Escape Philly, Hitchhike With Me

I probably stayed in Philly a night or two longer than I should have. I missed out on a free ride clear to Colorado, and spent almost the last of my money at the Foodery, but did get some great beer out of that trip.

By day I worked on my website, by night I spent time with Heather. I finally escaped to NYC, in hopes of soon finding a ride somewhat out of the city to start hitchhiking towards the west, maybe portland. One girl got in touch with me in response to my craigslist posting interested in hitchhiking with me, we made loose plans to meet up in Cleveland and do I-80 together. I got a similar request from another girl, Lisa, I met up with her today and she picked my brain about hitchhiking and couchsurfing. She can't leave until later in May, so I'll likely pursue the first girl in Cleveland.

Over the next day or three I'll keep banging craigslist and everything else in hopes of finding a ride any distance out of Manhattan, as it's difficult to get a ride off the island before a cop picks you up, or so I gather. If nothing works, I'll take the subway as far as I can and give my thumb and my feet a shot to walk or catch a ride until I can start really thumbing towards Cleveland to meet this girl.

I figure getting rides will be easier with a girl, even though it'll be two of us. Either way, it'll be great to travel with someone like that, living on the road together for a few days or more. It's always been me and myself when I'm hitchhiking or traveling in any way like this, sharing that with someone else will be a trip. Going through periods of not getting rides, and when the moon comes up, it won't be about not getting a ride, it'll just be about having more good times and someone there with it. I dig it, should be an awesome month coming up.

Dancing Girls in NYC and Philly, Again

Heather and I jumped the bus and landed in chinatown where we met Mark and then headed to Brooklyn to see an art gallery, the artist was one of Heather's friends. We had a great time looking at every kind of artwork in the small, yet packed garage space, at the center of which was a naked gogo dancer. You can check out the funny video with the dancer on YouTube (nudity censored).

After the gallery the three of us headed back to Astoria where dozens of bottles of liquor and people waited at the apartment. It was a great night of drinking and laughing, you know it's a good time when you wake up to the sun shine on the roof and other people can't find their pants.

The next morning a few of us lazily made our way to the bagel spot, Heather and I then made our way to a nice spot in central park, not saying much, half asleep. After a little relaxation we woke ourselves up and she convinced me to go back to Philly with her for the night, a couple subway rides and another chinatown bus later we found ourselves at her local bar in Philadelphia before midnight, sipping PBR and chewing on french fries. It was a great day, a great night.

We slept in as late as we could, had a lazy yet interesting day, and before long it was night again and we were in a packed hookah bar. Too packed for my taste, but we wound up in a bar right above where I sipped some beers while Heather got flipped and thrown around on the dance floor.

So "one more night" in Philadelphia will turn into three more tonight, and then back to NYC tomorrow in time to meet my potential ride to Colorado. It should be a good week of relaxing, watching the playoffs, and whatever else decided to happen.

Community Service and a Philly Trip

I made the trip to Connecticut to knock out some of my community service, delivering gift bags all around New Canaan. A trip to Philly sounded like a good idea, I talked to Heather and planned to stay with her a few days and try and knock out some more hours at an animal shelter.

Before I left CT, I decided to go to my dad's place. That was good times, and he loaded me up with an overflowing crate of bottles upon bottles of liquor he was trying to get rid of. I told Mark to meet me at Grand Central where he lost his mind upon discovering why I needed his help with "something heavy", backpacks full of liquor.

We got back to the apartment and unveiled all of it, and I'm sure him and everyone else enjoyed breaking into some of it, but I hopped right back on the subway with only a glass of tequila in me, headed to the chinatown bus on route to Philly.

I was happy to see Heather's beaming face greet me when I arrived, and it's been a great few days of relaxing, good food, and even a couple new beers including Hoptimus Prime. The label was better than the taste, but the experience was tops.

Heather's meeting me after work and we're both jumping on the bus back to NYC where we'll go straight to an art gallery opening with some free drinks, and then back to the apartment to some kind of party involving the dozens of bottles.

I got a bite on craigslist, I'll be meeting someone tuesday night for coffee, she says she's going to Colorado by way of Kentucky and is cool with my lack of cash. I never did get any community service done here in Philadelphia, so I may try and knock it out this coming week before that ride takes off, assuming it goes through. Things are beautiful.

Beer and an Itch to Hitch

The past week has been relatively uneventful in comparison to other weeks in the past year, but none the less brought revelations and good times. It's been spent here in Astoria, NY, if you're not from around here that's Queens - New York City, and it's been spent in the apartment I once I called my own with old roommates and best friends Mark and Sean, and now it also houses Sean's girlfriend Kelly and everyone's good friend, Carl.

While mostly unproductive and stagnant, I've managed to squeeze out a new video, this one from almost a month ago when I camped in Sabino Canyon for 2 nights, that's in Tucson, AZ. One of the main motivations for coming back to the city was to record a slew of songs with Mark and Sean, but we've yet to do that, although Mark just got his guitar back from Guitar Center after they did some work on it, so we'll see what next week brings.

Being so stagnant, I've itched for the road. After posting my video yesterday someone left a comment asking lot's of questions about hitchhiking, the types of questions I get a lot, although I liked some of his questions better because they came from someone hungry to do it, instead of someone thinking I was crazy for doing it. I promised him I'd post a video answering a lot of these questions, so you can look forward to that. I'm certainly no expert, but I would have loved to stumble upon a video like that before I'd gone out there.

I plan to stick around for perhaps 2 more weeks. In that time I'm hoping to record some songs, serve my community service, and officially launch and announce a huge secret project I've been working on. As anyone who's been following me knows, the wind has a better idea of my destinations than I do, but on my mind lately is Portland, Seattle, Denton, somewhere in Florida, Bakersfield, San Diego, and Atlanta. By the way, if you're in the New York / Connecticut area and driving back to school or anywhere else soon and have an empty seat... I'd love to fill it.

On a beer note: I've been drinking a lot of new beers lately, a lot. My top 3 recommendations for you beer drinkers right now (by the way, have a beer tasting at the apartment tomorrow, will post about it) are Dazed and Infused, Ruination (drinking at this moment), and Double Bastard. The first two are very hopped out awesomeness and Double Bastard, brewed by Stone along with Ruination, is hardcore and not for the timid. 10% by volume, barely a beer, greatness.

Happy travels, rock out, and keep enjoying life.