What I have been up to

Since moving out of my place in bellingham, I have been traveling around North America. Many of you probably know this because I probably visited you while doing so. So where exactly did I go?

First I went to Idaho. I was there for about two weeks, but I went to Colorado for a few days in the middle of my stay. I went there to see my dad, other family, and friends and say my good byes. I had a wonderful time and wish that I had more time.

The next adventure that I went on was from Seattle to Montana.. on my motorcycle. I was followed by a Subaru packed with all of my things and driven by none other than Gabriel Prestella. The trip took us two days and went off without a hitch. The bike did not even break down, though I did have a bit of vapor lock in Spokane. The only thing I would change if I had to do it again was to have more padding in my seat. I had reapoulstered it over the summer and oh man, I should not have gone for form over function. I was walking like I had been a horse for a week after two days.

Once we were in Montana Gabe and I hung around my grand parents house for a day and then headed up to glacier national park. The park was absolutely gorgeous this time of year. All of the low lieing shrubs and trees had started to suck up those nutrients and change colors. This made the hills look as if they had been smeared with pastels. It was amazing. We spent the first day mainly on th park roads because we did not arrive until the afternoon. Unfortunately the pass was closed, but we did make it up to summit of the road from the east entrance.

That night we stayed in a campground near the same entrance reading comic books and drinking beer by flashlight. While this may sound romantic, I do not suggest to drink while you are camping because there is one major side effect. Both Gabe and I had to get out of our tent in the middle of the night to use the nearest bush in near freezing temperatures. We returned to Polson, after a great hike and a short swim, the next day.

Gabe and I flew back to Seattle on Saturday and parted ways. I unpacked and repacked my things to leave on Monday for Massachussettes. I would be there for 16 days including travel on either end. I flew out in the evening and had a red eye from Seattle to New York. When I booked the flight I chose it based mainly on price, though I was not opposed to spending a night on an airplane. I did make a slight error in not paying attention to the length of my flight. I thought that it would at least be a 6 hour flight and 6 hours of sleep is not that bad. Although this is assuming that I sleep for the entire flight. As it turns out my flight was only 4 hours, which I have had shorter nights, but the real problem came to light as the last few passengers were boarding.

One of the last people to get on was a family of five: a mom, a dad, an 8 or so year old, and two twins around a year old. Immediately I knew that this was not going to be a good flight because the father of the family began demanding things as soon as he got to his seat and realized that he did not have anywhere to put any of his bags because the overhead storage was full. This is rediculous because the family could have boarded first, because of thier children, but they chose not to. I saw them as I was boarding and they were just waiting. I assumed, and was glad to see, that they were not getting ready to board my flight with thier already crying twins. So you can imagine my saddness when they did board and they did proceed to get almost the entire row directly in front of me and the father did begin to argue with the stuartis about why he did not have the right, as a father traveling with children, to force other passengers to move. After he was finally settled and the plane took off the father slept while one of the twins screamed in the seat next to him for the majority of the flight. It was as if he was intentionally ignoring his child to punish the rest of the plane. I got 15 minutes of sleep, a very small cup of water, and a bag of gluten free crackers. My flight was no longer the great price that I thought it was.

I landed in New York, where they apparently either eat at rib joints or 9 dollar smoothie places for breakfast because nothing else was open. I was not having a great trip so so far, but then I called Sam. It was 7:30 in the morning and he was set to pick me up at 10, but he had an hour drive so I thought that he was probably up. I was wrong and it was hilarious. When Sam picked up I heard the familiar foggy pronunciation of someone who had been sleeping seconds before. As soon as I heard this, I felt bad and planned to just say, "sorry sam, I thought you would have been up by now. Go back to bed and I will see you at 10." But sam, being that he had just been disturbed of his deep slumber, and this probably had something to do with sam's usual routine of sleeping until noon, did something that I did not expect. I barely got, "hey sam", out before I heard the sound of fumbling on the other end. It was no more than a few seconds before sam's awareness changed from still partially asleep to panic. See, when I said hello and started talking I never mentioned that I was in New York with another connection to go. Sam came to the conclusion that I was already in Hartford airport and that he had overslept. He was less than happy to find out that I was just calling to say hi and that he could have been sleeping for another hour and a half.

I will write more later and give a link to pictures soon.