THE LIGHT IN FRONT

So, my first camping adventure, Shenandoah National Park. Arriving here by car reminded me of the view on the way to Jajome back in PR, except at an outrageously epic scale and containing 300% more deer. I could not believe what I was seeing outside the window. America means a lot of different things to different people, but we can all agree that it is fucking enormous.


The park is specifically designed for scenic driving, consisting of a single winding road stretching for about 105 miles, with 4 main campgrounds alongside it and miles and miles of backcountry between them. Scattered through the road are dozens of overlooks that just keep hammering you in the face with greatness as you drive along. It is absolute driving bliss.


No more than 10 minutes into it I notice some cars stopped ahead of me, and people are looking out their windows and sticking cameras out. Right next to the road, a mama bear with three little cubs strolling around on some Disney shit. I knew then this place was the goods. I tried taking a picture, but the attempt was pretty futile. They had already scurried in a bit into the forest, so all you get is an ambiguous dark spot:

I couldn’t decide which of the 4 campgrounds to stay at so I chose the one that seemed the most low key, Lewis Mountain. I wasn’t thrilled with it at first, since it didn’t seem backwoods enough and tents were pretty close to each other. But the other 2 nearest campgrounds were each 25 miles away, and I wanted to hike at least one trail before the sun came down, so I said fuck it and pitched camp:

…then took off to check out a nearby trail that promised a bit of bouldering and even more gigantic views. At this time some clouds had started to roll in, and some rain started to drizzle, but all was good because I was outfitted with a magical plastic poncho that deflects water spells. Here’s some of what I saw:

Click on that thin 360° panorama image above to see it in much larger size. It was pretty breathtaking.


I headed back and decided to catch a quick power nap before making myself some dinner. I sleep for a bit, wake up, and realize I must’ve been pretty fucking exhausted, cause 5 hours had passed and it was now 1 AM. I looked out my tent and the entire camp was completely shut down, not a single sound or light anywhere. Well, too fucking bad, cause I gotta eat.


I grab my headlamp and start setting up some stuff at the foot of the tent, and before long I had a hearty bowl going. It was at this point that I hear steps in the darkness in front of me. I look up, the headlamp shines ahead, and I proceed to shit my pants.


You know how in cartoons, when they show a spooky forest, there’s a bunch of evil eyes of different sizes glowing among the bushes?


Well folks, that’s not just in the cartoons. In front of me, right beyond the headlamp’s reach, were 7-8 pairs of eyes of different sizes staring at me, all joined in the singular effort of scaring the living fuck out of me. You know, I did my homework. I read the campground instruction manual. I was aware of the wildlife around here and had taken every precaution and followed every direction for how to not get eaten by a large mammal. Yet, here I was, about to get my shit ruined by a pack of bears. With rabies.


I gently covered my bowl and put it away from the tent, then went back and grabbed a more powerful flashlight. The light from that one cleared up a lot of things. One, it was not bears, but a pack of deer (actually called a herd of deer, but that sounds gay so it’s a pack), and two, deer in the dark are still scary as fuck. To get an idea of what they looked like, watch the first minute of this video, and then multiply what you see by 8. So, while I was pretty relieved that I would not get eaten, I was still pretty spooked by the fucking evil demon deer outside my tent. They moved on pretty quickly, and I finished off my meal.


I was supposed to only stay one night, and then leave early the next morning to get to NYC on schedule. After all the awesome shit I’d seen so far, I wasn’t sure that was gonna happen. I decided to sleep it on it and decide in the morning.


It took me about 7 seconds upon waking up to say fuck NYC and stay an extra day here. However even though the previous night’s encounter was pretty fucking terrifying, I was extremely gripped and wanted to go a little crazier. I headed to one of the camp offices to get myself a backcountry permit. I wanted to literally camp in the middle of the fucking forest, no cars, no other tents, no restrooms, no kids on Razor scooters (who the fuck brings that to a campground?), no dogs under leash law looking miserable, nothing. Just me and the forest.


The ranger at the desk helped me pick out something nice that wouldn’t kill me hiking… since I was taking that extra day, it would mean getting up extra early and hiking BACK the following morning for a crazy long drive to NY. Found an area about 2.5 miles into the forest, next to a stream with cascades, and said hell yeah. Got my permit and off I went to stake out my spot.


It was here that I kinda regretted buying a shit backpack at Wal-Mart that’s geared towards carrying clothes and only vaguely looks outdoorsy. I had to work some magic with bungee cords and straps in order to attach the sleeping bag, lantern, and other essentials, and the result was workable if not dicey. In the end I carried a ton of shit that I probably didn’t need, but you live, you learn. Besides rain starting to pour pretty heavily, the hike down wasn’t too bad, but I was a bit concerned about how much it was gonna suck to hike back up, cause it was a rather steep 2.5 miles and my shit was heavy.


Eventually I passed the marker cascades and started looking around for flat areas. I found a spot that looked too good to be true and looked around, and surely enough that was it. It had signs of frequent use, like clearings, pre-felled trees, and a badly concealed shitting area about 100 yards down. I set up camp immediately:

This is for Bob, who has been incessantly insisting that I need to get a bear bag, yet refusing to believe that I would remember to buy one:

AQUIIII esta tu bear bag, cabron.

No sooner had I set up that I realized that people had been here much more recently than I thought, cause the assholes had thrown out a bunch of roasted peppers and strawberries nearby. Might as well put a neon arrow pointing to my tent saying EAT THIS HUMAN. So I spent a few minutes clearing out the gross half decomposed food, which reminded me that I needed to attend to the Ginodoll. I left him alone far away in the cold, but with the help of some beef jerky, I made sure he would find some company at some point in the night:

Next, instead of coming back the trail I came from, I took an alternate route to my car that was quite a bit longer, but that turned out to be more gentle in slope than the entrance route. Got myself a hearty dinner up at a lodge, then headed back down to camp when it got dark, a pretty scary headlamp-assisted journey in on-and-off rain. I was rather disappointed to find that on the way up and back down, someone else had dropped in and set up a tent a few yards away. Nevertheless, I was so tired and cold and wet from the rain I just wanted to rest… I had a single beer I had brought with me, then I put all the smelly stuff in the bear bag and passed out. No crazy animal incidents that night.


Next morning I pack my bags, check and pick up the Ginodoll (sad to say, untouched by wildlife) then proceed to nearly destroy my leg muscles trying to hike back up with all my shit. The numerous breathers I had to take ended up being great moments to soak in my surroundings though, it really is like a storybook forest out there. Thankfully, half the trail back up was a gently sloping (but fucking interminable) fire road made for cars that was much easier on the calves than the regular trail. Got back to the car, spent a solid hour doing another round of car tetris, and finally took off for a mad scramble up to NYC.


On the way out however, I caught another young bear by the side of the road, and caught a much better but still pretty disappointing flick of it:

Tremendous experience at Shenandoah. I have a feeling I’m gonna have the camping and outdoors bug going strong for a while.


As always, a lot more pictures on flickr.

Awesome. I’d once come to the Smithsonians in DC when I was like 10 or so, and remember it being a fantastic experience. I’m obviously a huge nerd, and nature and science have a place in my heart as big as that for art and design… going to the Smithsonians for me is like a junkie finding a palace made of needle spires and spoons. My friend Carmen had to work during the day, as has been the case with many who I’ve stayed with, so I took the metro line down from Baltimore by myself to arrive at Union Station, and after a solid scramble to find free wi-fi and post updates, headed off to the Mall for some enlightenment.


It was a nice long walk, followed by even longer walks in the museums themselves. I saw people riding around on rented Segways and thought that if I had worn the 5-toed shoes, I would’ve rented the Segway just to be the biggest douche in DC that day. I might’ve even taken a fanny pack.


After a long deliberation, I decided that I would nurture the science side of the brain, and leave the next art museum experience for MoMA in NYC. First target was the Museum of Natural History for wacky animal antics.


It was here that I noted a grave mistake for which I apologize to all of you. I forgot my point and shoot camera and only had the phone cam, and even that was at half battery after the morning wi-fi scramble. So, there are really no decent pictures on this round, just bits here and there.


One of the things I had underestimated is the size of these goddamn museums. Jesus Christ, the walk down the Mall is an epic event. Once inside I realized there was no way I was gonna see everything in this place, especially since I’m the kind of person who will read EVERYTHING on the exhibits. I focused on insects, reptiles, and general crazy animal shit. There was also an exhibit on soil. That sounded hilarious to me, so I went in and found out that of all the towns of PR you could gather a sample of soil from, the Smithsonian Institution chose Bayamón.


Finally, I caught a special exhibit on ants that blew my top off, ants and their behavior have recently become a topic of great interest to me, some of the interactive projects I have planned for after the trip deal with such things so that exhibit was a major score. Ants are fucking nuts, this is a scientific fact.


Soon after that I ate a hot dog that looked like the most spectacular hot dog I’ve ever seen, for the 4 seconds I held it before it completely disintegrated in my hands. I forgot to grab napkins too, so I was stuck trying to somehow shovel it into my mouth with my bare hands and creating a tremendous saucy mess all over my face in the process. The walk afterwards through the crowd to find napkins was fairly embarrassing.


It was getting a bit late and I needed to hit up another museum, so I chose Air & Space. That dude’s crazy telescope at the Guidestones had sparked a curiosity in astronomy and tools for observing the heavens, so at least for the Space part I was pretty hyped. Apparently these guys now have another, even crazier museum out of DC, that has a fucking Space Shuttle in it and a Concorde and all kinds of ridiculous shit that’s not supposed to be indoors. I was pretty upset that I wouldn’t be able to check it out since it was kinda out of the way. Air & Space was plenty awesome though… lo and behold there’s an exhibit on the evolution of telescopes. It was funny to see it evolve into comical sizes from the meager skinny tube some dude with a beard held back in the day. Also tried my hand at some aircraft design and engineering, although the museum’s clearly outdated technology wasn’t able to recognize the brilliance of my proposal:

While leaving the museum at closing time, I grab a Smithsonian booklet just so I’ll have something to read on the train back to Baltimore. My next steps were a bit ambiguous… I could either stay one more day and check out the Aquarium in Baltimore, which I was completely down for, but already had that experience in Atlanta and was feeling a bit museum-ed out, or I could head the following day to Philly and stay there for the night, to hit NYC by the following day. Honestly, I wasn’t too psyched on Philly. I actually just wanna stop there to have a cheesesteak cause I haven’t had one in years, and if possible check the art museum to see my favorite painting. However I had recently learned (from The Internet™) that the painting was currently not in exhibit. So I was a bit stuck on what my next steps were, until I sat on that train and started reading the booklet.


A section on the National Park Service had this picture of an epic meadow, with a caption identifying it as Shenandoah National Park, just 75 miles southwest of DC. I was sold. After the little warmup at NC, and seeing all these nature exhibits, I was itching to get going on some camping, even though the latter part of the trip will be heavily focused on that. A little more digging in on their site and there was no question, I had to go and camp out for a night there. I promptly arrived at Baltimore, had 2 beers at a jammy called Brewer’s Art (here’s a pic of the list for you crybabies asking for proof), and then I quickly passed out, to get up the following day at 6am, and take off for a detour adventure. And what an adventure it’s been.


I’m writing this from my tent, in what turned out to actually be a TWO day detour, because I am in love with this place. Of this you will learn on the next post, if I survive the night. There are bears here, and they want to eat me.

So what wonders awaited me at Hidden Lake Campground?


Well, for starters, a trailer park. And a not particularly well-hidden lake.


I rolled in pretty late, having taken my time to get supplies, have lunch and dinner, etc. The old lady who ran the campground seemed a bit confused at the random solo guy showing up with a tent at 10pm, especially since 70% of the tenants were RVs and permanent trailers. Nonetheless, she hooked me up with a nice spot near the lake, which I could tell from afar contained several un-hidden lake-like structures, such as trampolines, rafts, and personal floating devices tied to a very unhidden dock.


The night was relatively uneventful. I was certainly expecting less creepy crawlies, which is a good thing cause I love creepy crawlies. Of course, there’s wonderful creep crawlies like this awesome daddy longlegs:

And then there’s the asshole cousins of creepy crawlies, called Shits that Fly Around in the Air and Hit You in the Face. These truly became a problem when I resorted to using my headlamp to navigate my way in the dark. Within seconds I was socked in the eyes by at least 3 moths and one scarab beetle. Another thing is I had heard that as you go further north on land, the mammals get bigger but the insects get smaller. This is not true. While I’m sure the mammals thing is true, insects up here are still fucking big, if not bigger. Look at this fucking ant:

What the fuck do you feed these things here? Back in PR ants are like the size of that thing’s head, but they’ll still ruin your shit if you’re not looking. I can’t imagine what this would do if you pissed it off.


So anyways, quick dinner by the stove:

Followed by a long bout of writing till the batteries died, then passed out. The next day I got up and was about to eat some breakfast and head out, but that lake was looking pretty saucy:

A few more pics on flickr.


Quick swim, shower, and finally headed out for a long drive to Baltimore. In Baltimore was Carmen, another Friend from The Internet, also from 12ozprophet.com. The plan was to crash there for two nights, using the day sandwiched in between to explore some Smithsonians next door in DC. First thing I noticed? Baltimore is hood as fuck. Even the nice places look hood. I was kinda shook at first of where I was gonna leave the Superyaris, even though I was assured it was completely safe… there were catatonic old ladies sitting on the front steps of houses, people obviously on meth, shady dudes under the streetlights, etc. It went down the whole checklist of sketchy. Nonetheless, it turned out to be completely safe indeed and the Superyaris made it with no problem. I was ready to call it a night, but we decided to watch Groundhog Day first, which made it the second Harold Ramis-directed film starring Bill Murray I’d seen in almost as many days.


Next up, Smithsonian adventure.

Wow. Sitting at Washington DC Union Station, mooching off someone’s wi-fi, with finally a bit of time to update this thing. There’s far too much to write about, and if I expect to be able to update more often, I have to be more brief and to the point. Basically, I’m balls deep in America, and these are the highlights of how I got here. Instead of one big post, I’m separating it into three consecutive posts so I can get the locations on the map on the right. The order switches a bit here, the top post (Orlando) being the earliest, and Atlanta at the bottom being the latest. Read below… I got Smithsonian museums to catch up with!

-Headed straight here after Tampa, really quick drive.


-The plan was to go to Islands of Adventure with my friend Elly all day. After Busch Gardens I was pretty amped for more crazy rides.


-Decided to chill and catch a movie, watched The Hangover. Fucking hysterical, go see it.


-Awoke next day to ridiculous +100° temperatures. Elly confeses that she’s prone to severe vomiting at park rides, and would rather sit them out. Fuck Islands of Adventure, let’s hit a water park. The previous day at Busch Gardens was pretty brutal heatwise, the shitty rapids ride there turned out to be one of the best rides on account that it occasionally tossed water at you.


-After some Bloody Mary’s, went to Aquatica at Sea World, it was awesome. Look how happy I am:

-Got out of the car at the parking lot, and there was a giant fucking eagle standing on the roof of the car next to us. Just chillin’. Took off, couldn’t get a pic. I don’t really have many pics of this place cause my shit ain’t waterproof, and this was basically all water, all the time.


-Paid $6 for this piece of shit beer.


-Got to ride nearly every ride before a massive thunderstorm rolled in. All the rides were shut down and people taken out of the pools. One of the lifeguards was actually yelling “We’re at Code Red people, we gotta get to solid cover!” as if it was a fucking tsunami that was coming in.


-The Ginodoll did not get to ride on any fun slides. Instead he was left out in the rain, alone, where I was hoping he’d get struck by lightning:

-People in Orlando are fucking ugly. After the surprise of Tampa this was a hard shock back into reality.


-The next day I was already set to leave the state of Florida and enter true America. It was a long drive to Savannah, GA, for what I call the Friends from The Internet phase. This is because for the next few stops I’d be staying at with people I’ve only met online, particularly at a graffiti forum called 12ozprophet.com, and who’ve proved to be fucking incredibly awesome people in real life.

-I was really struck by how beautiful Savannah is. There’s something very exemplary and idyllic about it.


-That said, I could not find a single thing that would make me say “Oh wow, I gotta get a picture of this!”. Therefore, there are no pictures of Savannah. Actually that’s a lie, before I left I desperately drove around to find something to take a picture of and only found this fountain. So uh, enjoy, I guess:

-Ron has a cat with opposable thumbs. Again, I wasn’t gonna be all like HEY MAN CAN I TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR FREAKY CAT so you’re just gonna have to imagine it.


-Rus has a Wii room. It is a room entirely dedicated to a Wii, with a projector and everything. It sounds really gay but it was actually pretty fucking awesome.


-Drank some really good beer and ate some really good BBQ while I was here. I’m loving this good beer shit.


-Learned quite a bit about how everything is not so idyllic in Savannah. Racial tension is still very present and almost palpable here.


-Ron and Rus, and their respective girls, were exceedingly awesome and generous. Truly rad people I’m glad to finally have met.


-I actually ended up driving a lot around. It’s just a nice town to drive around in.During this time I truly felt the landscape transitioning into what felt a lot more like the idea of America. Florida was too swampy and humid and there’s something about it that feels totally off from the rest of the US… once I hit Georgia I was like “Now we’re talking”. Then I took off for a 5-hour ride to Atlanta, to meet up with another Friend from The Internet, Trent.

-Trent and his lovely wife live out on a much more rural area than what I had experienced so far, just south of Atlanta. It was a very welcome change of pace, especially since a 20 minute drive placed you square in the middle of another giant metropolitan city.


-Trent has two super awesome Boston Terriers. It’s an extra rad breed of dog:

-While mulling over where to go eat and hang out that night, Kate (Trent’s wife) calls a friend, who casually mentions that they’re screening movies outdoor at Centennial Olympic Park in the city. I’m like “Fucking awesome, what are they playing tonight?” GHOSTBUSTERS. Of course I want to go to this!


-Before hitting the park, they decide to take me to this place called “The Varsity” to get some chili dogs. Trent’s like “It’s truly awful, but it’s definitely an Atlanta experience”. After eating the chili dogs, I agree 100%. I’ve never seen a fast food place as big as this, by the way. Check out the front counter here. It’s like 4-5 Cheesecake Factories big, but with far shittier food. It ruled:

-When we got to the park I was completely blindsided by how packed it was. Thousands of people packed. All there to see fucking Ghostbusters. And they all applauded when the Ghostbusters catch Slimer, and when they blow up the Marshmallow Man. It was absolutely fantastic. I thought the movie was gonna feel a bit stupid and outdated, but it’s still pretty fucking funny to this day.


-I slept in some manly blankets that night.


-The next day Trent and his wife had to work, so I decided to venture into the city by myself and check out the most recommended attraction, the Georgia Aquarium. I already had plans to check out the Baltimore Aquarium when I happen to roll by there, but I said fuck it and jumped the gun on this one. And it was so fucking awesome that I’m pretty sure I’ll go to the one in Baltimore regardless.


-If I hadn’t gone into design as a career, I would have probably gone into marine zoology. I’ve been in love with the underwater world since I was very little; I would snorkel every single day of the summer in Vega Baja, touching and prodding things, getting bit and stung by crazy creatures, and growing more and more fascinated by it. Aquariums are heaven for me, and this was a hell of an Aquarium.


-Unfortunately, unless you got decent photo equipment, pictures in aquariums suck dick. Regardless, I gave it a try, so here’s a sampling of things there:

-Check the rest of the flicks on this flickr set, including a large version of that panorama. That tank was freaking enormous.


-It was fairly packed, which means I had to make a long line and therefore entered and left much later than I had anticipated. Unfortunately I had to take off immediately to get to Elberton and locate the Georgia Guidestones to set everything up for sunrise the next day (more on that on the next post), so I wasn’t able to meet up with my awesome hosts again. I was especially peeved that I wasn’t gonna have enough time to see what is undoubtedly Atlanta’s second most essential attraction, the National Museum of Patriotism.


-And so I took off to Elberton, a small town in the middle of nowhere, about 150 miles northeast of Atlanta. It was the first time I veered away from major highways and really dove into the countryside, and it was absolutely incredible, straight out of a storybook illustration. Old barns, sweeping farms, rolling low hilltops. Pictures of those on the next post.


The bizarre story of Elberton and the Georgia Guidestones will have to wait a bit. It’s 1:30 AM in the NC backcountry and I have a long drive to Washington DC tomorrow. Till the next break I get…

So, state #1, Florida, is now over. It was a pretty awesome experience and an overall hilarious first impression of the US. Each city had its own special flavor of people, but they were all, without a doubt, Floridians… kinda hard to describe.


So, first off, Tampa. The two main things I noticed right off the bat are that Tampa is fucking cheesy as hell, and that the women are unexplicably hot. I didn’t have much time initially to dwell on this, since upon the first 5 minutes of my arrival in the city I was deeply involved in a ferocious game of beer pong:

Welcome to Tampa.

Bobby and I squared off against his two lifetime opponents, whose names I forgot, but we’ll call them Hinduman and Douchey McHerbington. I don’t know if the drive from Miami had honed my senses or what, but I was on fucking fire, and we completely obliterated their asses like 3 times in a row. This caused the opposing team to become complete assholes to us and thus earn their new nicknames. That’s Douchey McHerbington up there on the left wearing his douchey polo shirt.


From there we left to a bar of staggering lameness, called AjA or some shit, where scores of crazy hot blondes were flirting with low tier quarterbacks with gelled hair and armband tattoos, excitedly talking about how next week fucking Brody from The Hills was gonna host a Top 40 mashup party at AjA. I actually have the flyer around, but haven’t found a scanner yet. It fitfully describes Tampa in one single, soul-searing image. It was OK though, I had a good time nonetheless catching up with the Bobster and shooting the shit.


Next day Bob had to work, so I took the opportunity to go buy two very important items for the trip. First, I tossed out my fucking Zoolander phone and switched to Sprint to cop a Palm Pre (funny, doing a google image search for “zoolander phone” turns up quite a few images of the Pantech c300). Sorry AT&T, I’m not fond of the tremendous ass-raping exchange policy for a new iPhone, or the tremendous ass-raping plans that don’t even include text messaging. So far, the Pre’s kicking a ton of ass.


The second, and probably more important item I bought, is these fucking shoes:

Oh u mad cuz I'm stylin on u?

Go ahead, laugh it up. These things are fucking AWESOME. Closest feeling to walking barefoot possible, great for running, climbing, roundhousing children in the face (and leaving finger slap marks too!), and getting weird looks everywhere you go. If you wanna read a bit more about why these shoes are fantastic, check out this blog post, which breaks it down better than I could.


When Bob stepped out of work, we hit up the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. Understandably, no pictures were allowed, so I don’t have much to show, but it was out of control incredible. I thought I was over Dalí to some extent, I’ve just seen so much of his stuff over the years it almost became cliché (ooooh, trippy melting shit!!), but I’d never seen a painting of his in person. Holy fucking shit. I don’t wanna get into some boring art discussion although I’d love to, so I’ll just say that if you find yourself, god forbid, anywhere near Tampa, you HAVE to hit this place up and have your mind blown the fuck away. Seeing The Hallucinogenic Toreador up close in real life is like having your brain get a blowjob while being shot out of a rocket that’s shaped like an octopus with a moustache.


That night we ate some incredible thai food (yet another awesome thing we don’t have in PR), then went to some friend of Bob’s apartment where they were apparently making fancy martinis and shit. No sooner do we step in the door we are met by, yep, you guessed it, Hinduman and Douchey McHerbington. These fellas were so butthurt from the previous night’s beating, they wasted no time getting to business and challenging us to something a little more complicated than beer pong: MONOPOLY. I shit you not, we started playing fucking Monopoly at god knows what hour. By that time I was so drunk off lychee martinis (which were fucking delicious) that I was only able to focus on playing with the little metal figurines and speculating on the worth of property based off on how fancy their names were. Even though we landed in jail like 17 times, somehow Bobby held it down proper and we were actually raking in the cash and killing everyone at the game. I’m not exactly sure how the game ended or who won, but I know it just gradually collapsed as people were getting drunker and drunker and unable to follow the nuances of the game. In any case, those dudes are still herbs and we’re still fucking awesome.


Next day was spent dealing with another massive hangover, and surviving the relentless assault of Busch Gardens. Because what better way to spend a hangover than walking for hours in 98° heat, riding heart-stopping rollercoasters, and constantly smelling animal shit. I kid, of course, because Busch Gardens was really fucking awesome. Here’s a few pics from the tour:

Busch Gardens is Pro-Gay Monkey marriage.

You just know the gorilla wants to punch her lights out.

I think flamingos are complete faggot birds. Fuck you, flamingos.

Snapshot of African landscape, complete with zebras, giraffes, and a wagon full of machete-wielding Hutu rebels.

This made me jealous.

Hippos are great at scuba diving. But they're fat, so I win.

When I grow up, I wanna be a giant animal shit shoveler.

You can see a few more pictures on flickr.


Of course, we couldn’t leave out the awesome rides here. This is Sheikra, a short but ridiculously  intense rollercoaster that basically takes you up crazy high, then drops your shit facefirst to the ground at 70mph. Sorry for the crappy photomontage, but I couldn’t fit the whole thing into one picture:





And of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a first-person video of one of these rollercoasters. This is me and Bob, shitting our pants at Kumba (make sure your sound’s on):





And finally, I would like to introduce you all to the Ginodoll. Gino is a good friend of mine who had the narcissistic gall to make a few dozen figurines of his likeness, and the stupidity of giving me one of them to take along on the trip. I decided then, that this will be my travel gnome of sorts. Except that instead of doing awesome things like travel gnomes get to do, the Ginodoll will be subjected to endless humiliation and general misery while I get to have all the fun. So I tossed him into a crazy parrot cage to be assaulted and molested by fancy birds:

ATTACK THE FACE.

ATTACK THE GENITALS.

THREESOME!

I was really upset I couldn’t get a video of the 5 seconds right after that last picture was taken. Apparently the birds were not happy at all with Ginodoll’s presence on their tree and they proceeded to pick him up in tandem and toss him the fuck out. It was fucking fantastic.


We left the place tired as hell, ate a shitload of wings and beer, and passed out relatively early that night. The next day Bob was back at work, I got my shit packed and ready, and took off for the next stop: Orlando. More on that coming soon. All in all, had an awesome time in Tampa besides it being a pretty lame place, and it was all due to the Bobster knowing how to host. Thanks a lot dude, shit was awesome.


Hope you enjoyed, folks.