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Day 1 down

Quick post, as I’m running out of internets: We made it through day one. We started out walking around our guesthouse which frankly didn’t do a lot for the spirit. I felt pretty out of place, not because we were the only farangs around but because every thing felt pretty depressing. We’ll get used to this type of thing probably. We then hopped on the “sky train” and went to the centerish of bangkok (40 baht for the 1 way ticket, roughly 1.25 US) which was awesome. Lots of street vendors with awesome looking food, fresh fruit, etc. We didn’t eat much from the street vendors and we avoided the fresh fruit and things as we weren’t sure what was safe to eat yet and didn’t want to get sick the first day. I worried a lot about where to find bathrooms, which I don’t think will be too difficult. Neither Lindsay or I know basically any Thai yet, which sort of sucks. I’d like to say “Thank you” in Thai, and I know how, but I don’t know when you actually say it. I haven’t taken many pictures, frankly I just don’t feel like it. I took a few just to have something to put up, but I’m seriously considering sending my digital camera back to the states as apposed to lugging it around for the next 5 months. We’ll see. Lots of stuff to look at, but I just don’t really feel like whipping out my camera.


here’s me eating breakfast our first day. we ordered “english tea, thai rice porridge, and boiled eggs.” it actually was, “english tea, salted rice soup and a ridiculously salted/preserved egg.” interesting.

I have terrible breath, I’m not sure why but it is. I just brushed my teeth, but it’s still here. I bought a yellow shirt yesterday for 6 bucks US as I guess Monday’s are the days everybody wears yellow in honor of the King. Money will stretch pretty good here, if we are somewhat careful. We had lunch/dinner for 33 cents yesterday, internet is 2.50 for an hour, sandals are 2 bucks, etc, etc. Our room is around 12.50 each (25 bucks total) for air conditioning, etc. Tonight Lindz and I are going to see a movie, hopefully the new batman movie. She wants to see the Will Smith movie though, even though she has no idea what it’s called, what it’s about (she said it might be about Will Smith being a super hero, or in a war, or something). We’ll see what happens I guess! Last night we went to bed around 7 PM. Well, Lindz went to bed around 6 PM, I went to bed around 7 PM. I think this may have been a bit mistake, as we woke up at around 4 AM this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. It could be a somewhat tiring/tired/etc day today. Miss you all! Here are a few pictures I took just to post here: Here is my room: Here is the city sort of:

Love and miss you all!!! Kev

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Lindsay fliest business

Not sure the order these will get posted as we have no WiFi so they may or may not be sent in order – but we’ve made it to our connecting flight at Narita, and Lindsay and I are both going to make it on the flight (thanks again Jan!) but only she will be flying business this leg of the trip. So she is lucky. I’m lucky because it’s a shorter flight, only 5ish hours, so coach isn’t bad.

Edit: Actually I think I almost got an equal seating situation. Not quite, but I got a isle seat and of the 5 seats in my row, only one other was occupied. So I had three empty seats next to me. I think Lindsay’s dinner was a bit better though!

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Truth about flight 891

I read what Lindsay wrote, for the most part, and business class really is awesome – Jan, thank you so much. I feel very lucky. Really.

Dinner was gerat, I honestly can’t imagine what could be the advantage of sitting in first class, business is just so awesome. I’m sure there is an advantage, but really this is great.

We decided to check our luggage – well, actually I had to and Lindsay figures she might as well also. I’m a bit nervous about loosing our luggage but I have all of my impotant/expensive stuff anyway, including clothes, so worst case I’ll need to buy a new pack or something (EDIT: we have our bags!)

As I type this I’m south of the tip of Alaska, it’s around 9 PM in Michigan, 6 in Cali, and 10 AM in Tokyo. We expect to be to Tokyo by 4:34 PM. I’m listening to XM satalite, in particular dance technoish music.

I’m wondering if I should try to sleep for a few hours now or something. I want to minimize the effect of “jet lag” but I also want to be awake/not miserable when we get to Thailand as it’ll be 11 PM there and could e a bit stressful (EDIT: it was a bit stressful, but not too bad).

Only negative thing I can say is taht while my dinner was awesome, the guy next to me had sashimi, crab, and fish for dinner, but I guess you had to order it ahead of time.

I’ve seen 2 movies so far on the flight, I forget the names. One was “Flawless” and another was about a smart english teacher who was jaded. I think it had Dennis Quade or something in it. Now I’m gonna watch some moving about treasure hunting, which frankly looks terrible but it’s a 10 hour flight and the movie has scuba diving in it so why not.

We seem to be losing altitude fairly quickly and the fasten seatbelt sign is on. Either we’re avoiding turbulence or I might be the next Sawyer+Jack. (EDIT: We didn’t crash).

<3
-kev

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Wow. Wow. Wow!!!!

Wow. Wow. Wow!!!! We’re just getting settled in our Business Class seas, same row, just a few seats down. I snagged a window seat next to a Taiwanese man named Yi. He speaks no English, but tells me I spelt his name correctly. Step one: check. Good to know I can put my English degree to work and spell the man’s 2 letter name correctly. Go me. I just put on my complimentary slippers and blanket, went thru my “goodie bag” of Japansese soaps, lotions, sleeping mask, and ear plugs, all while looking out at the gorgeous LA sky, reclined back with my feet up AND sipping champagne (seriously)! Ahhhhhh!!!!I feel like the luckiest girl alive. Oh, and while I type this, I just got handed the menu… And since I have nothing better to do besides brag about my good fortune (THANK YOU JAN!!!:)) I just have to tell you what we’re oging to eat (because as we all know, there isn’t much that gets me more excited then food!!!):

To bring: orange and Ginger duck confit and soba noodle salad, fresh seasonal greens with sesame Ginger vinaigrette…

Main course: morel mushroom risotto and herb rubbed chicken breast

crabmeat in layered eggs, salmon temari, budock wrapped in gla
zed beef, shrimp with fish eggs, seared tuna with wasabi dressing and somen noodles…

Served with green tea.

Dessert: international cheeses and apple cobbler…

Midnight snack: sandwiches, Ghiradelli chocolate and hot noodles…

So I realize I’m getting all excited about airplane food, but seriously!!! I feel like an LA celeb… Fine, more like a Midwest celeb (I don’t fit in this crowd…I’m too lame:)) but I truly cannot believe I’ve been so lucky.

On a different note, my dad is having knee surgery today. Hopefully it’s going well for him. Oh, and it’s nick’s first day at Boeing. Too bad with a 16 hour time difference in Tokyo I won’t find out how either went until tomorrow.

I think this is enough iPod touching for me today. My finger is cramping up. I also think I’m weirding out my new friend Yi…. I haven’t stopped smiling and he keeps looking over, probably to see what’s so funny.

From the Pacific skies with love,
LGT

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Just thinking about you….


Cali Coastline.

Portland, Oregon.

Glacier National Park.

Yellowstone National Park.

p.s. he’s already lost a foot.
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450 miles from LA

By the time this is posted we’ll be close, if not in, LA – our final driving destination.

My neck is sore and I’m looking forward to swimming tonight. Hopefully.

I also hope that my moneybelt made it to the hotel alright.

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Yellowstone and Glacier National Park – check

It’s Monday, july 7, and as I type this I’m driving with nick and Lindsay (who’s sleeping in the back of course) through Montana, almost Idaho, on our way to Seattle Washington. It’s around 1:15 pm local time as I type this though it may not be posted until later this evening (no wifi in the middle of Montana, and this is no iPhone).

We just finished up our adventures in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. We all had a great time, Yellowstone was beautiful though our camp ground was less than great (it was not bad, just not the wilderness experience we might have hoped for). Glacier was amazing and the camping was awesome.

Highlights include:
-Buffalo in the road holding up a LOT of traffic in yellowstone
-almost being rammed by a bull in the middle of a Montana highway (no joke)


-seeing a car hit a sizable male mule deer head on at upwards of 75 mph. This was actually sad of course, and we all felt very bad for the animal, but it was pretty interesting and quite an experience – the deer flipped well over 360 degrees in the air, probably a good 10+ feet up.
-the entire drive through yellowstone
-the entire drive through glacier



-dinner at Subway in Browning, Montana. This was probably the worst, most rundown city any of us have ever experienced. The Subway had the following issues:
*Half of the menu items were not available includingbthe things two of us ordered.
*Creepy man who does not work at subway holds large wood saw up to employees neck, while employee is making our food.
*No pepper in store – well they had pepper, which they were serving out of a big Gordons Food Service tub, but they ran out on Lindsay’s sub so no pepper.
*Nick had sub “toasted” but they microwaved instead, for two minutes as the toaster oven was broken.
*My Italian sub had peperoni and lettuce on it, that’s all.
*The ice machine in the corner randomly spit ice out on the floor.
*The bathroom door didnt have a lock on it.
*Only had two types of bread – white and wheat

I’m really not a big complainer and I don’t minding eating dirt, but the quality of this town was crazy. It was just a commical experience.
-camping at Glacier
-nicks coffee
-our plastic bag ommlets
-many more but I’m tired of typing on a small iPod.

We’ll check in again later – we’ve got some pictures to post when we get a chance!

Peace love and seashells,
Kev

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Badass in the badlands.

The Michigan BA’s made it. Doin’ what we do best.

Being awesome. In the BADLANDS.


picture for proof:

okay, here are some pictures, for real.




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Sexy Internet Access

Well it’s been a few days since the last blog post but here is an update. I must warn you that I’m typing this on the iPod Touch in the car so my punctuation and grammar and spelling and wording may be less that OK.

Anyway, we left yesterday morning around 11 AM for our trip out west. Goodbyes were sad as always but once we got on the road I think we were all pretty excited to be heading. Our plan is to extend the ~2300 mile trip to a wopping ~4000 mile trip, which we’ll be driving in a 7
day 6 night period. The reason for the extension is that we wanted to hit up a few of the more awesome national parks/memorial: Mount Rushmoore, Yellowstone, Glacier, Olympic, and Redwood. We’re not sure if we’ll make it to Olympic but we’ll see. Another huge highlight is that we’ll be stopping in Portland to see aunt Kim and Justin. I’m personally very excited to see the fam in Portland.

Anyway, so far we’ve made it around 1000 miles. Yesterday we drove to Sioux Falls South Dakota which was not too bad for a first hunk of road.

A few good things happened yesterday happened and one particularly frustrating things. Good (awesome actually): we took a bit of a side trip to Lake Dalton in the Wisconsin Dells. Google lake Dalton Dells if you want more info, but basically its a huge lake that burst open during a rain storm and totally drained out. We walked into the middle of the lake and it was pretty cool to look around.

that’s the lake behind us…as you can see, it’s very…lake like….

Bad: I left the two most important things for our trip in jenison: my money belt with passport, credit cards, and 1700 baht. Frankly it made me a bit sick and I still feel pretty stressed knowing I don’t have my passport and credit cards. Oh, I also forgot my GPS in my hotel room last night and we had to drive 15 minutes back to get it. So that wasn’t great. Here’s a picture Lindz took of me scouring the car looking for my passport.

Anyway now things are going great and as I type this we’re about 207 miles from Mount Rushmoore – its ~12:15 central.

Ttyl!

P.s. We saw an adult store that in big letters said, “sexy Internet access”

cool, eh?

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road trip

Leaving today

Today, in about 9 and a half hours, we’re leaving on our trip. Nick is going to pick us up at 10:30 and we’re heading out. The plan is to take an ridiculously long road trip, traveling 4000 miles instead of the ~2300 miles we should be traveling. The route should look something like this HERE but we’ll see what actually happens. I’m planning on keeping pretty good track of our progress via GPS. We’ll see.

We’ll miss our families!

It’s strange to be without a phone now, and I know that once I submit this post I will basically be without a laptop for quite a while.
<3>

Update: Pictures of day one….2 hours into the trip…and Lindz is already sleeping…