Anyway, my life as of late:
July 30th I left with Fiz and Jolie in Jolie's mom's Mercedes to go to Maine. We stopped in Gainesville for a night or two. I ran five miles one of the nights with Fiz, which was nuts. We left and headed for Asheville where on the way we almost died a few times from someone's driving but, made it. Jolie stayed there one or two nights then, left for Chapel Hill. Meanwhile, Fiz and I kicked it in Asheville for couple weeks. This consisted of rock climbing, skating the bad ass skatepark for free everyday, eating vegan chili cheese sweet potato fries from Rosetta's, hanging out with Asheville folk, etc. We decided that we wanted to make some money by doing a medical study in Austin, TX and agreed we should do it sooner than later.
We left Asheville by hopping my first train ever toward Knoxville. It was a six hour ride through the Smoky Mountains along the French Broad River. One of the best things I've ever done. We caught on the fly and rode in the third unit after waiting at this brewery our friend worked at (That place is awesome and so is our friend for that matter. They had triple charcoal filtered water). At some point, a train engineer came back and questioned us for being on the train but, said he'd pretend he hadn't seen us. We got off in Knoxville while the train stopped at a siding just outside the yard. Pretty ridiculous first train ride. We walked for a while through a water treatment plant and a neighborhood to a gas station that a friend of a friend named Riley met us at. He was a nice guy who let us stay at his house with his really awesome dog, Petey for two nights. He dropped us off at a truck stop so we could hitch to Birmingham and get on another train towards Austin. We found out pretty quick that the male couple wasn't the best combination for getting picked up. But, sooner or later a nice trucker headed to Chattanooga picked us up. He said if we were still around on Monday that he'd take us to Birmingham and Fiz suggested that he take his number down. I thought to myself Monday's so far away we'll be long gone by then. After trying to hitch for two hours to no avail we thought better than miss the World Cup final match (Netherlands vs. Spain) which was the next day we might as well stay in Chattanooga that night. So, we got a ride into town. The person who took us was a young college student named zach(?) who dropped us off at Sluggo's, a really good vegan restaurant. We found someone to stay with named Pauly. We watched the match the next day at the house of some people Fiz met the night before. One of which was Brian who let us sleep at his house the following night. The morning after, we got up and walked 3 or so miles to an on ramp to try to get to Birmingham. After two and a half hours of hitching with no luck, we finally got picked up by two oogles named Pixie and Frecks. They took us to a library to do some weird secretive myspace scumfuck business then took us to an I-75 on ramp. We waited for a while and got picked up by a weird drug fiend couple. The guy driving, claiming to have been on a lot of xanax, could not accept the idea of Fiz and me not smoking weed. Meanwhile, he was changing lanes without realizing, driving in the shoulder and way too fast and with his left leg because his right was prosthetic, and looking at me the whole time. You could say I was little nervous. But, we got to the spot that they said they could drop us of at that was "Such a better spot" where we would "definitely get picked up" "real quick" in Ringgold, GA to find ourselves "sleeping" (staying up all night across the street from the on ramp at the Chevron that had wifi watching teen movies) overnight until 7:30 am when we got back to the on ramp. At 9:30 we got picked up by a kayak instructor named Jeff who drove us to Atlanta basically to Little Five Points. We met up with my friend Emily who let us stay at her parent's house, which is where I've been staying for a week now. The intention was to get on a train here to New Orleans then, take a train to Houston and hitch up. However, on the second night we were here, Fiz and I decided to bomb "Killer Hill" in Emily's neighborhood at midnight. This proved not only to be a hill but, to also to be quite killer. So much so that Fiz, gaining to much speed, got enough speed wobble to propel him into the unforgiving pavement. Behind him, I skated down to see how he was. He was pretty banged up looking and said his wrist might be broken. We tried to find out for sure and seemed as though he might have just sprained it. He mentioned having a high pain tolerance but, we brushed it off saying he'd probably know if it was broken. So, we watch it over the next day or two to see that the swelling has not gone down and neither has the pain. After visiting a doctor to get X-rays it's revealed that his wrist is broken and he needs to go to the ER immediately. We go to Northside hospital where I watch a doctor numb his whole left arm and place his finger in a five-fingered chinese finger trap, belly dancing, BDSM contraption to rebreak his wrist. We wait over the weekend in hopes that that was all that was needed before he can get a cast. On Monday (today), he went to an orthopedist to see what was up to find out he needs surgery. So, I hear I am. Fiz leaves tomorrow for New Jersey to get his hand fixed and hang with his mom for a couple months. I think I'm planning to meet up with Kelsea and Kiki, who are sailing from Key West up the east coast, in Savannah to get on the boat with them to North Carolina or meet them in North Carolina and head north. Don't know what I'm going to do but, I'm having fun. Definitely going to miss Fiz. But, I'm still hopeful things will be awesome. Who knows?
