well thats not entirely true, we packed the car very well and seem to have not forgotten anything yet. However our GPS for the laptop didn’t work so we had to buy one at Comp USA, also our power inverter wont work to power the laptop unless the car is moving at signifigant speeds.

Nothing really interesting to report yet, we managed to get in contact with Ryan Okeefe by Charleston, SC. We plan on being in Charleston around 11 ish, and meeting up with Ryan after his classes at 4.

I’ll get some more substantial things up here once we get settled.

~Jimbo

Let me pick up where I left off 3 weeks ago, I’ve been a busy bee. (ima update this post with pictures on they’re done uploading)

We did several excursions to various places in Puerto Rico. We visited Fort San Felipe del Morro, a coastal fort built in the 1600’s to defend San Juan. The photo opportunities were abundant and we all took some glamour shots. The fort is right outside old San Juan, so after we got our fill of Tourist History, we decided to fill up on tourist shopping.

Old San Juan is a beautiful city, the buildings all have the same vibrant coloring, and all show signs of weathering from the salty air. We visited several shops, including the Don Collins cigar shop. See if you can find our picture. Of course we finished our day of tourism by visiting Senor Frogs and drinking and drinking and drinking.

On the way back to the car, we were approached by a well dressed although slightly bruised American man with a southern accent. He told us his story about how his party took a wrong turn, ended up in the wrong part of San Juan and was jumped. Of course he wasn’t just telling the story for shits and giggles, his goal was to get 10 dollars to purchase a cab ride back to his hotel as he used the rest of his money doing the same for his father. This type of situation happens all the time in cities, but here I was inclined to believe the guy. He wasn’t dressed as a typical beggar, and he promised to mail me the money. I gave him 10$ and my business card, still haven’t heard from him… jerkass.

After a night of continued drinking, beer pong, freckles and such we decided to go to visit the Puerto Rican rain forrest, El Yunque. There were the usual beautiful sights, water falls, and mountain towers, however I learned a valuable lesson while feeling hung over in the 100 degree weather. Coconut water is amazing and rids you of hangovers quite fast.

What else, somewhere a long the line we went to a casino that had a beautiful open architecture, but I didn’t win anything. Stupid casino. We visited the Bacardi factory and went of the tour, it reminded me greatly of the Heineken Brewery tour in Amsterdam. We met a funny bar tender in San Juan, Leslie Ann complained that she wanted a man who would make her a “card”, like a birthday card. The bartender though she said “car” and started making fun of her for a while, I didn’t try to clear it up though because I’m cool like that. Also the bartender wouldn’t sell me a Red Stripe sign for less than 250 dollars, i offered 20.

Finally we went Snorkling on the Salty Dog pontoon boat. It was really fun, I got burned like a mother fucker. There are quite a few beautiful photo I suggest you check out.

On our way home, our flight was cancelled so we stayed in the airport hotel. I won 80 dollars, Leslie bitched and got our flight moved up, I got something in my eye, we made it home. The end.

Recently I took a trip with some friends to the island of Puerto Rico. This was my first adventure after graduating college. It was quite a relaxing, and fun time. The other adventurers were my neighbor from fairfield Leslie, her friend Heather and her cousin Matt.We began the trip early morning, arriving at the Westchester airport for a 6 am flight. Being that early I noticed this sign which is kind of funny when taken out of context. Get it, there are two doors A and B, but they mis-spelled “Two” as “To”…. or maye not.

This vacation was truely relaxing, although it is a big island my mind turned to Island mode immediatley. I didn’t have anything to worry about, not work, not a girl, not a paper I should have been working on, nothing. We stayed at a non-tourist condo complex called “Playa Azul II”, which was right on the beach and had an amazing view. We were on the 13th floor, each condo has a small deck/porch area which proved to be a wonder place to pull up a chair and read, or smoke a fine cigar. The mornings were quite rough though, the sun made sure to inform you around 8 or 9 that it did not want you sleeping any more.

The beach had a darker (than CT) fine grain sand, and the water was Azul (blue) just like the name claims. It was so soothing to lay out on the relativly empty beach and drink a Medalla (PR beer). We met some interesting people there; I met some Americans from Oregon, a retired advertising excecutive who helped us order our food and called us “Anglos”, even some college students from UPR.

Puerto Rico is America, its no different than say Bridgeport or Hartford, except the amazing beaches. Being as we were less endowed in the wallet, we frequented classic restaurants such as Pizza Hut, and the equivalent of Taco Bell, Taco Maker. By far the best food was at a row of small stores where the locals mostly ate. They were called the Kokio’s and each one served a variety of fried meat, rice, beans, chicken, fish and ice cold beers. A full meal including a Heinken for 6 bucks, mmmm good.

Besides eating, drinking and tanning we did visit various attractions on the Island such as the old fort “El Morro”.
Check out all my photos here.
… Stay tuned for a complete recap.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” This is my first step as I attempt to begin cataloging my thoughts for my own archival purposes, and perhaps for the benefits of others. Please stay tuned, my first few posts will come after/during a trip to Puerto Rico.