Saturday, August 27, 2011

Rock You Like a Hurricane

New York, NY

It seems weird to think that a hurricane is supposed to come through. It's cloudy outside, and it's been raining on and off, but it's otherwise relatively nice. A bit humid, but not too hot. And in fact, we're about to go out and do some barhopping before we have to close up shop and wait out the storm. In other words, everything seems pretty normal.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Driving in the South

Philadelphia, PA

I tend to shy away from making generalizations about the places I've visited on this trip. I know I'm only spending a few days in each place, and my experiences are not likely to be representative. When people ask me my favorite place I've visited, I usually say Seattle, but I'm quick to point out that my enjoyment was mainly based on a series of happy accidents, and really could have happened in almost any city. I only see a small slice of each place I go, and even that slice is highly dependent on who I'm staying with - whether it's a friend or a couchsurfer, or no one if I'm camping.

But having spent some time in the South, and having covered almost the entire rest of the country, I think I'm comfortable in making the generalization that drivers in the South suck at driving around motorcycles.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Roll With It

Arlington, VA

When I couch surf, usually at some point in the night the person hosting me asks my opinion on what we should do - "Do you want to go out or stay in?" is the usual question. And my response, at least after the first week or so of the trip, has been the same every time.

"My philosophy on this trip is to just go with whatever happens, so you do what you want and I'll go along."

And let me tell you, that has paid off like I couldn't believe. It paid off in a big way in Seattle (twice), and it's worked out well in small ways in tons of other places, from the first night I ever couchsurfed to getting good food and seeing a random jam band in Minneapolis to having a chill day in Louisville. I can't say that every time I left my plans open, something awesome came up. But I can say that many of the really awesome times I've had wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't been as willing to adapt my schedule.

And that worked out to my advantage again yesterday.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Earthquake

So apparently I just experienced an earthquake.

I first noticed something while sitting at a stoplight at Thomas circle. At first I thought something was wrong with my bike, because it felt like the engine was causing the whole bike to shake. I revved the engine to see if that would fix it, but the shaking continued exactly the same.

Ticket

Washington D.C.

I stayed last night at a friend's place in Washington D.C. I spent a decent amount of time last night looking around at parking signs in the area to decide where I could/should park, and finally settled on this place:

(Picture taken in the morning)
Seems like it should be a good place to park, right?  As long as I'm out there before 11:30am, 2 hours after the 2-hour parking starts, I'll be fine.

Wrong.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Louisville

Louisville, KY

I went a little out of my way to get to Louisville. Lexington would have been more on my way, but there didn't seem to be as many couchsurfers there, so I decided to make it up to Louisville instead. It was also partly influenced by the fact that I had been thinking about making a quick trip back to Rockford, and I would have stopped in Louisville on the way back from that trip - so Louisville had been on the schedule from that plan, and I just decided to go with it.

That turned out to be an awesome decision, as this weekend was one of the cooler couch-surfing experiences I've had.