He llegado.

Earth Lodge is up in the hills outside Antigua Guatemala (ht: Mystic for the recommendation). Beautiful location. Great place to recharge for a bit. Not much opportunity to practice Spanish with the other people staying here as just about everyone here is a native English speaker, but I will be taking lessons beginning later today hopefully. I can't wait to see the sunsets. The clouds that greeted me at the airport were awesome. Beautiful day. Above is the view of the Antigua valley from the lodge. The thing that looks like an orchard in the middle of the pic is a coffee finca (plantation). The trees are used to provide shade to the coffee plants.

Guatemala!

So I'm going to be taking a slight detour on my cross-country trip. The detour shall go through Guatemala and begin next Wednesday. Details to follow.

I drink your milkshake!

The California Aqueduct bringing water to Southern California.

Location:Los Banos,United States

Adios to my bro and LA!

A day later than originally intended, but what a beautiful day to leave LA!

And I got to see my brother Jeremy again before leaving. You know, for about 29 years of my life he was always way skinnier than I was. This helped when I would use the excuse "I must be genetically unable to put on muscle" with respect to my twiggy upper body. But then my brother had to go and prove my genetic argument wrong by putting on 25 lbs. of lean muscle. So now I guess I need a new excuse. I'm just lazy? I hate the gym? Sigh. Thanks a lot, Jer.

Oil and Water

Filling up before I go. (taken w/ phone @ Hollywood & Bronson)

And so it begins

Hello. As many of you probably are aware, I've gone through some big changes in my life recently and so now I'm heading out on a road trip for some reflection, exploration, and to reconnect with many friends that I have lost touch with or just haven't been as connected to as I might want. I plan on blogging while on this trip and most of it will be posted here. Just thoughts, pictures, etc. Current itinerary for the trip is SF, POR, DEN, CHI, STL, CLE, BOS, NYC, PHI, DC, NOLA, Austin. I might also swing through SLC and Chapel Hill. If you have any recommendations for places to go or are wondering whether I'll be in your neck of the woods, please message me, email me, or call me. I'd love to meet up with you. Everything is subject to change, though, and I'm guessing (hoping) the trip will last at least six weeks.

Today I leave Los Angeles. Rain started right as I left. You could be romantic and say that it's weeping at my departure (yeah, yeah... tears of joy. shaddup!). Then, at 12:30 today, my work (I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to do some remote contract work while on the road) sent around an email that stated the new salaries that they'll be paying associates. Let's just say that if I had decided to stay at my firm I would have been making substantially more money this year. Sigh. At least they didn't tell me those salaries a few months ago. Otherwise I might still be working there full time. But today, the open road awaits...