This is what I live for. Semblances of isolation. Adventure. A sense of taking control over my life, instead of rolling with life's punches as everyone expects it to roll. It's cliche, but it never really is about the destination - it's how you take your strides, how you inevitably fall down, and how you manage to pick yourself up from your pieces and move on..
I just spent the last 8 hours on my ass, soaking up random stuff from various scooter and motorcycle forums. I mostly spent a good deal reading about obscenely long trips made on scooter and even on bicycle (!). Not even making an attempt to discover new places when you live in a world like this should be a crime.
Following the mild success of my LA-SF-LA Vespa saga (hey, it's a decent start of other adventures to come), I'm surprised it took me that long to connect the dots on my planned itinerary for the next two weeks. Planned Big Sur camping for the Halloween weekend, followed by this year's SEMA in Las Vegas. Still looking through the map if the trip would be remotely enjoyable, but am looking to camp at Red Rock Canyon State Park en route from Big Sur to Vegas. This would roughly be a 1,000 mile roundtrip journey, within close proximity of the previous trip I've done...
The problem is, what to do with Nickel... Is it time to buy Doggles?
tired. dirty. and with a horrible raccoon tan.
at the end of the day, the most important thing is to come home alive, intact. more often than not, even the most mundane of things are left for granted. the beauty of our travels is found not only during the journey itself, but more importantly in the journeys we partake afterwards. to appreciate all once again, in our views, that have turned into the ordinary.
tent, check.
sleeping bag, check.
extra fuel, check.
armored jacket, check.
adventure, in process.
here comes another 500 miles of gorgeous california riding on the scoot!
i'm 4 hours late of my original planned departure, but the world will always wait on you to start chasing after the horizons.
my flight got canceled today, which was the last flight out of bloomington... so i got stuck for another night, and decided to do something weird so i ordered shark for dinner. and i think i may be allergic to it. yikes.
back full circle, to cook county where i was born. only two days left until the golden year of 25 is over!
caught travis last saturday at the vic theatre. thank god i found out about their gig last minute through the help of web 2.0 friends, going.com. travis is really awesome! really good venue, and the crowd was really receptive as well. not a lot of pretentiousness that you'd normally get in LA. seemed like everyone was genuinely enjoying the show, which is either the crowd that travis gets, or is a reflection of the awesomeness of chi town.
i'm in memphis, tennessee. my baggage didn't turn up at the carousel last night. it's a monday morning and i have a kick off client meeting in less than two hours, with nothing but the clothes i had on my back last night. unfortunately, jeans and t-shirt don't really fall in the category of business casual. if it's any consolation, i had corky's bbq last night and polished off my plate of ribs. i was also trying to get some sort of collared shirt, albeit one with a corky's logo, but no luck. i haven't flown with northwest in a really long time, so this is a really pleasant experience to start off the project...
i met a middle-aged couple at the airline lounge before i left manila, and had an interesting conversation about our backgrounds, and a little insight about their 25-year old son. the guy was dating a russian hottie, and from the mom's perspective, wasn't really a good idea because of how the sitation played out - they met randomly in california while she was traveling with a bunch of other friends. the girls came with no money, no plans, and no intentions. and hence comes the couple's son, where from the mom's perspective he has the achilles heel of falling in love too fast and spends too much money on his ladies. spending all his money with no career path in sight, and trying to pursue the dream of a musician's slumber in the heart of california. i didn't really explain well, but i figured on reassuring the couple that it's only a matter of time before the pieces should fit for their son while he's in the middle of a career fog fairly typical of our generation, as this piece forwarded to me by jj attests to the brews of a quarter life crisis.
the randomness of traveling alone. i like.
