Travel

Even though I was camping out in a technically illegal spot, I still snoozed a few alarms this morning. I finally got up when raindrops started to fall. I quickly moved everything to the one bench in my clearing that had an overhang so I could pack up while staying dry. Between the rain and the sorer-than-expected ankle I wasn't in the best mood. But it got even worse when I was packing my tent into my saddle bags and one of them ripped open. Right across the top; a huge rip. The tent was in well enough that it wouldn't fall out so I left it and decided to think about it more later.

I left Aaron's house and got on the road around 9:30. It still wasn't on time but I'm getting closer. Leaving the Pittsburgh suburbs wasn't as bad as many cities and the roads became country roads and then the Montour trail pretty quickly.

I did a better job waking up this morning because the campground owner offered to make new breakfast and I figured I should be there on time. We had eggs over easy together and chatted for a while, and I finally hit the road about 10:00.

I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. Although I planned to be up by 8:00 and on the road by 9:00, I ended up getting up just after 9:00 and on the road by 9:40.

Early on I got a foot long sub at subway and saved half for lunch. They took my gift card this time.

Spending so much time around planes in Alaska made me really want to work on my pilot's license, so I went to accelerated flight school in Needles, CA right before Christmas. I passed my practical test on my birthday.

After returning from Alaska, I went down to visit Maggie in Durham, NC for a few weeks. We went out a bit, and just before Thanksgiving, my parents met us down there to see Asheville and some other local attractions, and road trip back to Huron for thanksgiving with my grandparents and Aditya and Tejas. On the trip we rode Segways, hiked, and ate lots of food.

As I mentioned before, I spent the last few months living in Alaska. The days were much shorter when I left than when I first arrived. And colder too, although I never saw snow.

I've been living and working with my friend Nate in Bethel, Alaska for almost one week now. I've seen sone cool things, and hope to see more in the next six weeks.

After leaving Delhi, we took a series of trains, buses, and cars to see an observatory where Aditya used to work, the very southern tip of India, and the surrounding areas of both. I saw all the railway classes except the super rich-boy nicest one, and got to take one of the wildest bus ides of my life. The city of Kodia Kanal is 2.4km up into the mountains, and the ride back down caused two different people to puke in / out of the bus. In the southern tip town of Kanyakumari I got in my third ocean of the summer. And then finally, we took a boat tour of "Venice of the east".