Wow it has definitely been a long time since I've put anything up on here! Life has had some crazy turns in the past months and now here I am in sunny California. How about a quick summary of the past 7 months??
Flew back to America with the happiest feelings inside that anybody could imagine. Moved back in with my parents due to breaking up with Sarah... no hard feelings there, things just didn't work out. Saving up $$ to not be the 25 year old living in his parents house while working hard at a new awesome job. Got $$ saved, now bought a house with brother (Steven). Moving to Dublin into the shiny new house in about 3 weeks, life is on track!
Pow, you're up to date!
It's been GREAT getting back to the dropzone and seeing all my old skydiver buddies... things have changed in some ways and are still the same in others. Byron is still full of friendly people doing incredible things and setting the bar for talent in the sky! I look up to the people there with the highest regard and I really hope to be as skilled as they are one day. On the other hand there are tons of new people that I haven't met! I feel like one of them as they're all pushing jumps around the same numbers as I am and we're in the same boat but I started a few years before them. It's cool to feel like a student again though and I really enjoy learning new things in the sky :)
I am preparing myself for a few week long venture in July-ish that will take me to the remaining 18 mainland states. I'll probably only update once before then but I will do what I can to become an awesome video blogger again during that trip! Meanwhile, here's a picture of me falling from the sky.
It's been about 9 months now here in the land of Thais. 9 whole months... I really thought a year would go by much faster, but it feels like I've been here for 2 years already.
After my parents left, it was only a short while till it was time for Sarah to do the same.
I just tried to describe what it was like on the train ride to the airport to see her off but I couldn't get anything that made sense out. It was hard... very hard. Our goodbye at the airport was all too brief and we had her last meal in Thailand together before she had to pass through security. It was hard to keep our eyes dry knowing we wouldn't get to see each other for so long. As we walked up to the security line, we had a very quick hug and kiss (to avoid looking like a hilariously sappy sobbing mess in front of everyone) before I turned around and walked myself down to the train. I couldn't turn back to look at her... I had tears welling up in my eyes that were on the verge of bursting into a mini Niagara Falls.
The whole train ride back and walk to the empty apartment were no different and I don't think I've ever experienced a feeling of loneliness so deep before. I don't really have any friends here. Nobody to call to hang out with and occupy my mind or anything. It's only been a week since she has left and I already can't wait to go home! The internet is terrible here, so I don't exactly have easy access to clear skype calls and we are reduced to high latency text messages throughout the day. It really sucks.
Fortunately, someone that I had met skydiving a couple years ago was going to be in Bangkok for 2 days so he called me up and we hung out. I took them to Chatuchak and MBK for some cheap shopping and then we went to tour the Grand Palace! It was actually quite grand and we took a lot of cool pictures that are on his camera (I'll put them up when I get them eventually). In fact, we just had dinner together and said goodbye as he and his girlfriend are catching a plane back home tomorrow. BUT! Somehow, another skydiver friend (more friends with Sarah, but we've met a couple times in Denver) is arriving late tonight so I will have more friends for another couple days! I'll write up a new post after they leave and post pics of everything that's been happening :)
In the meantime, check out this sweet 360 day/night panorama I made using a TON of pix I took from my rooftop!
It is now mid April and my time in Bangkok is about half over... My parents and Grandpa have all arrived back in California after their 15 day visit, which has been the most exciting thing to happen in the past... well, 8 months that we've been here! Here's the update :)
I have been here with nobody to talk to regularly aside from Sarah for the past 8 months. I am very grateful that she is here, and I couldn't imagine anybody else that I would rather be stuck here with, but even so, it was fantastic to know that my parents would be here for 15 days of fun touring the city, and exploring a couple islands. We had planned out their entire trip before they even arrived, so when they did finally show up we got straight to it and kept them busy so they would avoid the jet lag. They arrived at noon-ish and we headed straight to our apartment so they could unload before going to take a relaxing walk around Lumphini Park. They were amazed at the wildlife there and we all got to watch (and half participate in) the group aerobic session of about 200 people. We rented paddle boats to tour one of the lakes in the park and feed the millions of fish, then chased around some 6'+ monitor lizards through the water and up to the shores.
After that we ate at our favorite place here, the Mali Restaurant, home of the "crazy old American guy" named Peter that we've grown so fond of... they enjoyed their first taste of Thai food and we went on home so they could catch an early, well needed night of sleep.
The next couple days I still had to work, as the Sonkran holiday hadn't yet started, so Sarah ushered them around to some of the most famous shopping centers in Bangkok including MBK, Siam Paragon and Terminal 21. After I finished up the term of swim lessons, we were all free to head on down to start our two part island adventure, starting with Koh Si Chang! Everyone was happy to leave the busy, dirty, hot smelly city of Bangkok, so the two+ hour bus ride didn't seem all that bad. A short ferry ride later, we got ourselves four motorbikes (Mom rode on the back of Dad's bike) and departed about 1/4 mile away to our nice, clean, cheap and wonderful bungalows! The next 4 days were spent driving around every road the island had to offer, and hiking along every secluded rocky point we could find. A few gorgeous sunsets, many sweaty non-air conditioned meals and loads of great pictures made these 4 days pass by in no time! Next stop was to be Koh Samet, but first, we had to figure out how to get there.......
The ferry ride back to Si Racha wasn't too difficult; Sarah and I had done it multiple times before so it went smoothly. We had never tried to take public transportation from the mainland near this island, down to the small town of Ban Phe where we would catch our next ferry. It turns out that you must get on a cramped mini-bus (a minivan with rows 4 seats across and 8" of leg room) for 2 hours down to Rayong, where you have to transfer to a Songthaew (pickup truck with benches in the bed) for another 20 miles in the blistering heat crammed up against 18 other people. Then, we had to walk about 1/4 mile because they had us get off near tourist traps, rather than the real pier, to get on the ferry, to rent our off-road dirt-bike scooters, to drive down the crazy un-paved treacherous 2 mile path to our hotel. Somehow, we all made it... including my 73 year old grandfather who has the heart of a 16 year old, but the bones of a 40 year old (so the drive kinda sucked for him...). Needless to say, we just spent the next 5 days relaxing on one of the nicest beaches Thailand has to offer in one of the most secluded parts of the island.
Anyway, loads of pictures and only a small bit of touring on the island later, we headed home on a direct bus back to Bangkok where we spent the final few days shopping for cheap stuff, and packing to leave. The only cool stuff we got was some super cheap northface coats from MBK (google it) that are factory overstocks for about $100 a piece. Amazing 3-in-one jackets that would be at least 3x the price in America! Woo hoo...
Now, Sarah and I are here, preparing for her departure back home on the 30th of this month :( I'm pretty much stuck here till December because of the contract I am on, but it's for the better for the long term (and I might be able to leave early... hopefully). Look for more depressing lonely updates to come in the near future as I sit here alone in misery, wishing I could be back in the country that so many are so quick to talk $h!t about at home, because they haven't seen the rest of the world.
Not too much has happened since we went up that building a few weeks ago (the blog post came way late!), but we have been to a couple islands and a lame theme park...
Here are some pix from our trip to Koh Samet (koh = island). Click on the first image for the high res so you can see the water drop up close :D The rest are low res only 'cause uploading large files sucks here...
Well, I promised you some "adventure in Bangkok" so here it is!
We had just explored the Sathorn Unique abandoned building (google it) when I made my last post and I hadn't quite had time to write up what all had happened, but the story goes a bit like this:
There is a MASSIVE building right off of one of the BTS (sky train) stops in Bangkok that looks incredibly spooky and deserted. After a bit of research, it turns out that it IS in fact abandoned. Left to rot in 1997 during the Asian Financial Crisis, all construction of the project halted and everybody just went home. The building hasn't changed much in that time, it seems, as you can still find much of the building equipment scattered throughout, though anything of value has been looted. It is a 49 story behemoth that changes from an off white, mostly finished bottom, to a completely rotting away (or whatever you call it when concrete starts to fall apart) dirt brown structure exposing its rebar to the sky up at the top.
Here is an image from google:
We were wandering around the bottom of it looking for a way in when we stumbled across a few Russians sitting outside of a Pizza Hut that looked out of place. "Are you trying to go up that building?" I said, pointing behind the Pizza Hut.
"Yeah..."
"We are too. What do you know?"
"Not much, they have locks on the stairwells and are trying to charge us money to let us in."
Sarah, noticing a couple big bags the guys had asked, "Are those BASE rigs?"
"Yeah..."
Sweet! So we met some BASE jumpers that were trying to go up there too! After a 45 minute slightly intense conversation with the people that have inhabited the lower floors (who had a few 7 or 8 year old kids with machetes running around) we got them to unlock the lower and upper gates blocking off the steps all the way to the 8th(?) floor.
It was about 95°F and we only had 41 floors to go! We stopped to take some pictures at a couple points on the way up...
The top of the building was home to one of the coolest views I have ever seen! You had a full 360° view of the city and only a couple buildings stood taller. The Russian guys were packing their parachutes up there while we ran around and took a bunch of pictures and just enjoyed the view from the top of the city...
Anyway, the two Russians jumped off, had a safe landing off in a concrete field across the street and we made our descent down the building. A quick phone call to the lady downstairs to unlock the gates again set us free and for some reason they had no question as to where the other two guys in our group went (thankfully).
Twelve gallons of sweat later, we made it back out of the building and back down to the bustling city streets below. It was an incredible sensation to find such peace and tranquility amidst this city, and I never would have expected to find it on top of a 50 story deteriorating skyscraper. To this day this has probably been the most interesting exploration I have ever had... Caves, waterfalls, rivers, oceans and more from mother nature will always be fascinating, but to experience this feeling of wonder and awe from a man-made object was just amazing.
Hello world! I left for Bangkok about 6 months ago and haven't exactly kept my blog up to date. I still VERY much intend on finishing all 50 states as soon as I return to the US in December (will have to wait to summer to jump the northern states though), and should have them all complete by mid 2013, before my 26th birthday.
I came to Thailand with my girlfriend with the plan to teach English for 1 year and live a fantastic life on a gorgeous beach with an abundance of money from all the stories that we had heard... reality, however, is much different.
We arrived August 17th after 36 hours of traveling, on the island of Phuket. Our first month was spent in intense humidity, incredible rain storms, a small brief flood, gallons of sweat, overly-confusing TEFL learning, a small motorbike accident and a somewhat beautiful apartment in the touristic town of Patong. After learning more about the reality of the situation on the beautiful, yet mostly ghetto island (unless you're already rich) we decided to head to Bangkok in search of better prospects...
Long story short, we spent the first 4 months in very cheap, dirty, uncomfortable conditions getting our job situations established and figuring out the city. Now we are in a fantastic apartment, 27 stories up right on the edge of the heart of the city, just a 10 minute sky-train ride from the dead center. I got lucky and found a job teaching swim lessons at a very high-end swim school, and Sarah got a great job at a university teaching English.
Bangkok is still very hot, uncomfortable, filthy and dangerous, but I am feeling a lot more comfortable with how it all works and now starting to have some good adventures... next post will be about the coolest adventure to date! Meanwhile, enjoy some sweet pics from our trip so far!
I just got back from about a month of traveling around not just the US, but a bit of Canada as well! Sarah and I started out by heading up from Denver to visit her friend Heather in Great Falls, MT for about a week before we continued on to Lethbridge Alberta. We stopped at Waterton national park just over the boarder and kayaked around a gorgeous lake that was probably over 8,000ft high cause we were surrounded by snow! After spending almost three weeks hanging out in Lethbridge and Calgary and some boonie-ville town called drumheller seeing all of Sarah's family and friends we drove back down through Montana to take some main highways all the way to new york. The first day of that drive we got about half way through north Dakota trying to find a hotel with a room available for about qpp miles before finally giving up and buying a tent and air mattress from Walmart at 4:30am and camping right in a grassy patch in their parking lot! It was very hot and humidity so we needed to shower in the morning but all we had access to was the sinks in Wally world's bathrooms so we took all our bath supplies and got as cleaned up as possible before making it to Fargo.
Fargo?!?! Sounds familiar! So we meet again... This time around the fields weren't completely flooded and we met some awesome folks at the Fargo dropzone! The jump was awesome and I should be having video of the great three way sit flying action that ensued... I ha en definitely been slacking in the video blog department but this time I got some great footage and some half-way decent video blog worthy commentary so I promise I will get a video put together!
Aaaanyway... After a fun night hanging out with the peeps in Fargo we headed off to Indiana to stay with some of my family one ast time before Thailand and to get some rest before one last push to New York where we stayed in Quogue which is on long island right next to the Hamptons! A few days into the stay with Sarah's grandma we decided to go to the Long Island dropzone where I got to jump out of one HUGE ASS PLANE!! It's called a carribu... Picture of me after the jump next to the plane at the bottom of the post... There were about 25 skydivers inside and it probably could have fit 20 more... 13,500ft later the huge taigate lowered and two strangers and myself were the first out the door! Landing amidst that many jumpers that didn't seem to have experience landing near more than one other skydiver seemed to be a zoo... But we all got down safely and I threw my unpacked gear into the car and made the whole dz trip take no more than 45 min!
So now here I am a short flight away from Long Island in Denver writing this up waiting for the video of the ND jump... Sarah and I leave for Thailand on the 15th which is only 6 days away and we have a lot of preparation to do before that trip... That's all for now folks!!
Well that was an interesting few weeks! I got to jump in 2 new states... not as much as I was going for, but I came back to Colorado for a very good reason and it made the 3,500 miles worth just 2 states.
The first jump in Minnesota went very well and a huge thanks goes out to West Side Skydivers for making sure I was able to get my reserve repacked in time to make one jump on a day that they did not have any other skydivers out there for! (The weather wasn't good at all...)
I then went up to North Dakota for about a week trying to get a pilot to take me for a skydive because the only drop zone in North Dakota happened to be flooded while I was there! Long long story short, I wasn't able to find anybody that could take me :( So, I left for Wisconsin, jumped in the early evening then took off for Indiana right after. That was a really fun hybrid that didn't work out very well but it was still a blast!
After spending a day with some family members in Indiana, I decided to head back to Colorado for a while before I leave to visit more family in California. So here I am, all packed up with everything I own in my car, bound to be living on the road until I am moving to Thailand in August. Look for more updates soon! I will get the video blog up for this trip as soon as I'm done editing it...
Well, this is a bit of a surprise, but I'm leaving tomorrow to start road trip #3. I have to be back in Denver for a train ride to California by the 28th, so I don't have much time at all. I HOPE to be able to make all of the states on this map (Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky) but depending on the weather and time constraints, I might have to skip the last dropzone that would cover Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky.
Any and all couches are appreciated! The offer still stands for anybody willing to sponsor me a bit to do something personal for you and cover it on my video blogs :)
So here I am, chillin in Denver... I decided to pick up the pace on this whole adventure a bit and try to take on the entire northeast part of the country (and the 4 states that I missed on my last trip) in one final epic road trip. Also, I plan on driving up to visit a friend in Canada with my girlfriend who grew up in the town of Lethbridge, so that adds a bit of time to the trip but not very much when you look at the entire route.
Here it is folks, my rough plan for road trip number 3!! Click on it to view the full google maps route...
Howdy folks! Been a while again... Not much has been happening still as the weather all over the country isn't exactly permitting jumping, nor do I have ANY money what-so-ever. Since I moved out here to Denver I've been trying to make some $$ to get back on the road as soon as the weather starts to warm up... I was lucky enough to get out to Longmont, CO for another jump (one of the places that I did NOT have pics/vid of) and did a great 7-way tracking dive! Check out the video of that below...
Also, here is a pretty cool little map that I've been keeping up with TripAdvisor (a Facebook app). Crazy!
It's been far too long since I've put an update on here, but not TOO much has happened. The weather was so crappy up north in Minneapolis that I decided I would call it quits for that road trip, and I drove to Denver instead. I ended up meeting a really cool skydiver chick that is now my girlfriend and I am calling Denver my home for a while. Unfortunately, with this bad of weather, it looks like I will be waiting till the spring to do the remaining 23 states. Since I am finally on a better internet connection, here is my video blog from Wyoming and South Dakota, along with the video that Lindsey did for her class project that is acting as my Nebraska video blog!
Currently I am in Minneapolis Minnesota, using my phone to type up everything. The only internet access I have really had over the past couple weeks has been from my phone... and while that's pretty fast, its still not fast enough to upload any long videos.
Right after I jumped in Montana I headed down to Buffalo Wyoming, where I Hung out for a week in sub zero temperatures with a super cool group of couch surfers. They took me amongst their group for everything, including a thanksgiving feast that would make any king jealous! After a week though, i had to move on to South Dakota to go find a pilot...
Last Sunday, I was able to hire a guy (Colin Potter) to fly me from Hot Springs, South Dakota over to Newcastle Wyoming for a skydive. It went very well, even though it was only about 20 degrees on the ground along with a foot of snow... and on the flight back to Hot Springs SD I jumped out again, taking care of those two states.
Shortly after that I drove over to Sioux Falls, SD, where I crashed with more couch surfers for a night before heading down to Lincoln, NE. A few days of hanging out there later, I got in touch with one of the main dudes at the Lincoln Sport Parachute Club out in Weeping Water and we set up a skydive. A couch surfer that I had met in Omaha happened to be doing a class project where she had to video interview somebody doing something interesting, and she chose to follow my story :) Lindsey, the couch surfer, got to ride along in the plane and record my lame attempt at a bat hang from the Cessna wing, before I let go and was chased by Chuck. I think my video blog of Nebraska will simply be her interview project cause it should be pretty interesting!
After one more night in Nebraska after the jump, Lindsey and I went to a huge couch surfing party in Omaha and made a lot of new very very well traveled friends, and then I moved on to Minneapolis! It sounds like, however, one of those couch surfers might just be coming up here to hang out and join me for a few days of my adventure :)
Let's hope the weather up here clears up soon and that I can take out a couple more states before I fly back to California on the 17th!
Well that wasn't TOO difficult! It took about 5 days of staring at crappy weather in Montana before one morning it was gorgeously sunny for just a few hours, enough time for me to go up in an R44 and jump out over a nice large field to land in. However, we didn't realize the upper winds were 50+mph and I TRIED to put my spot in a way that would be good enough for 20mph winds (which we thought they were) soooo I had to land in someone's backyard about 1 mile from my intended landing area...
After that jump I decided to head down to Buffalo Wyoming to stay with my next couch surfing host, and got stuck in a pretty icy snow storm along the way. But alas, I arrived safely, and that is where I am currently positioned.
Thanks a ton for Lila setting me up with a place to stay up in Missoula for a night, and of course to Rah for an awesome couch in Bozeman for the majority of my Montana visit!
Well this has been a fun past week! I started off this road trip on Monday morning when I embarked upon the 10 hour drive to Twin Falls, ID. I arrived within about 3 minutes of my GPS's initial guess of my arrival time, that was pretty fantastic.
I narrowly avoided one of the most intense storms I have ever seen in my life... I was driving through the very flat parts of Nevada, and could see a storm about 15 miles wide coming towards the road that I was driving on. Just as the edge of the storm, which appeared as a solid wall of gray with things flying inside of it (I don't think it was a giant tornado... didn't look "swirly" enough, but I've never seen one) got within 1 mile of the road I was at the end of it. The winds, even 1 mile from the gray, were sending huge things of tumble weed flying 20 some odd feet above my car, and I had to hold my wheel almost 90° to the side to keep my car going straight... it was intense.
Thankfully, a good friend of mine (thank you, Erin!) recommended that I have the dropzone owner up in Twin Falls (Abbie) a call about a place to stay. Abbie and his buddy, James, were down for adventure in any form of falling out of planes or jumping off of objects and had some of the coolest stories/videos you could possibly imagine. I convinced them that it would be a good idea for us to fly all the way over to Wyoming to a small airport right over the boarder to try to jump there (since there is no actual dropzone in all of Wyoming), so we did! Well, we tried. About 13 minutes from the airport, the weather got too bad and we definitely needed to turn away from the clouds in front of us and call it quits. We did, however, have a lot of fun while in the plane, and got to jump out over his old dropzone location in Idaho on our way "home." If you are EVER in the Twin Falls area, I would highly recommend going straight to Abbie (say it like bobby, but without the first "b") at snake river skydiving!
The next day they had convinced me (didn't take much) that it was a good idea to go BASE jump off of the famous Perrine Bridge, right there in Twin Falls. After a lot of training and running through emergency scenarios (aka, in the 4 seconds you have till you hit the ground, if no parachute is above your head within 2 seconds, flail about wildly to try to get the parachute to come out), I was standing on the 2' platform sticking over the edge of the bridge. Yes, it was by far the most terrifying moment of my life, and I screamed like a little girl when the sensation of falling immediately presented itself (which, by the way, does NOT happen while skydiving).
Shortly after climbing out of the canyon, searching for a mannequin that we lost after he fell out of the plane (see video blog for details) and declaring him MIA, I left for Montana.
I arrived in Montana Saturday night, and have been waiting for the clouds to go above three feet, and the snow to stop falling so I can go jump out of a plane here in Bozeman. Wish me luck, oh blog readers.
There really was no point in you reading all of this, because it has been all incorporated (except the snow falling in Montana) in my lengthy video blog of Idaho, which you should watch. There are some fun/funny moments, there are some boring moments, and there are some terrifying moments (aka, the BASE jump). Enjoy!
Be sure to watch it in 1080p if your computer can stream fast enough!
First off, I doubt this will be near as epic as the first epic road trip... but one can only hope! Just started sending out couch requests a couple days ago for the first few states. No real way to tell when I'll be showing up at each one, but I plan to leave Cali on the 10th of November. The route in the last blog post will hold mostly true, at least till I get in my car... then who knows what will happen!
I really do need help now more than ever before. This trip will be putting me through temperatures that might possibly drop to -30°f! Now obviously I won't be skydiving if they get that low, and I hope it will be bright and sunny at each of my destinations, but I doubt it. I don't have any free cash for this trip, things are going to be very tight... Hopefully some of the dropzones along the way will be willing to sponsor me a jump (or two!) and I'll throw them due credit on here!
If anybody (all 2 of you) reads this that has any idea how to skydive in Wyoming, please, let me know. My current plan is to show up to a small airport and bug every pilot around to take me up in their plane to 3k ft and squirm out of the door... we'll see how it goes :( Maybe I will get lucky and there will be an experienced R44 pilot up there that will take off his doors for me and it will go smoothly! HELP!!!!
Nobody really saw this coming... but it LOOKS like I will be moving to the gulf coast in Alabama. I still need to run through all those states in the NW section of the country, so I'm devising a plan to move myself here AND go through those states at the same time. This is NOT a 100% sure thing, but as of right now, the move seems to make sense on many levels.
IF this is the case...
This is the revised route plan. Click on it to check out the route in google maps.
In theory, I will throw as much stuff in my little hybrid as possible (clothes, computer stuff, skydiving gear etc.) and take this trip, which will put my car, and a lot of my stuff at my new place in Alabama. Then I will simply fly home, and uhaul the rest of my crap in a direct route over here in 2 days of driving.
Looks like it's time to plan another road trip! I'm not sure when I'll be able to leave for this, I definitely need to save up a lot more $$ as my bank account is reaching the single digits...
From doing a bit of research on dropzone.com and calling a few different places, it looks like these will be my stops along the way.
If anybody knows anybody in any of these areas, or inbetween some for a good resting spot, don't hesitate to contact me! Most of these northern states are pretty sparse, and finding couch surfers looks like it's going to be a bit more difficult :(
Click on the picture for a link to the actual google maps version of the route!
Here we are! Finished throwing together the video blog of Alaska. I got to check off a bunch of firsts up there, a couple of which you get to see in the video :) Let me know what you think! Want to see more of something? Less of something? That's what the comments are for!
The video is all 1080p so feel free to click the maximum resolution at the bottom right if your computer/monitor/internet can handle it!
A great shout out to Alaska Skysports for helping me out along the way while I was in AK. Be sure to check them out if you're ever in Alaska!!
Well it has been an incredible 10 days here in Alaska, and it is time to head home. I've collected a ton of different videos throughout the trip but that means I have to edit them all together in a way that you, all 6 people that might read this, should care to watch. My official "Alaska: State #22" update will be up some time in the next few days folks!
