To Cali, the Destination!

Finally, finally, finally, we made our last drive through California to our San Francisco destination. We were both excited about the prospect of being in one place for a few days.
But before actually making it into Cali, we had to pass some construction--the kind that lasts for 13+ miles. Ya, it sucked a little, but we made it through. The drive was beautiful despite the roadwork. I was a little nervous about an orange we had rolling around in the cooler when we finally crossed the border into California at the "Agricultural Stop." Luckily, Megan had her wits about her and we were able to press on.

We came near Davis and decided to stop at some outlets in Vacaville. We went into the Puma outlet, which was tempting, but only slightly damaging on the wallet. And we also went into Bath & Body works, I love their slogan for this lip gloss. I also love the lip gloss, except that it's like $10 a tube...wtf?



Back on the road, Megan was looking sharp in her new Puma hat.








But we were both a little bored. The sunset, however, was captivating and crossing the bay bridge was picturesque. I was so so so excited about my new place of residence:) I only wish I were still near to the water's edge. It's such an amazing feature in San Francisco.

A Night in Reno.

Does this sum up the experience of Reno? It's questionable...Megan and I are still wondering if "Pasties" is REALLY the word that was supposed to be used on this sign. Regardless, we were finally closing on our destination for the evening: Reno. We discussed driving on through to Tahoe, but with the dust storm that took over the afternoon, we decided that we were ready to settle. The dust DID finally clear, and it opened up to be a beautiful sky (see the picture Megan took of the clouds).


















Somewhere along the way, I decided that I couldn't really wait to pee. The rest stops are few and far between in the desert, so we stopped at an "exit" that literally led nowhere. The road stopped after about 30 yards of the exit ramp, so I just pulled off and jumped out. I didn't even turn the car off. However, Megan surprise attacked me with the camera...

Eventually, we made it to Reno and found a Days Inn off the interstate. It was to be our first hotel room together--moderately exciting!!!












So, to celebrate, we did some awesome diving onto the bed and photographed it. If you are able to zoom in on my face in the picture where I'm cross-legged, you will find a Jessica face full of pure fear. What was I scared of? It's unclear. In the first picture of Megan diving, I hope that you will notice her resemblance to Kevin Bacon. I hope you are smiling broadly if not laughing. We had a good time in Reno, all in all:)

From Salt Lake City to Reno

These first two pictures are showing you a lake, The Great Salt Lake. I took these out the window of the car as Megan drove us away from Salt Lake City closer to her home. In the original plan, Robin, Megan, and I were going to do the drive from Salt Lake to San Fran in one day. With only Megan and I, we decided that we might have to split it up into 2 days. Unfortunately, this would mean that we would have to stop at a hotel because we had not planned on a place--partly because we didn't really have a place in mind for the area that we covered. Regardless, everything worked out. Plus, this way, we stopped and examined some of the salt in the salt flats while on our way!
We phoned a friend to learn more about The Great Salt Lake, of course, that friend was Robin. I mean, she's The Great Geographer, we had to call her. Unfortunately, she didn't answer right away. Our curiosity grew: how big is the lake? how big was it when it was at it's largest? is the salt left behind usable? do we eat it? is it a source of income for the area? Megan knew the lake was pretty large. Come to find out it used to be part of Lake Bonneville, which used to cover most of Utah and part of Idaho and Nevada as well. The lake today fluctuates quite a bit due to its shallowness.

The record low is from 1963 when the lake covered 950 square miles and its record high was in 1987 when it spanned 3,300 square miles! On average, the lake covers 1,700 sq miles. The white stuff in this picture isn't the snow we'd been seeing just the previous day--this is salt.








The salt that remains from the lake's evaporated area is used for several things: salt for water softeners, salt licks for livestock, and to melt ice on roads, but not to eat. Any companies that extract salt have to pay royalties to the state of Utah since it owns the lake.








As you drive through the salt flats, also known as playas, it nearly looks like you are driving through a very flat plain that is covered in a thin layer of snow, until you stop or open your car window and realize that it's really f-in' hot. Like desert hot. Here, there was a structure, some kind of art sculpture, that Megan and I stopped to see. We didn't stay long because it was hard to adjust to how bright it was, and it was unmanageably HOT.

Playas are ideal places for racing apparently, which makes sense because they seem smooth and flat and there's nothing you could really crash into...however, I still find it a little odd. I would like to witness this racing business.



Interestingly, you can see another kind of "playa" right here in this photo. To me, it looks like I have a "high and tight" haircut. No offense to anyone, but I'm not sure it's a good look for me...
One might also argue that there were a coupla playas in the car that day...ok, this is getting bad. But, in all seriousness, I really like this picture of Megan and I and I'm not quite sure why. I think we are good-looking.













Ok, Pooks, you specifically commented on my potential "west coast elitist" attitude and here I am blogging with a few notes about the differences between driving in the southeast and the west. For one, there are casinos sprinkled across desert lands; this doesn't so much bother me, but the fact that one of them was called "Nugget" (see picture) is a little much.
As for another drawback, sometimes the weather can be entirely unpredictably odd. As we passed through the desert parts of Utah, a dust storm of sorts started. I was driving and all the sudden it got sort of dark. I think Megan was reading some of "On the Road" aloud when I stopped her because of this dust picking up with the wind. It was creepy. That whitish-cloud near the ground is dust being picked up by the wind, and I'm pretty sure that it was 4-5 stories high.


Eventually, it looked like this. Visibility was low, which was pretty creepy after having driven in areas where you can see just about as far as your eye will let you. I'm going to have to do a Part II...

The Second Half of the Trek Begins!

It was somewhat hard to leave Boulder. We'd been there a while, we'd enjoyed some ultimate, we went out a few times...and it was hard for me because Robin decided to head home at this juncture. All in all, it was definitely the best decision. 3 people just wouldn't really fit comfortably in my car with all my stuff. I had tried to pack to make it happen, but with Megan and Robin's stuff on top of mine, it was just too much for the Altima. Megan and I dropped Robin off at the Denver airport and said our goodbyes before hitting the road. The drive north through Coloardo was pretty, for the most part. We drove up into Wyoming a little as well before turning southwest and heading to Megan's hometown of Salt Lake City (the only state capital that is 3 words, mind you).
Megan and I got a little bored, and we didn't phone friends as much as Robin and I had. Instead, Megan taught me the states' song to make me learn to name all the US states. This started as we competed to see who had been to the most states. I won, apparently living in the southeast helps when you can drive through the more boring states...
After the states' song was learned, which took a good hour or so, we quizzed ourselves on state capitals. That was entirely pathetic, especially on my part. Robin would DEFINITELY have been ashamed. I was suddenly glad for her not to have been present. I needed (still need more) time to hone my skills...


The scenery remained quite pleasing and we even saw snow!

That night we stayed in one of Megan's high school teacher's homes. She was out of town so we had the place to ourselves. It was an adorable house! Megan drove me around the city, took me to her favorite brewery for dinner, and then drove us up to a high point for a view and down to the Temple at the center of the city. We had an incredible time, but we failed entirely on the photo-front.

A (couple of) Night(s) Out on the Town

Of course, I need to mention the fabulous hostess that housed us while we stayed planted in Boulder for 6 days: Jenni. As a prologue, I guess I should explain that Jenni was a connection that Robin had through her brother; he had lived with her while he did a program in Miami, Fl, where Jenni used to live. When Robin knew we were going to be staying a few days in Boulder, she contacted Jenni. She was more than happy to put us up--even though we were going to be inhabiting the area for quite some time. Jenni is slightly shorter than Robin:)

The first afternoon that Robin and I arrived in Boulder was nearly comical for the way in which we met Jenni. Jenni is a sexologist who was going to be at work until later in the evening, so Robin and I scoped out a pub and ordered some appetizers and drinks and settled in with our books for a little while. Soon we got the call that it was time to meet our hostess. We were led to a commercial strip's parking lot. Once there, we were told to wait in the dark lot for Jenni who would arrive via bike. We waited and waited. We went into the dollar store and got some toothpaste, and finally, as we were sketchily loitering around my car, we saw a biker approach us. We waved and Robin called out to her--indeed it was our dear hostess. She met us at the car and was disappointed to find that I did not have a bike rack at the ready. Instead we would follow her to her apartment in the car as she biked. It worked well, for the most part. Unfortunately, the drive to her place was largely a slow incline, which was a workout for her and a particularly slow drive for us. Robin tried to conversate with her along the way, but this only seemed to further her breathlessness from the hill. Jenni was quite the character, and the time spent at her place was mostly enjoyable--except that she has cats (or her roommates do) and Robin and Megan are both quite allergic...suckers. Luckily, by this point in the trip I was accustomed to Robin's morning routine of nasal spray. Some people wake up to birds singing, I would start my morning with some Bino snorts. I have a video that I will have to figure out how to upload...ok, it should appear here:
Hilarious, no? I mean, she's cute even while performing a nasal spray demonstration. Jerry's a lucky guy.

We went out a few times with Jenni and her boyfriend and one night we managed to take some pictures and also put ourselves in some hanging basket holders (?). Robin, of course, looks absolutely adorable:) Megan and I chose more awkward poses...

































Aren't these photos just so lovely?!












We also went out on the town with the infamous, I'm sorry, famous Adrienne Tecza. Here, she is pictured riding a mechanical bull. There were also scantily clad women walking around offering Jose Cuervo shots for yelling people. We yelled, we took some shots, AND THEN we got FREE stuff like cool tank tops and wristbands that say Jose Cuervo. Beat that.













Adrienne also convinced these guys to make as though they were kissing her on each cheek, nice trick. This was yet another night out. We went out with Jill Simmerman from UNC Chapel Hill, one of our rivals this year who beat us as we struggled for that second place spot at Regionals, which would advance us to Nationals. Whatevs, they had to get up and warm up and play; we got to sit in the sun and enjoy the scenery:) Oh and in this picture, don't mind that slightly creepy little girl in the front left who was attempting to shoot us with her "gun." That was all part of the Boulder weirdness that was amazing.

The Nationals.

Robin and I arrived in Boulder, and the next day I went to pick up Megan from the Denver airport. Together, the three of went to enjoy the UPA College National Championship! In this first photo, one of the vendors had set up a dress-up photo booth. I rocked the tie for the rest of the day while watching several games.

Erin Mordecai, Robin and my former teammate from the UGA Hodawgs, moved out to Santa Barbara for grad school in theoretical ecology and joined their team--the Burning Skirts. Last year, the Skirts were in finals vs. Stanford and, as I mentioned previously, Megan's team, Superfly, managed to capture the National title. This year the Skirts battled on again. They qualified for Nationals, unlike Stanford (sorry, Megan, I had to add this) and by the end of the second day of play, they found themselves on top yet again. For this tournament there are 3 days of play. 1 day of pool play, 1 day of quarters and semis, and a third day just for finals. So Erin anxiously awaited her 3rd day of play at the Nationals.

This is Robin and I with Erin, but I was trying to hide the Burning Skirts logo so she could pretend to be a Hodawg again for a second.

Some of the fans for the men's teams are REALLY obnoxious and die-hard. Think UGA football fans or Red Sox baseball fans, the Ultimate equivalent is the fan contingent for the Wisconsin Hodags. Unfortunately for us, the UGA Hodawgs, people constantly seem to get the names confused. However, Hodag is pronounced phonetically and if you want to sound like the fans, you have to add in the mid-western "daahg." We managed to sit in the midst of them for the men's final, a game between Wisconsin and Florida. The Wisconsin victory meant that we were in joyous company.

This exchange of expression between Megan and I happens quite a bit. Robin managed to catch it on film/card (I mean, it was a digital camera). Love it.
















All in all, Nationals was highly enjoyable. Unfortunately, the Burning Skirts were defeated by UBC, the University of British Columbia. In case you don't know, that's in CANADA. Since when did the NATIONAL Championship include Canadians? The Skirts are technically the best college women's team in the Nation, good work, Buddy!

A Different View

Ok, so, this is probably a post that has to happen before I can continue on with my stories and rants about cross country travels and whatnot. That's because at this point in the journey, it becomes rather imperative that everyone is aware of some things in my life that I wish for everyone to know and feel comfortable talking to me about. Basically, I'm just going to tell you that I am gay. I realize that this may come as a shock to some and to some it may also be a disappointment; however, I hope that it is not viewed that way because I do not see it as such. I simply feel that I am attracted to people more so than gender. However, it seems that in my recent dating history, women have been more on the radar than men. I wish to address here for a moment that I do not intend to uphold the belief that I was "born gay." Please do not feel sorry for me for "being this way." I am happy with who I am, and I have done some of my own work with myself to be comfortable and accepting of who I have become. I remain the same confident, blunt, and yet lovable person that I have always been, but I do feel the need to make it known that this is part of who I am now, and I would like to be able to discuss it freely--especially within my family. I love all of you, and I want you all to know and love me for who I am!

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Without further adu, I would like to introduce Megan Andrews, my current and amazing girlfriend:) I guess this is an appropriate time to say a little about how we met. Interestingly, ours is a story of the modern age and technology. I was working on an ultimate tournament that UGA was putting on last December, Classic City Classic. I was the women's tournament director, which was a daunting task. It was also a very frustrating task, and I struggled under the stress. Luckily, Michelle Ng, captain of the University of Texas at Austin came into my life. She had run a few tournaments and was, in fact, trying to currently set up a women's tournament for the fall as well. She came in right as I was feeling defeated, and she offered great advice. Without her, CCC would have had a very unprepared Tournament Director, I would like to thank her again here-Thanks, Michelle! The main method of communication that I had with Michelle was gmail chat. It was great. We could chat while I did stuff online to prepare for the tournament and intermittently we managed to change the subject a few times and talk about a few personal things. This eventually led Michelle to do her usual networking. In my case, it was a "love connection," if you will. She actually said (well, typed) "I have a life partner for you, so you should rest easy knowing that." My immediate response was "who?" and I tried not to be too obviously anxious; I knew that I should be at least somewhat skeptical. However, Michelle told me that she was pretty talented in this area and that I should trust her judgment. I must admit, it was somewhat hard to believe that Michelle, who hadn't actually met me in person, could introduce me to someone who a) I might be interested in, and b) who might actually be interested in me. Regardless, I began to facebook stalk Megan as soon as I learned her name. There wasn't a whole lot that I could find not to like, unless you want to get into my competitive nature--she played ultimate for Stanford and had won two National Championships with them--I have to admit that I was a little jealous and intimidated.

Finally, we met via gchat, if one can consider that meeting. We hit it off instantly and I was surprised by how easily we communicated and understood one another through chatting. We continued on this way for a little while, though by our second conversation I had asked if she would be coming to the east coast any time soon--oh ya, did I mention that I was in Athens, Michelle was in Austin, and Megan was in San Francisco? Crazy. I should also mention the slight weirdness that Megan had actually been in my apartment in Athens before. In 2006, we hosted CCC in Athens and Stanford managed to fly across the country to come. I happened to offer up my apartment to their team. Ironically, Megan was only in my apartment for a brief time because she was staying with some friends at UGA instead of with her team. She did come up into the apartment for about 10 mins, and, according to her, we met, but I met a few too many that weekend to remember her specifically. But still, crazy.

Here is where I tend to speed up the story some because it kind of happened that way: we gchatted for a few weeks, our first conversation was October 18, 2007. On November 8th I managed to get her number from Michelle and give her a call, it was her 23rd birthday. She was at a brewery and enjoying herself, but she appreciated the call, nonetheless, and I enjoyed hearing her voice for the first time. After about 2 weeks of talking on the phone, we had managed to make quite the connection--enough so that we were both too curious about our chemistry together to ignore it; we split a flight for her to come to Atlanta December 21st. As luck would have it, when each of us was beside ourselves with anxiety and nervousness about meeting, our interaction was delayed. Megan's intended route had a connection in San Diego and her flight from San Francisco didn't make it there in time. She panicked and tried to get on the flight, but they wouldn't let her, she was too late. Insult to injury, there was no other flight to ATL that evening. She would be spending the night in San Diego--not with me. We were both devastated. Luckily, she had a friend in San Diego that picked her up and partied with her and took her to the airport the next morning around 4am in order to catch the first flight to ATL that Saturday. I spent yet another night hardly sleeping for all my nervous energy. Finally, around noon the next day, the time had come for me to leave for the airport. I drove there and parked and waited. I waited and waited. My palms were clammy, the armpits of my shirt, soaked. Finally, a tall, blond walked off the escalator. I recognized her instantly and felt the huge rush of adrenaline that I had anticipated. I walked up to her (carefully, trying not to do anything foolish or clumsy) and for a moment we embraced in a hug. She smelled wonderfully! We walked out of the airport hand in hand.

I guess the rest is kind of history at this point. We really hit it off that first weekend. By the time she came to see me in December, she had already booked a flight to come back in January. In the mean time, I was in Phoenix with Terry and Lea Young and managed to hang out there and then fly to San Francisco for New Years before heading back home. This was a potentially risky step because Megan was celebrating with her family: her parents, aunt and uncle, and her brother and his fiancé (at the time, now they are happily married:) ). I met them all and loved them all. The last minute decision to go there for New Years had been a good one. Megan came in January (and managed to finagle her way into coming a day earlier than I was expecting, this was fortuitous because the weather on the day I was expecting her was atrocious). At this juncture she met my parents, which went fairly well. Then we went a while without seeing one another until my spring break in March. A little before this point that I had talked to my boss at the Morris Center for Physical Therapy, Becky. I told her that I had a friend, Erin Mordecai, who was in grad school at Santa Barbara, who said that I would love it out in California. She had even offered me a job in her lab. Becky then became quite excited. She pulled me off to the side and said that no one else knew yet, but she was moving back to San Jose early in March. She was ecstatic about the idea of me being able to continue babysitting for her kids! She also figured she could work out something for getting me a job at a physical therapy office where she was working. With this prospect, and Megan in California, my mind was nearly made. When I went out there for spring break, I met up with Becky and stayed in touch. I realize that I'm not to this point in the story of my blog, but Becky has been an amazing connection and she is largely the cause for my livelihood out here at the moment.

Megan managed to visit me just once more in April for a few days in Athens. At this point, we were planning on meeting up halfway across the country in Colorado. Thus, we are now able to resume the story as it was being told before this interruption...

Colorado. Boulder, Colorado.

We were finally approaching Boulder, we had made it to the mountains. When we were driving and we saw them, we were ecstatic! We screamed, we got all energized...and then it was another few hours before we were actually near to them in Boulder. However, as we approached Boulder, we jumped out at a view area to take a few shots. Also, Robin left "Lake Robin" which is photographed here as she couldn't wait for our actual destination spot.


We had to get a shot of ourselves with the mountains in the background...I think we did pretty well! We were SO excited to be out of the driving gig for a few days. And we were really stoked about The Nationals. So, for ultimate frisbee in college every year there is a nation-wide tournament where 16 of the best men's and 16 of the best women's teams compete to find out who is the best in the nation! The Hodawgs didn't make it this year. We had to be one of 2 top teams in our region and we came in 3rd--bummer! But I was excited to be there and be able to sleep in/watch what games I wanted as well:)