Day 17 - summary up to now

To sum up

1. Leave Dallas in Uhaul to St.louis  - took furniture to Rebecca's family 
2. LOVED The City Museum - celtic knot humming voyages in the inner ear
3. Chatting with Anji, Katie and Jen - meeting people for the first again
4. putting up sheet rock for a ceiling in Columbia, MO- played GBG on the road
5. New Belgium Tour Fort Collins, Prognostication with David - 4 years till each world citizen owns a copy of every movie, book and song ever made contained on the size of credit card. New TheBallofLight.com website up on David's server space!
6. Train from Denver to San Francisco much better than greyhound! stopping for no reason
7. San Francisco Rebecca finds a room for rent on craigslist for $400 from a UC Berkeley Marxist student who went home for the holidays. YEAH saving $500 from the budget! three blocks from $40 month Bikram. Three blocks from the BART station very close to our Tantric class three times a week. yay REBECCA! the three people we live with are unique. A couple one Damien EE from france who really helped to develop the Lights for the BALL OF LIGHT. another chick who is from Madrid is here on a fellowship a MS in feminist archeology ?? let me tell you it sounded funny digging up dinosaurs and arks to free women-- but i guess it works.
8. Rebecca injures her knee and sits out a day.

I feel I will be blogging more about the moments that stand out beyond a regular days events. really enjoying the unplugging from the Dallas world. a couple more things to take care of and I will have turned off Dallas for a year. WOOHOO!

oh the places you'll go--Dr.Seuss

seen on Fishermans wharf

OMG!

December 4, 2009

The Photos

I hate that combination of letters but I was still left thinking OMG after 8 hours of playing in the most amazing place I have ever experienced, the St. Louis City Museum.

The day started reasonably enough, the place we wanted to go for breakfast had shut down since Gregory was there last and we ended up ordering breakfast sandwiches from a street vendor (not quite as suspect as it sounds... it's St. Louis for goodness sake!)

Breakfast, Before the Drop Off!

Anji dropped us off just in time to meet up with Lucille.  Gregory had been there a couple of times before so he got to watch each new surprise cross my face and got to see what drew me in and what made me shiver with fear.

I am really torn between trying to tell you each experience and just leaving it alone and hoping you will go experience it on your own.  So I guess that means I should give you the highlights.  Highlights include but are not limited to...

Slides... everywhere, long and short, straight and spiraled, fun and scary.  The really famous one is a 7 story shoe chute that is just amazing.

Monster Slide... Need We Say More!

Detours... every situation you come across has at least 4 visible directions to take and sometimes more.  At one point I came up through a hole in the ceiling to a place I had stood on and hadn't seen the exit down.

Climbing... up, down, around, through.  Come prepared to spend some time on your knees.  Several people I know have had the thought to rent knee pads and I'll tell you, if they had been available I would have rented them.  I don't think it really limited what I was willing and able to do (you butt scoot eventually to stay off the knees) but I do think it would have allowed me to explore some areas longer, I hardly spent anytime in the ceiling ducts because it was all knee work.

School Bus, Fire Truck, Tour Tram and Airplanes... I don't even know how to explain these items, but they are there and you just have to see them to believe them.

Caves... these are so wonderful, on many levels.  It's not quite spelunking, but we did find ourselves in a great little out of the way spot that made me wish for our headlamps.  Lack of light didn't keep us from exploring but it did keep us from finding the quarter that fell out of my pocket.  Oh well, think of it as a geo cache, some one go find it and let me know!  This little cubby hole we found was a perfect opportunity to sing some Devo and do some meditative humming.

Are you sold, yet?  You should be.

Around 3 or 4, my cousin Katie showed up.  We sat in the cafe to chat (and in Gregory's case meet for the first time) for a few minutes then we all started exploring.  Gregory forced the issue (Gregory interjects to say he made the offer for her to ride and I say his force of personality made him hard to resist) of Katie riding the Ferris Wheel on the roof with me.  I think it ended up being a conquered fear and then we showed her some of our favorite experience places and I hope that she decides to wander back to it sometime soon either with friends or by herself.

We Ain't Scared!

Plans we made for the evening kept us from staying the whole night (they were open till 1am) but spending an evening with our hostess and her friend was imperative especially since it was our last evening in St. Louis.  We were able to drag my cousin home with us so she could be introduced to the awesome Burners we know near her and hope to get her to an event soon.

Next up... Columbia, MO; Denver, CO; Berkeley and San Francisco CA.

Gregory's First Post - Denver 8 Days In

I seem to have difficulty getting motivated to write (and Rebecca has been cracking the whip on me to do so.)  Here we go...

Let me 'splain... 

No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.

(although it is LONG ~ my first post)

I am 36 years old.

My entire network of family and friends are in Dallas.

Born in Oak Cliff raised in Garland and Dallas

My education was from Dallas schools kindergarten (in garland) through Grad-School (in Irving).

I have lived in Dallas my whole life.

While I have traveled the world to some extent, (Russia, New Zealand, Suriname, Mexico, Germany) the longest I have been away from Dallas is 5 months.  I just realized this 8 months ago and felt this needed to change.  ESPECIALLY since I consider myself to be an open minded and adventurous person (says the guy who sold his passport for $5 on the British Guyanese black market and bought it back for $4 the very next day...but I digress).  I know that I keep coming back to Dallas because I am unable to make connections with people in the way I desire while on the road ~ leaving me the inability to recharge fully and press on with the adventure.

The trip became a reality when I came back from San Francisco in April of 2009 and I asked Rebecca Fetch if she would travel the world with me.  I offered to pay for her food for one year (projected $7,300). 

She said yes!  

In Rebecca, I have found the best travel companion anyone could ask for.  Eager, intelligent, sexy, fun, upbeat and a great lover to boot.  Her limited travel experience has been parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri (she was born there, but moved when very young so she doesn’t think this one counts), Iowa (and the states between Texas and Iowa but not really exploring so she says it doesn't count) and Arkansas ... with very few memories or even explorations of the areas visited.  She has saved up ~ shit she has more than saved up ~ she was in $3,000 credit card debt when I met her a year ago and now has $7,000+ in the bank for this trip.  She lived at her parents home to save on rent and cut out extra activities to save money.  She is quite the admirable soul. 

I reduced expenses down for the last 8 months by living on a couch for $200/month and put the rest into savings. Moving off of my couch and not paying rent when I was traveling (a really great option let me tell you). Switching all of my FUN time to spending time with friends (Face Paint Night) rather than bars, movies and costly entertainment.  

My last big expenditure ended up costing me very little as I used up all of my flight miles to go to Berlin for the Dream Your Topia project, which coincided with the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.  

Even on this trip I worked the whole time for my keep (really cheap only $200 for 2 weeks).  I had no 9 to 5, except managing my properties, to keep me in Dallas.  Fortunately, I have a great friend from my college days, Ian Ray, who will watch over my properties for a year at the going rate of $400 per month.  I was dissuaded from going with a management company as they have no vested interest in my property.  I hold Ian in high regard and his experience helping his father with their 

rentals gives me great confidence that I have chosen wisely.  He lives nearby and is UBER handy with all that pertains to a house from general maintenance to eventual improvements and any issues that go beyond his experience, he can refer to my father or email me to solve it.  (I am now full of warm fuzzies)! 

Now the work begins, research must be done on how much it could cost.  Turns out it is about 14K a person AND even cheaper with two people traveling.  WEEEEE! Yay for us.  However, I could not afford this cost on my own [14K(my travel expenses)+Entertainment+7K(Rebecca’s Food Cost)+Property Expense], so I did the one thing I have not allowed myself to do yet.  I turned to my parents and asked for support in this endeavor to expand my horizons.  This is not a trust fund kid asking yet again for more money.  This is me taking a small portion of my inheritance that has been untouched for 12 years and using it the way I want to.  I do NOT desire the big houses and shiny cars that other people might have used such money for.  I DO desire exploring and experiencing my world to the fullest of my potential.  I have struggled with writing this portion of my blog post as I feel like people WILL think less of me because I did not earn my money.  I am coming to realize that people’s opinion of me shows their true colors and I am learning to let history determine if my actions are good.  For me, I subscribe to the Wiccan Rede ~ 

Do as you will, Harm none.

In that very vein of openness and full disclosure I have posted the budget and will be updating it throughout the year.  I believe this to be a conservative estimate on most line items but I am sure we will come across pitfalls as most do.  That which I do NOT spend will be returned to my inheritance.  The budget is in the goals at the bottom of this post.

Food, Accommodation and Transportation are the main ways to save money.

We plan using as many money saving avenues as possible: cooking our food, staying with friends and friends of friends, using couchsurfing.org, “catching rides”, working at hostels, working where possible and helping out EVERYWHERE!

GOALS

Blog Posts on these later

1. Get better at writing my adventures down (this blog ~ thank you Rebecca)

2. Get Rebecca more confident in world travel (one month of traveling on her own is the goal)

3. Document the travel cost of two people for one year (creating a real number for those interested in wandering the world)

4. Get myself more comfortable with long term travel (in hopes of multi year travel in future)

5. Perpetuating the portions of the Dallas life we hold so dear

6. Practice on a weekly basis an exercise in distance connection through meditation

7. Practice Yoga on our own (does GREAT things to your body)

8. Allow chance to determine direction using I Ching 

9. Go to Machu Picchu and participate in a ayahuasca ceremony

10. Develop TheBallOfLight.com for Burning Man 2012 (40-80K Budget, Please donate if you see it a worthy goal)

Does it look like LOVE and the number 42... still working on it

Writer's Block of Adventure

December 2, 2009 to December 5, 2009

The Photos

Getting out of Dallas was quite difficult and now the blog writing has become arduous as well.  Part of that is waiting on Gregory to start typing, but as you can see he is much more interested in posting lots of ancillary things to the blog rather than details!  So here goes...

Back on the Road!

Our last post (no, not the one about Hell freezing over, the one with actual details!) was written during a non continental breakfast at the Candlelight Inn of Savanna, OK.  We stopped there around 9pm or 10pm because we were too tired to drive any farther (getting out of Dallas really took it out of us!)  When we arrived, the owner/manager was decorating the Christmas tree with lights.  And I don't mean just kinda haphazardly strewing them about, I mean really wrapping every limb (even the center post was wrapped in lights!)  And it is a tradition of theirs to have people guess the number of lights used in the tree.  Gregory has entered in the magic number of 3,100.  Everyone keep your fingers crossed that he wins the prize (whatever it may happen to be!)

Getting on the road in the morning was a little harder than should have been, partially from typing up the post and partially because my family expected us to be on the road sooner.  Hating to have our actions dictated but realizing we still had quite a distance to go, we packed up our gear and hit the road about 11am.  Driving a U-Haul makes for some back breaking, mind numbing times.  Heading North as the days get shorter multiplies that effect.  Having it start to snow on you intensifies it even more.  However, without incident and only really stopping for gas, we made it to Hamel, IL and my uncle's house.  We quickly unload the heavy furniture and stop to break cornbread, eat chili and talk with my aunt and uncle before hitting the road.  Gregory learns more about religion than he thought he wanted to know and I learn that the baptists are not the only fractured religion out there, we are just one of the most prevalent.

Quest Completed, Earn Gold
and Experience Points!

Then it is on to Anji and Oniero's house in St Louis, minus the Oniero as he is still studying to be a helicopter pilot, where we will spend a couple of nights and see the City Museum.  Our original plan was to go to the City Museum on Thursday, but in returning the U-Haul, walking through Tower Grove Park and eventually landing at the City Diner we had fairly wasted half of our day and calling the City Museum we discovered they were on shorter hours during the week anyway.  So regroup, change of plans and spend the rest of the day, lazing at Anji's (but NOT writing Blog posts which might have been the smart thing to do.)  We ate dinner at Everest Cafe & Bar, where we discovered that we do not like Mango Achar, we do not like it Sam We Are, but I cleaned that portion of my plate in the spirit of adventure and trying to find the good (or at least non poisonous) in the food set in front of me.  Mango Achar is basically pickled Mango and other Veggies and when I say pickled, I'm not talking sweetly bread and buttered, I'm talking full out salt and vinegar pickled pieces of indeterminate origin.  But yeah I cleaned that portion of my plate and didn't even get a gold star.  The rest of the food was really yum, but it is hard not to get stuck on the thing that makes the biggest impression.

Anji Holding Our Place, While We Marvel at the Menu!

After dinner, I'm feeling the pull of ice cream as I've noticed some green tea ice cream on the menu.  However, once I mention dessert of the frozen cream variety, Anji sparks us with the thought of frozen custard from Ted Drewes.  So to Ted Drewes we go, only to realize that it is the happening joint in St. Louis on a frozen December night (ok so it wasn't frozen yet, but I get the feeling that the increasing cold does not keep the citizens of St. Louis away from their Ted Drewes!)  Gregory ordered the All Shook Up (if you couldn't guess from the name or spend the research time on the website provided) a banana and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup creation that would make the King proud.  I ordered the Sin Sunday (although I think they've changed the name from the website to the stand) a tart cherry, hot fudge creation that would make a preacher's wife blush, but not stop eating.  And Anji ordered a creation of her own devising that started like mine, but then got nutty with some pistachios.  And that is just focusing on the yum, not on the 10 to 15 minute wait in the cold to order it *I've been instructed to interject that although we did not have an actual thermometer to check on, it was pretty fuckin'n cold!  It was crazy busy!

More blog to come... exploration of the City Museum, a short bus ride to Columbia, MO and the fun we had there and a much longer bus ride to Denver where we sit at the moment.

So We Left...

and Hell Froze Over... er.. I mean it snowed in Dallas.  It NEVER snows in Dallas.  I mean not never but rarely to be sure.  Even more glad we have escaped the DGW!

We Left on a Tuesday...

The Photos

December 1, 2009

A cold and rainy tuesday.

And it took forever.

Who knew leaving family and friends behind would be so very difficult (ha ha), even if it's only for a year.

So here's the way it began...

Since our ride to start flaked on us, I arranged an alternate means of transportation (and I get to do my family a favor.)  However, this puts us in a 10 foot U-Haul heading North.  Not ideal but a start none the less (and FREE! we just have to focus on the road for 12 hours rather than sitting back in a Greyhound reading). Saying good bye to my family was not as hard as I expected it to be, but it was certainly snarky-er and I was really expecting some snark (Gregory interjects by saying negativity.)  Saying good bye to Gregory's family was certainly nicer but a lot more involved (stop after stop after stop.)

As we spiraled out of the Dallas Gravity Well, and it tried desperately to suck us back in (original ETD was 10am), we finally broke free at 19:27.  At one point in the early evening we almost gave in to the pull and considered staying another night, but Gregory was adamant that we at least leave the confines of the city suburbs to say we have BEGUN the one year Adventure.  About an hour later, after we determined we were out of Dallas, we saw a brightly lit Christmas display on the West side of the road (in Grayson County we later discovered.)  We both really wanted to stop and we both felt the overly strong desire to create distance from the DGW (for fear that it might still be able to drag us back in.)  We let the Christmas lights win as a signal that we really are on our way, doing what we want, when we want.