Banga-rang...pt.3

So we get the directions to Boomtown via a phone number that goes straight to voicemail and gives the directions in the voicemail. We knew we were in for an interesting night when the message instructed us not to tell the cops where we were going if we get pulled over.

We finally get there after a few wrong turns and backtracking at 15 mph over rocky, dirt roads. Dubstep and electronica (I don't like that word for some reason) are the primary genre's of music being played and people were definitely going nuts over it. We ended up parking next to (Farmer) Dave's car coincidentally and most of the night wasn't speant dancing with the 17 year olds but rather just talking and drinking with Dave and Mave (Mave came with Dave). Speaking of names that rhyme, two girls randomly popped by our cars and asked us our names and we got to say "Dave, Dave, and Mave"...I don't think that'll ever happen again...shame. 

We passed out pretty early that night but woke up to some pretty memorable events. One girl had taken too much Ecstasy and thought she would drown if she drank any water. Fortunately, D.K. went over there and talked her down and she was ok after a little bit. We fall back asleep and awake again to a huge brawl thats going on by the cars across from ours. We get the full story the next morning and find out that one of the kids basically got his face broken and the people that told us that had to walk him out of the concert vicinity so the ambulance and police wouldn't break up the party. Really cool of those guys. 

We left that morning with Kayla on our way to Piedra hot springs. We were excited for these particular springs because apparently they are local springs that not many know about. On our way there we dropped off a kid in Durango who had been ditched by his friends at Boomtown. 

It took about half an hour to walk down the trail to the hot springs but it was so worth it. It's basically just a bunch of small pools next to a river and the mineral's [insert scientific explanation], creating hot water. Our first experience with nudist anything and itw as easy to not make a big deal about it. Morality and opinions on the way life should be lived are way different out west and we're starting to see how differently people live and can still be happy...

Banga-rang...pt.2

We wake up bright and early and have no idea what to expect. We started off by weeding the greenhouse...it's really hot in there. Then we put the tomato's back in their cages which was way easier than weeding but would have been even better if it wasn't in the greenhouse. Found out that the big difference between organic and modern farming is just the use of pesticides and weed killers. A large part of our days will be spent hand picking the crops and weeding the fields just so (Farmer) Dave can put out organic produce.

One cool part about the day is lunch. Dave usually just picks a few veggies right out of the field and puts it over rice and salad. Being an organic farmer, he has a choice selection of dressings and herbs that were pretty foreign to us...pretty soon we began making a list of what dressings he buys...Aminos Soy Sauce Substitute has really changed our lives.

On Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays Dave has his hired help come by and help with the harvest. They're all mad cool people: Kayla, studied culinary anthropology in college and is traveling all over the place discovering the culture of food, Cody, a.k.a. D.J. Smiley Coyote whose music keeps us going as we weed/harvest the fields, and Leighanne, prototypical hippie but very knowledgeable about all things politics (with her daughter, Kiva, by her side). With all of us working together the time and tasks seem to fly by; sometimes it gets so crowded that Dave sends us to Miles and Mave's farm next door (which we have no problem doing).

That Friday Cody tells us about some underground rave/party thing called "Boomtown" which he'll be DJing at. Kayla then offers to take us to the hot springs nearby after the rave which me and DK have been wanting to do for a while. This all shaped us to be a pretty solid weekend and can't wait to let you know how it goes...

Banga-rang...pt.1

So now it's just me and DK on our way to Mancos, Co where we're about to spend the next weekish WWOOFing on this guy Dave Banga's farm. The seven hour drive down there was pretty awesome as we were taking I-295 South down there. If any of you find yourselves in a similar area/situation, try and take this road whenever possible. There were so many great/diverse views of the mountains it was unbelievable; I (Goodman) was afraid at times of crashing because of how distractingly beautiful the scenery was.

That was cool and by this time we were about 60 miles outside of Mancos. Prior to the trip, we had discussed what we would do in the case of seeing a hitchhiker; long story short we both agreed to pick 'em up. Now, the time in between seeing Ben (as he would later introduce himself) and cruising with him in the back seat goes a lot faster than you would think. All the sudden, we had this guy in the backseat of the car and within about 12 seconds we really didn't want him there anymore.

Ben told us about his life 30+ year career as a hitchhiker/ traveler and even some of the stories he had along the way (he even told us about the meth he had smoked the night before!). Despite how horrifyingly uncomfortable Ben made us, he actually turned out to be a pretty good tour guide on our way to Mancos. He told us a lot of un-touristy places to check out and places he thought were overrated. He knew every turn like the back of his hand and his non-stop talking allowed us to think less  about the prospect of being murdered.

His final words to us before we dropped him off came in the form of a question. He asked us how fast the speed of light was and how far the earth was from the sun. We didn't know the answers but neither did Ben, so no big there. That was that, Ben was out of our lives (hopefully) and DK and I learned our lesson about picking up hitchhikers.

We get to Banga's Farm: about ten acre's of land with 7 or 8 fields, Dave's trailer that he slept in, shaded work station, and newly planted orchard in the back. Dave's a really cool guy right off the bat. He tells us that we're going to be doing a lot of harvesting, weeding, watering, and all the other stuff that goes along with organic farming. The toilet is a compost toilet which I (Goodman) thought would suck but actually turned out being pretty cool (you get to put sawdust on the doodie). His friend a neighbor came over for dinner, Mave, who is an absolutely awesome person; definitely marriage material for both of us if she wasn't already married to Miles, who we met later, and not surprisingly, was also marriage material.

The real work started the next morning and between the 8 hour drive and 60 miles with Ben the Hitchhiker, we were ready for the day to be over...

Bo(u)ld(er) as Love...Part 2

We wake up the next morning determined to hike up the mountain that is right behind our house. I forget the name of it, but it's a freaking mountain. The views were stunning while wheezing our way to the top but we were determined to beat the 5 year old girls that were right on our tails (we beat them in the end). We get to the top and of course its an incredible view of Boulder. Going down was a tricky situation; Dk's mountain climbing prowess basically allowed him to do cartwheels down the mountain while I (Goodman) pretty much crab walked the whole way.

The rest of the day was pretty much the same as previous day: people watching and buying food we didn't need. That evening though opened up a lot of doors for us. A guy named Tripp sat down next to us with his dinner and we started up a conversation. We told him our story and he offered us a place to stay for the Fourth of July which was awesome because we felt bad asking Dan and everyone if we could keep staying for one extra night.

It's the Fourth of July and we sleep through whatever parade there was going to be in downtown Boulder. We leave Dan's place and head over to Tripp's where he meets us briefly and than takes a nap two minutes later. We're left with Leyton, their new roommate from Mississippi who's been there for about a week. We all   hit it off with Leyton immediately. It was a really hot day so we all, including Leyton, decide to go to the resevoir nearby. We get there and it says "No Trespassing." Fortunately for us, Leyton was drunk and had no problem hopping the fence (DK drove his car over so we were all pretty much forced to follow, but it turned out not being a big deal at all). The water felt great on such a hot day and we swam around for about 45 minutes.

Back at the house we started grilling and drinking a bit to celebrate the Fourth. Leyton started to tell us about his life as a drug dealer back in Mississippi. Apparently he had connections that allowed him to import pills from India and when that wasn't enough, he would drive 34 hours non-stop to California to pick up a pound of weed (I couldn't make this up if I tried). He was awesome to hang out with nonetheless and he introduced to one of the other roommates named Geo. Geo was 19 and spent the past few years hopping trains and getting his on-and-off-again girlfriend pregnant (at that time they were off, and he was telling us about the child support he was going to pay her).

A bunch more people here and there but no one as interesting or exciting as Geo and Leyton. Dk and I had to wake up early the next morning to drive 7 hours to Mancos, CO to start our WWOOFing commitment on "Banga's Farm." That morning was so hectic just throwing things in the car and scrounging around blindly for my contact case. I also had a bloody nose which wasn't helping matters. We got everything settled and jumped on the Aussie's to say goodbye. We definitely were gunna miss those guys. They planned on hitch hiking up to Yellowstone so the fact we were going in opposite directions meant not even a lift to the major roads. It was a quick and painless goodbye; def gunna keep in touch with those two.

That was that, now on to Mancos...

Bo(u)ld(er) as Love...Part 1

So me, DK, and the Aussie's leave Abigail's the next morning for Boulder, CO...the first place we actually got to hang out. We heard good things about Boulder but at that time, we were just excited to see some mountains (or anything besides corn).

We got to our new couch surfing spot where our hosts were Dan, Rick, Katelyn, and Christina (with occasional cameo's by Pat, the "other roommate"). They were all couples and a couple of years older than us. We found it interesting how they all managed to share a condo in downtown Boulder when only one of them had a job.

They set us up in the bedless/furnitureless basement so we had to use on our sleeping bags which was totally fine. Walking downtown was easy because they were only 8 or 9 blocks away from Pearl Street Mall, an outdoor mall that is absolutely awesome. That evening we had dinner with the Aussies and planned to meet up with our host’s afterwards. By this point we were really good friends with Nick and Josh (the Aussies) and the fact that we were parting ways after Boulder lingered in our minds.

We met our hosts at some cellar bar and lost track of them pretty soon after; the rest of the night is really just a blur. Oh! We did hide our leftovers behind a garbage can so we could bring them back to the house later which did come in handy but yeah, that’s about it.

The next day however gave us a real sense of the city. We spent most of the day on the mall just window shopping and people watching. From our observation, Boulder is split into four different categories of people: The young couples, who are incredibly well dressed and happy and have children named either Graham or Jackson. Then there’s the college students, who will likely join the young couples in due time. There’s also the street performers, there are so many of them that they deserve representation in Boulder’s demographic. Acts range from fire-jugglers to contortionists to hippies with guitars, which brings us to the final category…hippies. Well, hippies can be broken up into two sub-categories: classic hippies and sketchy hippies. Classic hippies are your typical hippies, but the sketchy hippies are the ones that usually only come out at night. They usually have face/neck tattoos and carry signs like “sparijuana” and “full of love, out of weed.” They seemed to really like our hacky sack but we had to put it away when we found out there was a $250 fine because it was a “flying projectile” or something.

So those were the first two days in Boulder. We only planned to stay for a that amount of time but we really liked the place and hadn’t even gone hiking in the Rockies yet so we had some unfinished business to take care of…

Chicago to Nebraska a.k.a. A Corn Field

Unable to find a couch surfing spot in Chicago, we drove about 20 miles outside of the city to a motel in DeKalb. The next morning began our quest through Illinois and Iowa until we reached our first couch surfing destination in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Now, when I say there were only corn fields the entire drive to Nebraska, this is not an exaggeration. Driving through hundreds of miles of corn fields is a hypnotizing effort...if someone snapped their fingers while we were driving we probably would've fallen asleep or danced to Ricky Martin music.

We get to Grand Island, Nebraska and funny story, it's not an island; there's just as much corn in the "city" of Grand Island as there was driving down the interstate. Anyway, we get to the house a little early and the four of us are just hacky-sacking outside until Abigail, our host, drives up and tells us we look creepy. We meet her inside and find out that she is an aid for a mentally disabled woman named Emily. The house is actually Emily's but her parents allow Abigail to have people over.

Not too much later, Abigail had to help Emily get ready for bed and then we all had dinner and just talked for hours over a few beers. She said that her job with Emily is tough because it's pretty much a 24/7 commitment and her social life has really taken a hit. She wasn't bitter or anything and you could really tell she really liked what she was doing despite some of the drawbacks.

Originally, the Aussie's and us had planned to part ways after our stay in Nebraska. They wanted to hitchhike north to Yellowstone and check out that whole area. After learning that we were going to Boulder, CO they decided to stay with us until we left Boulder because: A). Boulder is supposed to be awesome, and B). the chances of getting picked up Nebraska were slim to none after Abigail told us about the people from that area    (oy). Regardless, we were glad to have the Aussie's come to Boulder with us because we were becoming fast  friends and it gave us an excuse to say "cheers" to everything.

The morning we left Abigail's house everybody felt great. She made us all beds and prepared breakfast for us.  We woke up pretty late after driving about 30 hours in 2 days so she wasn't around to say goodbye, she had to take Emily to work and run some errands after that. We left her a small thank you note and then left at around noon, Boulder bound. It was great having Abigail as our first couch surfing host and it's gunna be tough probably never seeing her again. Whatevs, Boulder should be good because it's the first place we get to settle down for a bit and actually take in everything. Until then...

Brooklyn to Chicago (BK to Chi-City)

So in order to save money, we figured a good way to cut down on gas expenses would be to find people willing to drive cross-county with us so we could split gas at least 3 ways. We ended up getting a ton of replies to our post on Craig's List but as soon as we had picked 2 people, they would cancel, and we would have to re-post after denying the other "applicants." Oh, and at this time, we'd like to thank those friends of ours who thought we would be murdered using Craig's List people...thanks, guys.

So we finally solidified our co-journeyers the day before; they are: Josh and Nick, a package duo from Australia, and Emily, one of the original people we accepted, but had to turn us down because her friend got pregnant. Turns out, she had no problem going to Chicago for the night and then finding a way back the next day...that girl crazy.

So we're driving along, making small talk and getting to know each other when we realize that we were in Amish Country, Pennsylvania (not actually called that).  We hopped off I-80 for a bit and decided to drive around looking for some Amish folk.

After a bit of searching with no luck, we pulled into someones driveway and asked some rando where the Amish were...she told us. Driving down the road and following her directions, we couldn't help but notice that an old pick up truck was tailgating us about 6 inches from the back of our car...if we hadn't been in Amish Country, maybe we wouldn't have been so freaked out. We finally found a little driveway to pull onto and as we did the pick up truck stopped...and so did my heart. The man in the truck shouted "Hey guys! Come on Over!" Needless to say we did not go over.

After resuming our hunt for Amish people we spotted a few selling raspberries on their farm. We pulled up and it was actually a pretty good deal: a couple hundred raspberries for 6 bucks. The only weird thing, other than the entire experience, was that the berries were black. We asked if they were blackberries, he assured us they were raspberries.

We got the heck outta Amish Country and back on I-80 where we pretty much booked it to Chicago. Midway there Emily received a phone call from her ride back east saying he had to bail...things were not looking up for Emily. A few phone calls and texts later however, Emily worked her hippie magic and finagled a ride back home. She was really into astrology and gave everyone there special numbers: I ( Goodman) am a 9, and I think  DK is a 4 or 5, regardless, we're all God's children.

After dropping her off in Chicago at about 3 30 in the morning, we group hugged and parted ways. She brought a really interesting dynamic to the crew and we're both gunna miss her; guess that's the way of the road, though. Now it's just Me, DK, Josh, and Nick en route to our first couch surfing experience in Nebraska....oh ya, thanks to all our friends who thought we'd get murdered couch surfing, too. :)

So it Begins...

First, we would like to acknowledge all the people reading this blog...chances are if you're reading this, then you're one of the people we miss and can't wait to see soon.

Anywho...the plan is to drive out west and sustain ourselves by WWOOFing, camping, finding odd jobs, couch surfing, volunteering, and a street theater act that is TBD, but will likely involve DK's djembe and my skills as a fire dancer.

We're not too sure how long we'll be out here or even what we'll be doing for that matter, but we do want to share our stories and adventures with you folks and keep you right there with us. So there ya go, you guys get to "come along with us" and we don't have to tell the same stories over and over again when we get back (winning) (do people still say that?)

Please post as much feedback or hate mail as you like but try and keep it clean, our mom's are reading this.

Best,
DK and Goods