I've slept in 29 states

My family is relatively well-traveled, so when we were all gathered together in the same city last month, we started talking about who had been to more states. We weren't exactly sure, but my dad ranked pretty high from his bike trip across the country in college. I hands down have lived in more states (7 or 8). But an area of contention came in who has slept in the most states. Visiting is always so vague, with airport stops or driving through. My dad had slept in every state he passed through while biking, so his total was very high. I decided to tally my states:

I have slept in these states because I:

Lived there
1. California
2. Delaware
3. Virginia
4. Pennsylvania
5. Illinois
6. New Hampshire
7. Arkansas

Went to horse shows there:
8. Kentucky
9. Maryland
10. North Carolina
11. Tennessee

Worked there:
12. New York
++ Washington DC
13. Massachusetts
14. Texas

Visited friends there:
15. Maine
16. Connecticut
17. Missouri

Went on family vacation there:
18. South Carolina
19. Florida
20. Alaska
21. Hawaii
22. Colorado
++ Puerto Rico

Drove through (and spent the night):
23. Michigan
24. Ohio
25. Indiana
26. Utah
27. Nevada
28. Kansas

Other reasons:
29. Wyoming (EMT course)
30?. Washington (I worked on a cruise ship sailing out of Seattle: I would wake up having arrived in Seattle, spend the day there, then depart before going to sleep. I don't know if this counts)

Which makes the states that I've been to but haven't slept in:
New Jersey
West Virginia
Rhode Island
Arizona
New Mexico
Vermont
And Washington?

Looks like I've got a lot of sleeping to do. And 14 more states to visit.

Bears, a mountain goat, lizards, butterflies...

...and SNOW! In June.


First stop of my road trip was Yosemite National Park. My plans to hike in the Tuolomne Meadows area were immediately dashed when the ranger said it was snowbound, with feet of snow still on the ground (makes trail finding a bit difficult, and setting up camp nearly impossible). So I went with plan B, which was a quick hike around the Hetch Hetchy area. The snow line was at around 8,000', so I only went up to about 7,500'.


The hike was gorgeous, as Hetch Hetchy is known to be. I started the trail late in the day, at 5pm, but made it up the side of the reservoir valley to the meadows beyond. I camped beside a small lake in the crest between two hills.


There was a perfect campsite already established, with a sandy spot for tent pitching, logs to sit around a fire, and a small established fire ring. Someone had also left firewood stacked by the ring, which was helpful when I arrived right after sunset, as darkness was setting in.


I had a perfect fire, completely alone in the middle of perfect scenery, with perfect weather, and the perfect amount of gear and clothes. It was quite an amazing trip. It made me want to go camping every weekend. There's something about a campfire that is so alien to regular life.


The next day, at Beehive Meadow, I happened upon large sheets of white. At first, I thought they were large slabs of granite, peeking through the ground. Then I got closer and realized they were snowdrifts. In June. Awesome.


The weather didn't feel cold at all, but I was hiking rather quickly, so I kept myself warm. It was pretty neat to see snow. That further threw off my concept of seasons, and now I have no idea what 'regular' weather would be like, in whatever part of the world I'm supposed to use as reference. I couldn't even pick a hemisphere to start...

Besides snow, I saw plenty of lizards (at lower elevations), a startled mule deer just coming to drink, the horns and head of a fleeing mountain goat, butterflies and dragonflies and a mother bear and her cub.


In total, it was 15 miles of hiking with about 3,000 feet of elevation gain, and I was back at the car by noon. It was a great itinerary, and a great start to an across-the-country odyssey.

Across the country

It's my first complete cross-country adventure. I've only driving across the eastern half of the country before, from the East Coast to the Mississippi. Now I'm crossing the entire country. So I'll make a trip out of it. Here's to Yosemite, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, and friends in Colorado and Missouri.

See you in Philadelphia.

Time lapse strike

Here's what happens when we strike a show. This is three hours of work condensed to just over three minutes of footage, from a picture every 5 seconds.

One week on land and one show opened

A week after my epic flight across the globe, it was opening night in San Francisco.

A few days after touching down, I started loading in a show at a theater in town. I appreciated having no down time, taking a day to get on the time zone, then hitting the ground running. It kept me busy, and launched me into land life. Granted, 14-hour days working inside a theater aren't exactly regular life, but for me, they're as normal as it gets.

After three days of loading in, we were ready to open. It was an incredibly smooth load in and tech rehearsal process. We're getting good at this show. It was Chekhov Lizardbrain, most recently from Poland, then Pennsylvania. I had last worked on it in New York City, on that ill-fated tour stop where we had to build a theater inside of a theater, and I broke my wrist while loading the truck. But no hard feelings about the show, we are turning pro.

A Long Flight Home

I left the ship in Cape Town, South Africa. This is about as far from San Francisco, California as it is possible to get while still having direct access to a commercial airport. Luckily, I had an amazingly easy flight itinerary. Cape Town to Dubai to San Francisco.

I left the shadow of Table Mountain on a 6pm flight, spent 9 hours on a plane on a red-eye to Dubai.

I caught a glimpse of the Burj Khalifa in the haze, as I was waiting on the jetway to board the next flight.

Dubai is, east-west, directly around the world from San Francisco. Which meant a 16-hour, directly-over-the-top-of-the-world epic flight. Which meant a flight over the North Pole.

A slight deviation in flight plan, probably due to winds or turbulence, put me around the Americas side of the North Pole, which makes my trip home an official circumnavigation of the globe.