The start of another adventure

Here I am in another airport. Denver this time. Ye know, sometimes I feel like I live in airports. I don't actually spend that much time in the airport (usually), but it seems like the time I do spend in the airport is the time that takes the longest to pass. They need to start putting arcades or something inside these places! But instead it's just another search for another hard seat near enough a power outlet that I won't have to go buy an extension cord in order to charge my phone. It's a lot of trying to find something to occupy me because I can only look at Facebook for so long before I start wanting something a little better to be interested in. I wish I was one of those people who can read in airports, but when I read I want a nice comfy chair in a dimly lit room with coffee on a little table next to me. Hate to say it, but Denver airport doesn't quite match my reading requirements (especially considering I can't even bring myself to buy a cup of coffee in an airport $$$). To be honest it's not such a bad layover though. 2 hours, and I'm just happy to be on the move again. Being home for a month'll do that to you. It'll give your batteries a little super charge and get you sent to your next destination. Off to Seattle, where I'll grab the train North a couple towns, and then hop on the Deer Harbor II headed up to Alaska for herring season. But before I can get there I need to get to Seattle, and before I can get to Seattle I've gotta sit through this layover in Denver. And before I sit through this layover in Denver I've got to meet someone to sit with. Ah, the life I lead. The life of meeting strangers and making friends, because that's all it really is in the end. Yeah the places are cool, the places are amazing even, but it's the people. The peeps. La gente. That's who it's about. It's a good life, the one I lead, and I do very much enjoy it. I like the things I do. The places are jaw dropping, stunning. And the people more so. So, without further adieu, I will begin chapter Herring Season in Alaska.  

I'm doing all a person can do to lay down while sitting in an airport terminal chair, but it just isnt't working. If I could look at myself at this moment I'm sure it looks like some giant has taken a magnifying glass to me and I've started melting, just a little bit, to the point where I am sliding out of the chair I'm attempting to fill. I finally give up and sit like a semi-normal person, only slouching a little bit in the much abused chair. I'm tired from my last few last hurrahs in San Antonio. I always feel like I need a last good go at.. at... at whatever it is I'm doing at the time before I leave a place. And so my last couple days were spent sleepless in San Antonio. Because of that all I want to do at this point is fall asleep to the sound of late passengers being called to their flights, but, one, I was afraid I would miss my flight, and, two, these two pieces of fake leather stretched between two metal bars just aren't cutting it for a sleeping position (believe me, I tried). I'm even considering reading the newspaper some careless passenger has left strewn in the seat next to mine when, right on the other ride of the paper, a pretty girl sits down. Pretty, yet quirky. Ye know how it is with the quirk right? She's wearing these crazy out there leggings with cowboys boots and a loose shirt that looks like it's destined to be worn for unexpected adventures. Medium length hair, a unique assortment of oranges and blondes, the type of hair that stays anywhere you put it. If she were to run her fingers through it it'd stay back or up or swept to the side, but, right then, it was hiding under a trucker hat (you know the kind) which was a colour strikingly complimentary to her hairs own unique colour. I watch her for the first few seconds while she gets herself settled in the not so comfortable chair and goes through the same routine to make it a comfortable seat that I'd just given up on. Just as I am looking away from her she looks up at me. Now to be honest, I'm looking to start a conversation because I am bored out of my mind, but I'm already mid-looking away when she looks up at me and I can't very well do an immediate double take to make eye contact and start the conversation. Over the next 5 minutes we both play a game of look at something, see if you can make eye contact, look at something, see if you can make eye contact and yada yada yada. She's doing the same thing I'm doing, trying to start the talking somehow, but we're out of sync and just can't quite manage the eye contact. Alright, this is ridiculous, I need to just say something to her eye contact or no. She must've been thinking that same thing and because she says :

"I like your hair"

And that is all that is needed. The ball is now rolling. How to describe Maddie... She's really really relaxed, but with a healthy dash of eccentricity, and a wild laugh that you don't expect. An overall chill chill person, definitely someone you'd want to kick it with. We go through the "Where're you goings and comings", the "what'dya dos", and all the general stuffs you ask someone you've just met. Polite conversation to see if we like one another enough to keep the conversation going.  She is studying acting in Colorado, but coming back home to Seattle for spring break. I'm finding my place in the world, but heading up to Alaska for a good dose of work. Eventually, we get to the "where are you staying in Seattle" question and I tell her I'm staying at my friend Finder's somewhere kind of Northish in Seattle (I wasn't really sure). She wants to to know where it actually is and so I dig the address out of my phone and put it into Google maps. Lo and behold she lives about 40 blocks down from there, I'm literally on her way to her house. Of course my hitchhiking senses kick in because I'm particularly looking forward to a public transit ride that could take who knows how long at midnight (2am in Texas) when I'm already exhausted. So, I ask her for a ride and she immediately calls her dad, Damien, for the okay. And it was okayed! All I had to do was meet this super cool girl and then I had a ride to my friends house instead of having to muddle through some public transit in the drizzling weather. It never ceases to amaze me, how you can meet a stranger and immediately be friends. They're like "no worry mates", just cool cool people willing to help a guy out. It's been such a small world lately with things like this always happening, just running into people going where you're going in the midst of a huge city or even sitting on the sand in a desert oasis somewhere deep in Peru when a friend happens by ... It seems like the world is getting smaller every day, and I love it, but I'm afraid one day... No, I'm not afraid I guess. I think I'm just more infatuated with the idea of a world that I'll never see everything in. 

So we sat together on the plane and got a sense for each other, or, at least as much as you can know someone after meeting them only a few hours previously. We stared out the window for a while, looking down at the crisscross of lights down on Earth, just talking about things. And then, when the crisis arose, we united, because, there was a baby (DUN DUN DUUUUUN). And said baby was sitting directly behind us. And said baby was not happy. So we, as two good humored people, we just laughed through it. Because that baby was being so obnoxious it was hilarious. She was wailing as hard and loud and long as she could, and somehow Maddie and I found a way to laugh about it. 

Maddie

It was a good flight I would say. I really enjoyed meeting her and getting to know her a little bit. Her parents are so awesome as well. I mean anyone who'll give a stray a ride has to be a pretty darn cool person. After a little pleasant conversation they dropped me off at Finder's which was literally (I think I already emphasized that) on their way home. Now about Finder, I think I'd maybe met her once before. But we had both hiked the Appalachian trail and so of course we're automatically friends! I hadn't even known she lived here until I put up a general "Do I know anyone in Seattle" post on Facebook and Minnesota Pete pointed me in her direction! I got in around 12:30, late enough for Finder to let me in and talk for 5 minutes before going back to bed because she had work in the morning. Then it was a night spent in her super swanky place that her and her roommate Roadrunner (also from trail) rent, followed by a nice breakfast, and the some prepping for the day. Good times. It was great to see you again Finder and awesome to meet you Roadrunner! Thanks for the ride out of Seattle and hope to do some hiking with y'all next time I'm through the area! I'm extremely grateful to y'all for letting me stay there for this super brief night, especially since I just showed up in the middle of the night! Thanks :)

Be Happy!

Beacon 

Let's talk about South America

Like always whenever I get home I tend to stop writing, mostly because this blog is about travel and not what I get myself into on the home front. Looking back though I never really summed up my South America trip, how much I enjoyed it, and what it ended up meaning to me in the end. I never really quite described the last little bit of the trip either. So here I am with another adventure sneaking up on me in the very very near future finally getting myself together enough to write the end of South America. Just gimme' a sec to get back in the swing of writing because, even though it hasn't, I feel like it has been a little while since I've written a post.

I got the message that it was time to come back to America. My skipper messaged me to let me know the herring season in Alaska was quickly approaching. Me and Zoe got our plane tickets back and prepared to finish out our time in South America together. What an amazing trip it had been for both me and her. For me, starting there with Flip and Stumbles was a dream come true because those are two people I will always really enjoy hanging out with no matter where we are. It was just a huge bonus that we all got to chill together in South America! The first experiences in South America were shocking, it was great. Exactly what you want when you travel. You want to see something different, you want to see something new, and you want to be inspired. You want all your wanderlust to be quenched and inflamed at the same time. You want to be happy with the place you are, but you also want to be moved to keep the world exploration going. And that is what my first look into South America did for me. It made me love it and it made me want more at the same time. Despite barely making the flight to South America and having Flip's bag lost it was still amazing. Meeting the coolest people and eating the most delicious foods you've never really imagined. Oh the ceviche and the alpaca. How I miss that when I'm sitting at home eating my Chili's or whatever. But then there were the amazing things as well. There was Machu Picchu! Machu Picchu! That small hidden city atop a mountain tucked away somewhere deep in the Andes. Just looking at something such as that and imagining the people that used to live there, it's incredible. The sight will change you, it'll inspire you, it'll just drop your jaw as well. And then lago 69 and the glacial lakes. Gorgeous. Eye candy. It's entrancing to look at to the point you have to go touch it to make sure that it's actually real and even then you still can't completely accept that the color isn't fake. It was damn cool, especially with Stumbles and Flip and all the random people we met along the way (like the New Zealanders).

And then I was all alone for a bit and got to explore with my minimal Spanish. It was great. Always a great learning experience and I got to see a lot of the culture of South America in that period before Zoe showed up to join me on my little escapade. Then off we went through the desert oasis of Huacachina, flying about the lines of Nazca, and making it to Bolivia. Having a good time with someone I'd met once at home, just exploring places we'd never been in a language I hardly speak. Priceless. And then the cherry on top, the hidden gem that was Salar de Uyuni. Oh my goodness. There just isn't even anything I can say about it anymore. I try to find words for it and I'm speechless. Flat speechless, there is nothing I can say to convey the feelings it will evoke inside you. All I can say is look at the photos and how flabbergasting they are and then remember how the photo is never even close to how the real thing is. That's all I can say. 

And after that me and Zoe made our way back to Lima to fly out. We spent a day in Colombia waiting for our next flight out where we had a repeat experience of my flight to Peru. Running frantically through an airport and trying to make it through American customs so we wouldn't be stuck in Ft. Lauderdale for a night. Getting to our plane super sweaty from the exertion, maybe just 10 minutes before departure. And finally getting picked up by my mom (thanks mom, you're the best) in DFW so I could drive us all back to SA. The whole time in South America was fantastic. I gotta say I fell in love with the place. I understand it now, all my traveling friends (and I mean people who have been EVERYWHERE) told me to go to South America last. Why? Because you aren't going to want to leave. And they are spot on. All I want is to go back to South America and enjoy that laid back way of life. The rest of the world, not forgotten, but pushed out of mind for now so that dreams of South America can fill my day. All I can say is South America is worth it and I can't wait to get back there.

We saw a rainbow cloud!!! Goodbye Bolivia

Goodbye South America

So here I am! About to head back up to Alaska for a month long herring season. Spend a little time making some money and then it'll be time to think about the next adventure and the next destination. There're a few things and places I am thinking about, but I'll give no hints to y'all because I never REALLY know where I'm going until I'm there and even then I don't know where I'll end up after that ye know? So I'll keep y'all updated on how Alaska is going and fingers crossed I can get some photos of the Northern lights! Wish me luck up there! I'll keep y'all updated once things start really happening this Sunday (it's Wednesday today). 

Everyone be happy out there,

Beacon